Political non-debate

With the majorities the Democrats had in the House and Senate after the 2008 elections absolutely. And if a Republican president presided over the health care bill we would never had heard a word about repeal.

jvquarterback wrote:
I disagree with you on both accounts. The second one is easiest. McCain wouldn't have done anything to stop health care legislation had he won. Have you forgotten the debates?



Call it a political non-debate if you want, but believing the executive has the power to write legislation (which is what the Romney's proposed waivers are) would mean Romney would would be cutting whatever string the Constitution hangs by rather than upholding the Constitution.

The Constitution has been set aside in order to pass Obamacare, so yeah I am less inclined to bat an eye at the next president if he is going to use "unconstitutional" powers to remove it. Lesser of two evils here and it's not even a question.

If Mitt or anyone else thinks obamacare is unconstitutional they should pursue that with the legislature, the judiciary or with their state. Outright rebellion would be preferable to granting the executive the power of legislation which would make him no different than a king.

It's the JV ping-pong thread!



Someone else

JV

Someone else

JV

Someone else

JV



reminds me of the GOP popularity contest with JV playing Mitt Romney!

CougarClaw wrote:
It's the JV ping-pong thread!



Someone else

JV

Someone else

JV

Someone else

JV



reminds me of the GOP popularity contest with JV playing Mitt Romney!

Hey!



I broke the cycle!

http://econintersect.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Debate2.gif" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

BoiseBYU wrote:

It is not unconstitutional for any branch of the federal government, having sworn to uphold the constitution, to ignore or declare void any unconstitutional act of another branch. In other words, the constitution does not require any agent, officer, or branch to be bound by an unconstitutional law. The constitution declares all such laws void automatically. So neither states nor president are bound to obamacare by the constitution.



Also, not all executive orders are unconstitutional. Most are quite legitimate. However, liberal presidents have been writing and getting away with extraconstitutional orders for some time. Clinton did it and Obama does it on nearly a weekly basis. Executive orders are supposed to be for the purpose of directing federal agencies but way too much authority is given to agencies to write their own rules of operation so the agencies and the presidency end up writing their own legislation as long as congress does not object.

I am not expert, so perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think unconstitutional laws are void automatically. Where in the constitution does it say that? More of concern to me is this idea that anyone and everyone can declare a law unconstitutional and thus opt to ignore it. Perhaps you were limiting yourself to the federal branch, but if not, we have various states saying that the health care law Congress passed is unconstitutional and therefore they can "nullify" it and ignore it. We have citizens who think the income tax is unconstitutional and then choose to ignore it. To me that is a recipe for anarchy. And for the record it is not just "liberal" presidents who have issued executive orders that are unconstitutional. President Bush issued some doozies in the wake of 9/11 regarding 1st A and 4th A protections I think we all thought we had...

Article II, sec. 1, p. 8, President ... will ... preserve, protect and defend the costitution....

(The president is the only office specifically assigned this responsibility by the constitution.)



amendment IX The enumeration... of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny... others retained by the people.



amendment X The powers not delegated to the united states ... are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.



(The constitution prohibits the federal government from claiming any aditional powers or rights to itself. This maintains that the government serves the people and not the other way around. The federal government must prove itself constituional to the people, not the otherway around. We The People created the constitution to form a limited federal government, the federal government did not create We The People. Therefore, disregard for unconstitutional laws is not anarchy but is in fact the constitutional responsibilty of the president and the right and duty of every American, if not then we cease to be. Our rights are given of God, not government. Therefore, any relenquishment of those rights to government is to put government before God. The constitution is to rule the federal government, not to rule the people. That is God's job.)

Don't you think it is about time for God to clean house?

From what I see there are two schools of thought on this thread.



1. The executive has the right to interpret laws, then strike them down (or change them) if found lacking. Does anyone not see that this is the very thing the founders were trying to avoid by seperating powers. If the executive has those rights there no reason for either a legislature or a judiciary - we may as well have a king.



2. The Constitution is broken. The legislature and judiciary have failed in their constitutional duites. The executive should then abandon its duty to uphold the Constitution. As I've said I think rebellion is preferable to this perversion of the Constitution.



I think about 75% of what the federal government does is not authorized by the Constitution. If we wish to revive the Constitution and save it we have to abide by its precepts and elect people who will follow it rather than cast it aside or use it only as a talking point. I think there is hope with Mitt Romney on this count (unlike Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Huntsman).



