As most of you know about me, I have spent the past 3 years working on a set of essays concerning our founding principles, the Constitution, and the system of government that it creates. Prior to that, I have spent a number of years learning about all of those topics. I believe that the lack of understanding of these fundamental structures of our Republic by the vast majority of people is the root of all of our problems.
It pains me that our elected leaders do not seem to have any better an understanding of these things than their constituents…or, at least, have no desire to actually abide by them. This includes most members of both parties and even (especially) the current President of the United States. “Yeah, but whatabout Obama, Steve?” Yes, Obama definitely had problems with abiding by the Constitution and he certainly didn’t like many parts of it, but I believe he did know it.
However, the problem of our elected representatives not knowing or abiding by the Constitution is a direct result of the people not knowing it.
So, when I witness one of our elected leaders actually talking about the Constitution and various aspects of it in a very articulate manner, it pleases me to no end. Civic virtue is what is missing and we should demand more of this type of dialogue and praise it when we see it.
I’d like to think that Senator Ben Sasse (R, NE) has read my essays (wishful thinking). At the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing yesterday, Sasse chose to use his time to provide a brief, but powerful, lesson on what is wrong with the process of selecting and confirming justices of the Supreme Court and the reasons for it. He explains how the Legislative Branch has abdicated it’s powers to the Executive Branch and how this has resulted in the politicization of the Judicial Branch.
What Sasse was talking about was exactly what I have been attempting to explain in my essays and I cannot tell you how good it was to hear someone within Congress focusing on these issues.
The parallels between his speech and my essays include talking about how the Legislative Branch has ceded power to the Executive Branch,
What they do now is pass very large, but generally worded laws and then hand it over to the Administrative State to work out all of the details, write the regulations and rules for those laws (effectively creating these regulations with the full affect of actual law). Basically, the Legislative Branch has abdicated its exclusive power of making laws and handed it to the Executive Branch.
Essay 14 – The Legislative
how the Executive Branch has morphed into something never intended by the Founders or the Constitution,
Again, I’ll take you back about 100 years when President Woodrow Wilson and other Progressives, began to propose the idea that the President needed to be more than what was originally intended by the founders and the Constitution.
Essay 15 – The Executive
They argued that our system was preventing what they deemed as progress. It was just too hard and too cumbersome to make changes to the Constitution and to get anything done in Washington. They wanted a system where the President would drive policy and become the voice of the people and where the President would use experts in all fields concerning more and more aspects of our daily lives to decide what is best and how to administer it.
and how the Judiciary Branch has been politicized.
People actually believe that the appointment of one person could determine the fate of our entire Republic. Think about that for a minute. How can one person have such immense power in our system when the Founders were so intently careful with checks & balances, and the separation of powers, and specifying exactly what powers the government would have?
Essay 17 – The Judiciary
The fact that one person was so important, has so much power, goes against everything that our system of self-government was built for. This should be a sure warning sign to everyone that something has gone terribly wrong.
Sasse presents a clear, concise explanation that I implore everyone to view below. Our full understanding of these issues is the only way we will restore the proper balance in our Republic, which is the only path to “insure domestic Tranquility” within it.
