Category: Politics

Partisanship is one of the illnesses plaguing the U.S. body politic. We see this every election cycle as millions of voters cast straight-ticket ballots for candidates just because of the capital letter before their name. Voting records will be ignored. Rationalizations and excuses will be made. Bromides on how we must accept the “lesser of two evils” will be shoved down our throats. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The partial shutdown with the federal government has helped, perhaps more than any other recent political event, to illustrate some of the biggest problems that come with centralizing an ever-larger number of government activities within a single, centralized institution.

When people ask questions like “Can the president do…?” “Can the House, Senate, or Supreme Court do…?” the first sources that must be consulted are the Constitution and the people who drafted it.  If the Constitution provides no authority for the activity, then the power does not Constitutionally reside in the hands the federal government. So more to the root of the question being asked, “Does the Constitution enumerate a power to the President to declare a state of emergency?”

The whole Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional. It always has been. The constitutional problem with ObamaCare isn’t something specific to ObamaCare. The problem with it is that the federal government has no constitutional authority to run the country’s healthcare system. This fact doesn’t change no matter what plan is put forward or who is in the Oval Office.

Belgium has joined the list of countries that are rebelling against their elected leadership. The unrest witnessed in a number of places is focused on some specific demands but it represents much broader anger. What has been occurring in Belgium, France, with Brexit in Britain, in the recent election in Italy, and also in the warnings coming from Eastern Europe about immigration and European Union community economic policies are driven by the same concerns that operated in America. Government itself is becoming the enemy.