Home > constitution, federalism, Lessig, limited liability, presidential abuse, speech, states > Problems with "Presidents Day" by Tom Eddlem at LewRockwell.com; but let’s not just "restore Congress," but amend Constitution to limit the federal government

Problems with "Presidents Day" by Tom Eddlem at LewRockwell.com; but let’s not just "restore Congress," but amend Constitution to limit the federal government

I encourage readers to take a look at the excellent essay by Thomas R. Eddlem, Down With the Presidency! A President’s Day Message, now up at LewRockwell.com.

I quote first a few key portions, and then note my further thoughts.

But the role of the president under the U.S. Constitution is not to make laws. It is simply to execute the laws passed by Congress. Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution begins: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Since the Constitution mandates that “all” law-making powers reside in the Congress, none are left for the president. The president’s job is that “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed” under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Constitutionally speaking, the president was designed by the founders to be nothing more than the errand-boy of Congress.

Obama won’t be the first to take us from the “rule of law” to “rule by one man.” The Bush and Clinton administrations paved the way for unconstitutional executive orders. Clinton advisor Paul Begala told the New York Times of Clinton’s executive orders: “Stroke of the pen. Law of the Land. Kinda cool.”

President Bush and his neo-conservative theoreticians were even worse, as they posited the idea that the president was above all law. Former Bush Assistant Attorney General John Yoo’s recent book Crisis and Command contends presidential powers are unlimited by any law: “The executive was, rather, the servant of necessity, bound to act in accordance with, in the absence of, or in extraordinary emergencies, in defense of the republic, even contrary to regularly constituted law.”

This is the authoritarian personality long championed by both much of the Democratic leadership on the “left” and all of the neo-conservative Republicans on the “right.” Neo-conservatives like John Yoo explicitly endorse the idea of an omnipotent presidency that erases all the rights of the people. In his wordy and overpriced book, Crisis and Command, John Yoo claims the Constitution created a president with unlimited powers. The Constitution of the founders, Yoo wrote, “did not carefully limit the executive power, as [it] did with the legislative, because they understood that they could not see the future.”  …

This is what the modern presidency has become, a new Caesar whose powers are without limit.

Unfortunately the national leadership of the Republican Party has bought wholly into Yoo’s argument that government gives out rights instead of God, and that government ought not to “give” rights to people we don’t like. … 

It’s true that the average American Fox-servative remains ignorant of these facts, because we won’t hear the details of tortured innocents like Maher Arar, Khalid el-Masri, Omar Deghayes or the Tipton Three on the Fox News Channel. Nor will the Fox News Network tell its audience that the Obama administration has openly ratified all of these Bush-era attacks on the Bill of Rights except for the torture. Fox-servatives love the dictatorial state; they just wish it were run by the party of Pompey instead of the party of Caesar.

 

All of the really bad ideas that the federal government initiated throughout our nation’s history originated with the office of president: This includes most of the wars as well as warrantless surveillance, detention without trial, torture and all of the socialist legislation since the New Deal. Each was only adopted by the president pushing Congress, or more recently, by a president ignoring Congress altogether.

The presidency itself needs to be knocked down from its perch. The only thing that will save the American republic is a renewed focus upon the Congress and cutting down the presidency to size. The founding fathers designed the legislature – Congress – to be the dominant branch of a very small federal government.

My additional thoughts? I copy them from an email that I sent to Tom Eddlem (links added and typos fixed, nacherly):

Tom, great, perceptive piece at LewRockwell.
 
However, you missed that officially it’s still “Washington’s Birthday”, a focus that would help further illustrate how the Unitary President/CIC role has run out of control. Washington – who could have had much more power and refused – would certainly shudder at the “liberties taken” by later presidents (double entendre intended).
 
Also, why no mention of the obvious need to breathe more life into our federal system? One way to limit the power of the President (and Congress & Supreme Court) is to restore it to the states.

Those now pushing for a Constitutional Convention – from Larry Lessig seeking to limit corporate influence on elections and on legislation, to those who want to ensure that only people (not corporations) have Constitutional rights [and fix the glaring legislative error by the Supreme Court in granting Constitutional “free speech” rights to corporation (which are THINGS, not people)], and to those seeking to limit Commerce Clause and restore the 9th and 10th Amendments – could use more cheerleaders!

Not criticism, but food for thought.

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