But there is also a lot of room for improvement. During the last debate Romney deferred on the question of contraception which is the case that lead to the right to privacy. Well, at least he deferred to the right guy. I'm worried that in the future he will defer to the wrong guys like George Bush did before him.

tww wrote:

tww wrote:
It is not unconstitutional for any branch of the federal government, having sworn to uphold the constitution, to ignore or declare void any unconstitutional act of another branch. In other words, the constitution does not require any agent, officer, or branch to be bound by an unconstitutional law. The constitution declares all such laws void automatically. So neither states nor president are bound to obamacare by the constitution.



Also, not all executive orders are unconstitutional. Most are quite legitimate. However, liberal presidents have been writing and getting away with extraconstitutional orders for some time. Clinton did it and Obama does it on nearly a weekly basis. Executive orders are supposed to be for the purpose of directing federal agencies but way too much authority is given to agencies to write their own rules of operation so the agencies and the presidency end up writing their own legislation as long as congress does not object.

I am not expert, so perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think unconstitutional laws are void automatically. Where in the constitution does it say that? More of concern to me is this idea that anyone and everyone can declare a law unconstitutional and thus opt to ignore it. Perhaps you were limiting yourself to the federal branch, but if not, we have various states saying that the health care law Congress passed is unconstitutional and therefore they can "nullify" it and ignore it. We have citizens who think the income tax is unconstitutional and then choose to ignore it. To me that is a recipe for anarchy. And for the record it is not just "liberal" presidents who have issued executive orders that are unconstitutional. President Bush issued some doozies in the wake of 9/11 regarding 1st A and 4th A protections I think we all thought we had...

Article II, sec. 1, p. 8, President ... will ... preserve, protect and defend the costitution....

(The president is the only office specifically assigned this responsibility by the constitution.)



amendment IX The enumeration... of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny... others retained by the people.



amendment X The powers not delegated to the united states ... are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.



(The constitution prohibits the federal government from claiming any aditional powers or rights to itself. This maintains that the government serves the people and not the other way around. The federal government must prove itself constituional to the people, not the otherway around. We The People created the constitution to form a limited federal government, the federal government did not create We The People. Therefore, disregard for unconstitutional laws is not anarchy but is in fact the constitutional responsibilty of the president and the right and duty of every American, if not then we cease to be. Our rights are given of God, not government. Therefore, any relenquishment of those rights to government is to put government before God. The constitution is to rule the federal government, not to rule the people. That is God's job.)

Nice quotes. If such laws are void automatically, why does the Supreme Court decide some cases on determining whether a ruling on the unconstitutionality of a law should be applied retroactively to preexisting cases? If you were right there would be no need to decide such issues since the law was unconstitutional from the gitgo....It too the Supreme Court some years to determine that it had the right to declare laws or actions unconstititional yes? That suggests to me that it is not entirely clear that laws are void from the beginning and that not every one at any time gets to ring the bell and say that law is no longer valid and can be ignored.

jvquarterback wrote:
From what I see there are two schools of thought on this thread.



1. The executive has the right to interpret laws, then strike them down (or change them) if found lacking. Does anyone not see that this is the very thing the founders were trying to avoid by seperating powers. If the executive has those rights there no reason for either a legislature or a judiciary - we may as well have a king.

If I may... This is a common misunderstanding regarding the separation of powers and how it works. They are separate not so that they can act independently but so that they cannot act in total without the other two in a completed cycle. The legislative branch legislates, then it is up to the executive branch to execute or enforce by its own interpretation. Once a law is executed on then the Judicial branch Judges not just by the law but by the constitution. Of course to judge requires interpretation but so does enforcement. Just as there is nothing in the constitution that requires the judiciary to uphold an unconstitutional law (Marbury v. Madison) but in fact they are required to adhere to it ONLY, there is nothing in the constitution that requires the executive to bow down to the legislative and enforce an unconstitutional law but in fact is required to defend the constitution above all else. So you see that when one branch does not subjugate itself to another that does not make that branch an independent king it actually prevents the would-be dominant branch from setting itself up as king. What makes it work is the power to rebel or at least not cooperate. Unconstitutional cooperation or cooperating in unconstitutional behavior is an illegal combination of powers. Sometimes it is even done in secret making it a secret combination of powers. When founders said that sometimes rebellion is good that is what they were talking about is rebelling against illegal combinations because without illegal combinations the government cannot act unconstitutionally. When they do act unconstitutionally it can only happen with the consent of more than one branch, which is the very combinations the Book of Mormon warns us against.

