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The Constitution: A mere annoyance for Obama



When Barack Obama takes the oath of office for his second term, he will promise to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Of course, the president says he’s going to do a lot of things. That doesn’t mean he’s going to keep his word.
And rarely has his word meant less than when it comes to his attitude concerning the Constitution, which he clearly sees as a hurdle in the way of his quest for ever-expanding government and unfettered executive power to create it. Obama’s recent decision to issue 23 executive orders in the pursuit of tighter gun control is the latest assault on the Constitution in a number of ways. Not only does it further chip away at the Second Amendment rights of Americans, but it represents blatant defiance of our constitutional system of checks and balances. This is a classic tactic for Obama. When an issue is much on the public’s mind, as gun violence is right now because of the Newtown shootings, Obama will declare that a certain course of action is so clearly needed that there is simply no time for debate in Congress – and if they don’t act as he wants, he will simply ignore them and impose his agenda on his own.

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This is no surprise from a guy who has lamented he can’t act unilaterally like the communist thugs who rule China. In fact, it sounds like he’s made up his mind that he can and he will. He acts similarly in his refusal to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act. I understand Obama may not like the law, but presidents are not afforded the discretion of treating pre-existing laws as if they don’t exist just because they don’t personally like them. That’s what dictators do. And despite Chief Justice John Roberts’s curious thinking on the matter, ObamaCare is so riddled with unconstitutionality, it’s hard to know where to start. Maybe we should start here: Anyone who saw Nancy Pelosi questioned about it (“Are you serious? Are you serious?”) understands that the Democrats never took matters of constitutional authority seriously when drafting the law. They believe, as U.S. Rep. Pete Stark (D-California) recently said, “The federal government can do most anything in this country.” So if Obama and the Democrats want to force you to buy health insurance, they will. If Obama and the Democrats want to force a Catholic organization, which doesn’t believe in birth control, to pay for it – they will. And of course, there is nothing Democrats love more than spending your money, so if passing an actual budget makes that harder to do politically, they’ll simply stop passing budgets. And if Republicans refuse to raise the debt ceiling, Democrats will make it clear that they’ve got Obama’s back when he ignores them and borrows more money anyway. This is dangerous because the Constitution is the only legal protection we have against government tyranny. The only authority the government has to do anything at all comes from the Constitution, and this same Constitution spells out the limits of government authority. When the government embraces the authority but ignores the limits, it is deciding that its own power is more important than the protections the Founders afforded to the people in a republic whose very foundational principle was limited government. Even more dangerous is the fact that the news media, which loves the First Amendment because it benefits them, regards other constitutional limits on government authority as anachronisms, and refuses to hold government to account for disrespecting them. This gives Obama cover to ignore the Constitution without political consequences, and he takes full advantage. Many Americans need a refresher course on the Constitution, and on why the limits it places on government are so important. As it stands right now, we have a president who is in full agreement with Congressman Stark. He thinks the federal government can do anything it wants. Just as he will not limit his spending in recognition of fiscal reality, he will not limit his deployment of federal power out of respect for the Constitution. Is anyone going to rein this man in?


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