WhatFinger


Some laws are unpleasant, or just too difficult. Let's ignore them.

Don’t enforce laws you don’t like - the Obama Doctrine



It may surprise you to learn that I agreed with President Obama when he said The Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional. There's nothing in the Constitution which gives the federal government oversight over marriage contracts so, under the 10th Amendment, that power is reserved to the states. DOMA was a clear violation of the 10th.
Now, I suffer no delusions that suggest the President agrees with me. He thinks it's unconstitutional because A: It was politically expedient to make that argument, and B: his left-wing base views gay marriage as a civil rights issue. No one should spend an instant thinking that he gives a rat's keister about the 10th Amendment. Still; while I may disagree with his reasoning, I believe it led him to the right conclusion about DOMA. That, however, doesn't mean he was legally entitled to arbitrarily stop enforcing it. Now he's at it again. Obamacare is a train wreck, everyone in the country knows it, and its implementation is both unwieldy and deeply unpopular. Since Obama can't back away from his "signature legislation." he's decided the country will just ignore large chunks of it - at least for a while.

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Last night, Representative Trey Gowdy appeared with Lou Dobbs and he touched on this very issue.
"I find it fascinating," Gowdy said, "that Republicans are criticized because they want to slow down or defund Obamacare, but it’s OK if the president wants to not enforce the law. We are repeatedly told - in fact I read somewhere over the weekend - ‘this is the law, a conservative supreme court validated it, so get used to it.’" "Well, apparently, just when we’re getting used to it, the president decides he’s not going to implement it. ...If it’s not good enough for prime time and clearly it is not, then why don’t we just go ahead and start over."
Gowdy then discussed defunding or repealing the law.
"We’re going to need the Senate to repeal it, but there are lots of laws – in fact you and I in another segment may discuss, the Attorney General doesn’t like a law. So he’s just not going to enforce it. Well if it’s good enough for the President and the Attorney General when it comes to recess appointments or the Affordable Care Act or immigration to just ignore the law when they don’t like it, then why can’t Republicans, when you have something as wildly unpopular as the so-called Affordable Care Act which has been a train wreck as described by people who voted for it – it was passed without a single Republican vote." And we’re expected to fund it just because it passed before many of us got to Congress?"
Gowdy’s on to something here. The Obama Doctrine seems to be “ignore laws that are difficult or that you don’t like.” That’s a a door that leads to some rather frightening places, and it swings both ways. Eventually, we’ll have a truly conservative President. If he decides that, say, he’s uncomfortable with the 16th Amendment – or Roe vs. Wade - will liberals be content to let him unilaterally shutter the IRS or stop enforcing federal abortion law? If Obama’s right, no one should waste time worrying about the Supreme Court, since the implementation of its judgment is now subject to the whim of a briefly-tenured President. John Adams wrote that ours is a “government of laws, not men.” Unfortunately, President Obama’s tendency toward self-aggrandizing narcissism has blinded him to this truth. If the people allow him to continue down this road, they’ll be instrumental in the creation of a country where the desires of a single man supersede the laws of the land. Obama needs to enforce his namesake healthcare law, or admit its failure, embrace its repeal, and start over. He keeps telling us he's "not a dictator." If that's truly the case, he can’t have it both ways.


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