The imperial ‘I’

The imperial ‘I’

wnd.com

In 2007, America thought it was electing a president. We never dreamed we were electing an emperor.

Are you among the many who’ve noticed, for a long time now, how many times Mr. Obama uses the word “I” in every speech, every press conference, every White House release? In ever imperious ways, he states what “I have notified Senate leaders,” whom “I have appointed” both to traditional posts and to his own newly created “czarships” over previously less regulated pursuits? How many times in his State of the Union addresses has he told Congress and the Supreme Court what “I will do in the coming months,” what “I‘m directing” various departments to do and even “what I will not allow while I‘m president”?

Even in Great Britain, where there is a legitimate monarchy – a reigning Queen – the little lady never uses the personal pronoun in her statements. She always uses the less personal “we.” It’s “we desire,” “we believe,” “it is our wish,” recognizing that, in a very real but unstated way, she rules by the consent of her people. She certainly doesn’t wish to provoke their resentment by a pompous supremacy. Not so our current White House occupant.

In America, what happened to “We the People”?

What happened to the constitutional separation of three equal powers in our government? To the expressed duty (and freedom) of both houses of Congress to “advise and consent” – or not to consent – to what the elected executive might determine? In fact, what happened to the Constitution itself? It’s increasingly ignored by the president (who declared at Harvard he felt the Constitution was a “flawed document”), Congress and our courts.

This includes even one current member of that our hallowed Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In a recent interview on Egyptian TV, she actually said, “I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.” She said South Africa, Canada and Europe had better models.

Common sense would dictate, in light of that sentiment, that she should resign immediately from the Court, since she swore to uphold and defend it. Since she can’t personally change it, except by decrees that undermine and render it irrelevant, why should she go on receiving all her lifetime benefits as a justice, since she regards it as a flawed, inferior and out-of-date document?

Why not at least have the grace to step down and let someone replace her who still subscribes to what our Founding Fathers instituted? Why indeed?

Meanwhile, right under our noses, Mr. Obama and his appointees in Justice, law enforcement and immigration refuse to obey the clear dictates of the Constitution and their own oaths of office to defend and secure our borders and enforce our laws. When Eric Holder pleads amnesia about the “Operation Fast and Furious,” in which his department conceived and authorized giving hundreds of lethal weapons to Mexican drug cartels, his chief executive defends him, saying, “I still have utmost confidence in Mr. Holder and his integrity.” As if that should settle the matter, against all reasonable and mounting evidence to the contrary.

And dictates have gone out from the White House that the Justice Department is too busy to find and prosecute millions of illegal aliens, so they are simply to “lay off” and look the other way. At the same time, the executive insists, “I am committed to comprehensive immigration reform,” which is understood to mean, “I am finding the ways to grant amnesty to all immigrants, expecting they will surely vote for me.”And his appointees have strongly opposed Gov. Brewer’s efforts to defend Arizona’s own borders, when the U.S. government purposely will not. Isn’t there a specific part in the president’s oath of office stating he will “secure our borders”?

After three years of spectacularly inept and ruinous decisions affecting our economy, our world status, our individual freedoms and religious liberties, Mr. “I” is already talking about the “five years” he still has in office. He is so sure of his billion-dollar campaign fund, his dominance over union members, teachers, Hispanics, blacks, abortion and homosexual activists and the fawning liberal media – that he repeatedly “postpones” crucial decisions explicitly until after the 2012 presidential election – his re-election!

So, quite openly, any action or decision that might endanger his continued domination must be put off, no matter the immediate consequences to the economy, our energy dependence on Arab states, the nightmarish multi-trillion debt or the trillion-dollar additions to our yearly deficit. It’s truly reminiscent of the French queen who, in a similar bubbling revolutionary uprising declared of her desperate subjects, “Let them eat cake!”

Feeling that he is immovably in charge, Mr. Obama now avers, “If Congress won’t act, I will!” He, having directed the Democrats to act in ways that responsible Republicans can’t endorse, now is making “executive decisions” that make Congress irrelevant. He said “I will not allow the pipeline from Canada” that would supply vast new oil to the U.S. and create thousands of new jobs – and risk the oil going to China!

He unilaterally made the decision that Catholic charities, schools and public ministries must make abortion services available, regardless of their long-established religious opposition. Shrewdly, because he and his advisers knew the firestorm this would create, he was ready to propose a “reasoned compromise,” assuring Catholics they wouldn’t have to provide abortions and that their insurance companies would do it free of charge. The liberal press trumpeted his Solomon-like solution – ignoring that the Catholics have to buy the insurance, so they’re paying for the abortions after all!

Why should anybody be surprised? Although candidate Obama stated he didn’t favor abortion and that taxpayers should never have to pay for them, his first “executive order” after he sat down in the Oval Office was to provide $250 million to Planned Parenthood worldwide. He knew that PP, while also offering other services to needy women, is the world’s foremost providers of abortion (some 350,000 last year). It set the tone for his imperial presidency.

You, poor plebeian serf, don’t have much of a say now. “I” is in charge.