It
was on September 17, 1787 that our rule of law, the US Constitution was
signed in Philadelphia. History tells us of an exchange that occurred
outside of Independence Hall between Benjamin Franklin and a
Philadelphia socialite, Mrs. Powell. Mrs. Powell inquired of Mr.
Franklin, “well, what is it that we have, a monarchy or a republic”?
Mr. Franklin replied, famously, “a Republic, if you can keep it”.
That was the challenge of 230 years ago, and now we must ask ourselves,
do we truly want to keep this Constitutional Republic. However, there
is a greater question, how many people know what it means to live in a
Constitutional Republic? America is not a democracy. The means by which
we elect our representation is through a democratic process of voting.
Therefore we are a representative democracy. Sadly, this was something
once taught in High School civics, hardly the case today.
In our governmental structure, as learned by James Madison from Charles
Montesquieu, we have three coequal branches of government, kept in
alignment by a system of checks and balances. Now, however, that system
is totally out of whack, and what we are witnessing is complete
breakdown and dysfunction.
A
major threat to the future of our Republic is that we have a
dysfunctional legislative branch.... in examining where our legislative
branch has gone it is apparent they are focused on creating more
dependency and subservience of the individual to their institution. [Allen West]
Consider last week as President Donald Trump signed an executive order
on our healthcare system, opening up cross-state competition and ending
health insurance company subsidies. There are those who were decrying
his use of executive action, yet these were the same folks who said
nothing as Barack Obama used executive action some 40 times to amend
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. Any basic
high school student would be able to understand that a law cannot be
amended by executive action or order, it must be amended by legislative
action. That is how it works in a Constitutional Republic where our
legislative branch has the most enumerated powers.
But, in the case of Mr. Obama, who had lost the House of
Representatives, then later the US Senate, he sought to circumvent our
system of governance, and overrule our checks and balances all for his
political purposes. And the same can be said about the executive
agreements he entered this Nation into with the Paris Climate Accord,
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and the Iranian Nuclear
agreement. These and many others represent an Executive branch that was
seeking to rule by edict, let’s not get started on the plethora of
bureaucratic administration rules and regulations of the Obama era as
well. Those government agency regulations represented a taxation
without representation, you remember that line right? Our Constitution
clearly states in the origination clause that all revenue-generating
measures must emanate from the US House of Representatives.
(CONTINUED)
