EMail Doodlings - Amnesty by ignoring Congress; Rule of Presidential Fiat - Granite Grok

EMail Doodlings – Amnesty by ignoring Congress; Rule of Presidential Fiat

Well, my friend Julius emails me from time to time on various topics just because he knows that I.Just.Cannot.Resist in either to let him grumble a tad (hey, we all do it, right) or he wishes to push a button of mine to see what comes out.  This one, I’m not sure which one he was aiming for so here goes:

Hi Skip – I trust Father’s Day was kind to you, and you didn’t have to work

I have mixed feelings about this article, and was wondering what your take was.  I would normally welcome anyone willing to work and pay taxes vs someone who wants their unemployment benefits extended.  After all, who doesn’t want more workers willing to pay taxes? We can only hope Romney will reduce the 99 wk benefits back to 26…

PS – here’s hoping OH makes progress toward becoming an income-tax-free state.

The link he sent was (in part, go read the whole thing) this:

Obama’s move on immigration is an unconstitutional disaster for the unemployed

President Obama thwarted the will of Congress and shunned the 20 million under-employed and unemployed Americans by announcing he will grant work permits to 2 million to 3 million illegal immigrants.

This appears to be an unconstitutional fiat that not only usurps congressional authority to set immigration policy but directly contradicts what Congress has already decided. The president suggests that his new policy is designed to enact as much of the DREAM Act amnesty as possible because Congress hasn’t acted on its own.  But Congress indeed has acted — three times in votes that rejected granting these illegal aliens the legal residency and work permits that the president now says he will deal out all by himself    Sure, the kids either came here under protest (few kids want to leave their friends behind) or outright dragged with their parents.

Some thoughts:

  • Sure, they were the “innocents” but in all other areas of Parent – Child relations, we hold parents to a strict bar of behavior.  Spank your kids (especially in public) or some other behavior that some busybody disapproves of and they’ll call the police in a jiffy.  Why are we letting the parents off the hook in the process of declaring the kids innocent?
  • In fact, we are concentrating on the wrong party – it is Progressive philosophy that is declaring these kids “victims” – of their parents!  Traditional values has the parents responsible for their kids and if the parents do wrong, the repercussions do accrue to the kids.
  • Look, this Obama amnesty program (and don’t mince words that this is temporary – 2 years is a long time politically and memories that this was “temporary” can fade) is nothing less than a green flag that screams “Open Borders!”  ALL parents want a better life for their kids than for themselves.  Given the life that America can give their kids, what parent wouldn’t schlep their kids hundreds or thousands of miles to give that to their kids?
  • Ask yourself – is this the kind of example you would demonstrate to your kids?  That the end justifies the means even if it means breaking the law?
  • So this begs the next question: what is the next law that can be disregarded?  And Obama is the shining example of this?  Or should he be the example of what NOT to do?
  • This is, again, an incident of “politicians doing something” – especially when an election is coming and things are looking dicey for re-election.  This is a perfect time for the Democrat Pander Bear to show up on site!
  • As the snippet above relates, three times Congress has said no – because ordinary Americans, outraged by the notion of granting amnesty to illegals AGAIN, melted the Congressional phone lines.  WE told them no – and the politicians were held to account.  No means no.
  • Part of our American Exceptionalism is built on the philosophy on The Rule of Law which is built on the philosophy that no man is better than another.  Our Founders knew that in the Old World, the “betters” (the monarchies, the nobility, the courtiers, the Church) held the power and was more of who you knew, where you were born, who you were born to mattered more than a meritocracy.
  • Our system of Government was built on the separation of powers: Congress / Legislative Branch creates the law, and the President / Executive Branch enforces them.  Obama has decided that here (and in other areas like DOMA) he will be both the Legislative & Executive branches. We used to call such a  person  “Emperor”.
  • The fact that Obama and his sycophants are calling this “prosecutorial discretion” is nothing but a dodge – “discretion” to not prosecute someone who has broken our law (and being here is an illegal act) should not mean “and you get a green card”.  That is going well past “we won’t arrest”, that is “welcome to America even though you should not be here”.
  • By the way, what happens to the parents (to circle round again)?  I haven’t heard any downside for them yet…
  • Again, I cannot emphasis enough that this is moving us to a lawless state, a strong man state – Laws are laws until you change them.  In effect, Obama is continuing to transform America; free from that legal foundation and moving to a simplistic “we cannot do nothing” via “if Congress won’t act” speechifying, he is conditioning Society at large to simply accept any diktat (especially if there is a “victim” to be rescued).

No, Julius, this is a horrible idea and a worse example for anyone to follow.  Your end of “I would normally welcome anyone willing to work and pay taxes” is not the way to look at this.  People should be outraged over this – and not from a political standpoint.  We can argue all day long about Right vs Left, but when you want to change how the country is governed, this should not be done simply because “Congress won’t act”.  Our system of checks and balances was created to do exactly that – make it hard to pass legislation if you can’t persuade enough people to sign on to it.  The Branches were created expressly to be at odds with each other.  Why?

Always remember that the Constitution is not just THE law of the land, it is not JUST the outline of governmental structure.  It was done in the manner it was  because the Founders knew human nature and created the structure to account for that by making sure that human nature, foibles, greed, and lust for power was mitigated as much as possible.

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