An imperial presidency in the making?

Last week, The Wall Street Journal carried a story entitled "Obama Steps Up Confrontation." It said in part, "On Thursday, the president challenged Republicans who planned to campaign on repealing his health-care bill with, 'Go for it.' Two days later, he made 15 senior appointments without Senate consent, including a union lawyer whose nomination had been blocked by a filibuster.

"At a bill-signing event Tuesday, he is set to laud passage of higher-education legislation that was approved despite Republican objections through a parliamentary maneuver that neutralized the party's filibuster threat."

Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) called Obama's decision to federalise most student loans "really brazen" and "the most underreported, biggest Washington takeover in history."

See the WSJ report here.

If history teaches us anything, it teaches us that power always craves more power. And there are only two ways to check power: internally, through self-discipline and humility; or externally, through equally determined and equipped counterforces.

Americans should thank God that George Washington was our first President, because no one exemplified self-discipline and humility more than he did.

After having led the colonies to perhaps the most miraculous revolution in world history, Washington was universally adored and even idolised. There were many that even attempted to make Washington America's king. He flatly refused this proposal, of course. (Compare Washington's character and humility to former President G.W. Bush, who, on this subject, said, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator.")

The concept of an American monarch may seem foreign to us today, but remember that a monarchy was the only form of government the colonists had ever known. And there can be no doubt that a monarchy (or some form of it) has been the single most popular form of central government that the nations of the world have utilised. But remember, too, the theme of America's War for Independence was "No King But Jesus". And no one believed that more than General George Washington did.

Like most of America's founders, Washington distrusted government in general and despised big government in particular - even though people were willing to make him government's imperial ruler. Listen to the Father of our Country:

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a man of George Washington's calibre in the White House for many a moon. Instead of distrusting and limiting the central government, the vast majority of modern Presidents have completely ignored the constitutional role of the Presidency, and have sought to expand the authority of the executive branch of the federal government to proportions never allowed in the Constitution or envisioned by its creators. And Barack Obama is following the example of his predecessors by continuing this malevolent model (with increased rapidity, I might add). The above-mentioned stories are just the latest examples of what is fast becoming an imperial Presidency. It seems that every day another example of executive arrogance and usurpation of power takes place.

Given the lack of genuine humility and character of America's President - and the unwillingness of Congress and the Supreme Court to restrain his unconstitutional propensities - it is left to the states and the People to hold this would-be king in check.