Last week we took a look at the value of the trait integrity. Even thought the ‘ship of state’ has a captain…president… that has been chosen based on experience and value held within the ‘ownership’ …citizens…he must rely on a crew that is competent and not afraid to speak up when the ‘course’ is in question…congress, judiciary, and cabinet. Failure by any can lead the ‘ship’ into dangerous ‘shoal waters’. We will now take a look at what happens when any one of the ‘crew’ fails in responsibility and integrity, ignoring the valid charts that have been presented.
Due to the steady incorporation of key elements from the democratic, oligarchic, anarchic, and totalitarian forms of our system, America has now become a nation where the personal opinions of leaders supersede fixed laws. The result is government lawlessness, and the evidence of it is abundant. In 2012 alone more than 3,800 new federal laws were added to the books, but only 127 of them went through Congress in the traditional manner specified! by the Constitution; the rest were passed by federal agencies without any direct action by Congress [Shannon Bream,”Regulation Nation: Gov’t Regs Estimated to Pound Private Sector With $1.8T in Costs“, FoxNews.com, December 6, 2013]. Some 38,000 such laws have been enacted in the past decade [Penny Starr, “Under Obama, 11,327 Pages of Federal Regulations Added”, CNSNews.com, September 10, 2012], and 81,000 since 1993 [Christopher Santarelli,”Overreach? 81,000 Rules Issued by Feds Since 1993“, The Blaze, May 29, 2013]. The current costs to comply with these bureaucrat-written federal laws costs each American family $14,678 per year [Santarelli,”Overreach?“].
Not only do unelected bureaucrats write federal laws imposing their will on Americans, but those bureaucrats are also largely unaccountable…there is almost no action so egregious that it can cause them to be fired. This fact has been repeatedly demonstrated in recent years. Once some push to the limits their lack of integrity they just retire and live comfortably protected by a corrupt government system. In May 2014 the US House passed a bill by a margin of 390 to 33 to change the process so that bad government employees could finally be dismissed. Unfortunately the Senate refused to even take up the measure, choosing instead to continue protecting bureaucrats from accountability.
IRS abuse of power revealed in January 2013 targeted innocent individuals for unprecedented government harassment because of their standing up to and questioning government practices. This harassment not only resulted in no firings but many of the violators actually received performance bonuses [Fox News Insider,”Shocking Report: IRS Handed Out Nearly $100 Million in Bonuses Since 2009“, May 16, 2013]. In June 2013 the federal government through the National Security Administration was found to be operating a secret campaign to eavesdrop on virtually every technology-aided private conversation that took place in America. It is not just federal bureaucrats who think of themselves above the law. In New York City in 2012, eight hundred government payroll educators were paid by the city…tax payers…$22 million for doing absolutely nothing. Their charges were “breaking rules, abusing kids, failing to provide students with a decent education”. Some of these teachers languished in the infamous ‘rubber rooms’ , being paid, for years awaiting disciplinary action [Ben Chapman,”Troubled City Teachers Still Bouncing Around the Supposedly ‘Rubber Rooms’ as City Waste $22 Million a Year“, New York Daily News, October 16, 2012].
Under our original republican form of government, the Constitution had made clear that the courts were not permitted to make public policy. But it is not just government bureaucrats who regularly display lawlessness; the judiciary does as well. They hold themselves to be make! rs of law…consequently above it. On public tours of the US Supreme Court, tour guides routinely announce to assembled groups, “This is the building from which all the law in the land emanates.” What about Congress? Some judges now so disdain their oath to uphold the Constitution that in recent decisions they have even declared, literally, that the Constitution itself is actually unconstitutional.
The Constitution explicitly requires that presidential appointees for powerful government posts…including ‘czars’…must be approved by the senate before they can serve. The current president openly scorns this requirement and has ignored Senate approval for 80 percent of the powerful ‘czars’ he appointed [Wikipedia,”List of US executive branch czars“]. The president takes an oath that “he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. He has openly announced his refusal to execute scores of federal laws…all because they do not align with his own personal beliefs [Welfare Reform Laws; Immigration Laws; Conscience Protection Laws; Education Laws; Federal Health Care Laws; Military Defense Laws…too many references to include here]. “Executive orders” designed to detail how laws are to be carried out by the executive department are now used to make laws.
Congress is not ‘clean’. It also practices lawlessness such as when it passes onerous laws to restrict and regulate the people but then exempts itself from those laws [‘Whistle! blower’ laws do not apply to Congress; OSHA laws; workplace requirements of the Civil Rights Act; Americans with Disabilities Act; Age Discrimination Employment Act; Fair Labor Standards Act; Equal Pay Act; Family and Medical Leave Act; Freedom of Information Act; anti discrimination training; and others] [Numerous references]. Congress will sometimes hide unpopular and often oppressive acts from the people by use of omnibus bills. An omnibus bill is one that covers everything…a single law that combines numerous subjects that are completely unrelated. They are used to pass controversial and even disliked measures that would never survive if considered individually. Unpopular bills are frequently rolled into ‘must have’ bills…military spending for example. Thus unpopular bills become law [GovTrack.us]. Clearly, much of what occurs in government is deliberately hidden from the people, lest they find out and object.
Is it any wonder that our ‘ship of state’ has found itself in such a dangerous situation that extrication may be close to impossible. Everyone is in charge and no one is in charge. It will take generations to get the ship out of the ‘shoal waters’. I see the church as the ‘harbor pilot’ who comes aboard and gets things organized again with emphasis on Biblical acceptance of responsibility, integrity, right and wrong decision making, respect for God’s laws, and understanding of the great nation God has given us. He is the Great Pilot of all life. If we will only listen He will get us out of these ‘shoal waters’ and back into ‘safe harbor’. Next week we will take a look at “integrity deficit” in our nation.
– Bob Munsey
Geezer Politics 