The gathering Constitutional storm over Obama’s ‘gun grab’ illustrates the power of principle.
We’re constantly told, by both major parties, that principle does not matter. We’re led to believe that practicality consists of ignoring principles and ideology in favor of ‘what works.’
Throughout his first term, Obama demonstrated time and again that he does care about principles—though not the principles of individual rights, liberty, free enterprise or even the Constitution.
When his ‘cap and trade’ energy grab didn’t get through Congress, he began to implement it piecemeal, through the EPA.
When it looked at first as if Obamacare would not pass Congress, he supported House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in threatening to ‘deem’ it into law if the votes were not there.
He used the power of the executive branch to deny rights to private companies and then restore those rights to politically favored ones, as with his exemptions to Obamacare.
The list goes on and on. Obama’s only governing principle was, and still is: The will of Obama.
In other words, whatever Obama feels like doing—and whatever Obama deems correct—is, by definition, the law. Of course he’s justified in ignoring the Constitution—because he’s right. What’s right trumps everything, including the Constitution and the principle of individual rights. And what’s right is defined as what Obama wants.
This is the psychological basis of dictatorship, where one ruler sets the agenda and the terms, and where there are no objective standards outside of the ruler.
However hapless Obama’s opponent in 2012 might have been, it was crucially important to vote against Obama. To grant him a second term would have been the equivalent—as close as America has ever come—to electing a dictator into the presidency. That’s precisely what a majority of Americans willingly did.
Obama had already made it clear in his first term that his governing principle is Obama, and not the Constitution, and not the rights of the individual. Is it any wonder Obama’s first official act of his second term is a gun grab? Why is anyone surprised?
It’s going to get worse, not better. Life will continue to have difficulties and tragedies, and Obama, the elected dictator, will continue to exploit them. Liberty and freedom cannot survive in the context of a President who places himself above the Constitution, the only legitimate basis for any authority in his office.
The founders gave us a republic in which the powers of government were strictly and objectively limited. Under Obama, we’re getting rule by a man whose will is our new Constitution.
By ignoring principles and opting for expediency—’At least Obama won’t take my Medicare away’—the majority of the American electorate are now getting what they asked for, whether they admit it or not.
Many people support Obama’s gun grab and believe it’s long overdue. What’s disturbing is they are not bothered by the means which Obama seeks to do it. Leftist social Democrats have abandoned the principle of Constitutional government and instead are supporting Obama in his efforts—not just with gun control, but with potentially anything—to rule by executive order.
These Obama supporters are counting on the assumption that the very same democratic process which gave Obama power will never give power to someone of, say, the religiously conservative persuasion. Yet in four or ten years they could be living under a religious dictatorship rather than a leftist, socialist Democratic one. Once you establish the principle that majority rule overrides everything, even the Constitution, then you give rise to any form of dictatorship, not just one form.
Once the principle of Constitutional law, including separation of the three branches of government, is ignored, then all bets are off. Eventually, on this course, everyone will be sacrificed to everyone else. This is because there is no rule of law without an objective basis for it.
‘What Obama wants’ is not the basis for issuing decrees that have nothing to do with the Constitution, as in health care, or that openly violate it, as in the executive orders intended to eventually banish gun ownership for peaceful, self-protecting citizens.
You asked for it, America. That’s true for the majority of you who elected Obama, as well as those who claim that ideology is passand irrational.
Ideology matters, because ideas—in all human affairs—are always operative and relevant. For proof, simply read today’s (and tomorrow’s) headlines.
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