{"id":2172,"date":"2014-02-11T23:31:58","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T23:31:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/?p=2172"},"modified":"2014-02-11T23:31:58","modified_gmt":"2014-02-11T23:31:58","slug":"obamas-executive-orders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/blog\/2014\/02\/obamas-executive-orders\/","title":{"rendered":"Will No One Challenge Obama\u2019s Executive Orders? – Article by Ron Paul"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"The<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Ron Paul
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February 11, 2014<\/span>
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Recommend this page<\/a>.<\/strong><\/div>\n
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President Obama\u2019s state of the union pledge to \u201cact with or without Congress\u201d marks a milestone in presidential usurpation of Congressional authority. \u00a0Most modern presidents have used executive orders to change and even create laws without Congressional approval. However President Obama is unusually brazen, in that most presidents do not brag about their plans to rule by executive order in state of the union speeches.<\/p>\n

Sadly, his pledge to use his pen to implement laws and policies without the consent of Congress not only received thunderous applause from representatives of the president\u2019s party, some representatives have even pledged to help Obama get around Congress by providing him with ideas for executive orders. The Constitution\u2019s authors would be horrified to see legislators actively aiding and abetting a president taking power away from the legislature.<\/p>\n

Executive orders are perfectly legitimate and even necessary if, in the words of leading Constitutional Scholar Judge Andrew Napolitano, they \u201c\u2026. \u00a0guide the executive branch on how to enforce a law or\u2026complement and supplement what Congress has already done.\u201d The problem is that most modern presidents have abused this power to issue orders that, as Judge Napolitano puts it, \u201crestates federal law, or contradicts federal law, or does the opposite of what the federal law is supposed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political opponents of the president rightly condemned Obama for disregarding the Constitution. However, it was not that long ago that many of the same politicians were labeling as \u201cunpatriotic\u201d or worse anyone who dared question President Bush\u2019s assertions that he had the \u201cinherent\u201d authority to launch wars, spy on Americans, and even indefinitely detain American citizens.<\/p>\n

Partisan considerations also make some members of the opposition party hesitate to rein in the president. These members are reluctant to set a precedent of \u201ctying the president\u2019s hands\u201d that could be used against a future president of their own party.<\/p>\n

The concentration of power in the office of the president is yet one more negative consequence of our interventionist foreign policy. A foreign policy based on interventionism requires a strong and energetic executive, unfettered by Constitutional niceties such as waiting for Congress to pass laws or declare war. \u00a0So it simply was natural, as America abandoned the traditional foreign policy of non-interventionism, for presidents to act \u201cwithout waiting for Congress.\u201d After all, the president is \u201ccommander-in-chief\u201d and he needs to protect \u201cnational security,\u201d they argued. Once it became accepted practice for the president to disregard Congress in foreign affairs, it was only a matter of time before presidents would begin usurping Congressional authority in domestic matters.<\/p>\n

It should not be surprising that some of the biggest promoters of an \u201cenergetic\u201d executive are the neoconservatives. They are also enthusiastic promoters of the warfare state. Sadly, they have misled many constitutionalists into believing that one can consistently support unchecked presidential authority in foreign policy, but limit presidential authority in domestic matters. Until it is fully understood that virtually limitless presidential authority in foreign affairs cannot coexist with strict limits on Presidential authority in domestic matters, we will never limit the power of the Presidency.<\/p>\n

The people must also insist that politicians stop viewing issues concerning the separation of powers through a partisan lens and instead be willing to act against any president who exceeds his constitutional limitations. Thankfully we have scholars such as Louis Fisher, who has just published an important new book<\/a> on presidential power, to help us better understand the Founders\u2019 intent with regard to separation of powers. The key to achieving this goal is to make sure the people understand that any president of any party who would exceed constitutional limitations is a threat to liberty, and any member of Congress who ignores or facilitates presidential usurpation is being derelict in his Constitutional duty.<\/div>\n

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Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.
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This article is reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ron Paul February 11, 2014 Recommend this page. ****************************** President Obama\u2019s state of the union pledge to \u201cact with or without Congress\u201d marks a milestone in presidential usurpation of Congressional authority. \u00a0Most modern presidents have used executive orders to change and even create laws without Congressional approval. However President Obama is unusually brazen, in that most presidents do not brag about their plans to rule by executive order in state of the union speeches. Sadly, his pledge to use his…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2841,76,444,616,2838,887,2839,2840,2751,2837,65,2836,2842],"class_list":["post-2172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-andrew-napolitano","tag-barack-obama","tag-congress","tag-constitution","tag-executive","tag-executive-order","tag-judicial","tag-legislative","tag-legislative-branch","tag-louis-fisher","tag-ron-paul","tag-separation-of-powers","tag-state-of-the-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2172"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2174,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2172\/revisions\/2174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rationalargumentator.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}