Maybe a shorter way to say all that would have been that either the executive branch or the Judicial branch has the power to opt out of a law (or an order for that matter), at which point the law fails.



Perhaps you have heard of Oath Keepers. That is what Oath Keepers is all about. The oath is not to the other branches, it is to God to protect the constitution. Oath keepers members are found in all branches but most often are members of law enforcement or military that refuse to follow unconstitutional orders such as confiscation American's firearms.

BoiseBYU wrote:

BoiseBYU wrote:

It is not unconstitutional for any branch of the federal government, having sworn to uphold the constitution, to ignore or declare void any unconstitutional act of another branch. In other words, the constitution does not require any agent, officer, or branch to be bound by an unconstitutional law. The constitution declares all such laws void automatically. So neither states nor president are bound to obamacare by the constitution.



Also, not all executive orders are unconstitutional. Most are quite legitimate. However, liberal presidents have been writing and getting away with extraconstitutional orders for some time. Clinton did it and Obama does it on nearly a weekly basis. Executive orders are supposed to be for the purpose of directing federal agencies but way too much authority is given to agencies to write their own rules of operation so the agencies and the presidency end up writing their own legislation as long as congress does not object.

I am not expert, so perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think unconstitutional laws are void automatically. Where in the constitution does it say that? More of concern to me is this idea that anyone and everyone can declare a law unconstitutional and thus opt to ignore it. Perhaps you were limiting yourself to the federal branch, but if not, we have various states saying that the health care law Congress passed is unconstitutional and therefore they can "nullify" it and ignore it. We have citizens who think the income tax is unconstitutional and then choose to ignore it. To me that is a recipe for anarchy. And for the record it is not just "liberal" presidents who have issued executive orders that are unconstitutional. President Bush issued some doozies in the wake of 9/11 regarding 1st A and 4th A protections I think we all thought we had...

Article II, sec. 1, p. 8, President ... will ... preserve, protect and defend the costitution....

(The president is the only office specifically assigned this responsibility by the constitution.)



amendment IX The enumeration... of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny... others retained by the people.



amendment X The powers not delegated to the united states ... are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.



(The constitution prohibits the federal government from claiming any aditional powers or rights to itself. This maintains that the government serves the people and not the other way around. The federal government must prove itself constituional to the people, not the otherway around. We The People created the constitution to form a limited federal government, the federal government did not create We The People. Therefore, disregard for unconstitutional laws is not anarchy but is in fact the constitutional responsibilty of the president and the right and duty of every American, if not then we cease to be. Our rights are given of God, not government. Therefore, any relenquishment of those rights to government is to put government before God. The constitution is to rule the federal government, not to rule the people. That is God's job.)

Nice quotes. If such laws are void automatically, why does the Supreme Court decide some cases on determining whether a ruling on the unconstitutionality of a law should be applied retroactively to preexisting cases? If you were right there would be no need to decide such issues since the law was unconstitutional from the gitgo....It too the Supreme Court some years to determine that it had the right to declare laws or actions unconstititional yes? That suggests to me that it is not entirely clear that laws are void from the beginning and that not every one at any time gets to ring the bell and say that law is no longer valid and can be ignored.

Okay I hope you will forgive me for the quotes but I was just trying to show that I wasn't pulling this out of the air.



What you are now talking about is the inevitable human factor. The Supreme court is rarely unanimous and often disagrees or reverses itself but it will log in an opinion just the same to have an official response. So the term void does not properly or totally describe what is taking place but the reality is that the constitution is the law and though it has final say humans must decide if they are going to follow it or not. Each branch of the government has and does do things that are unconstitutional or at least extraconstitutional. It then falls on the people to decide if they are going to tolerate it and let it go on or not. Generally, as the declaration of independence tells us, the people tolerate a lot of abuse before they are motivated to act, which is unfortunate. So the use of the word void either becomes meaningless or in effect according to the will and tolerance of the people.



Kind of like saying something is against the law however you still may not press charges but even if you do not press charges it doesn't change the fact that it was against the law.

tww wrote:

tww wrote:

tww wrote:
It is not unconstitutional for any branch of the federal government, having sworn to uphold the constitution, to ignore or declare void any unconstitutional act of another branch. In other words, the constitution does not require any agent, officer, or branch to be bound by an unconstitutional law. The constitution declares all such laws void automatically. So neither states nor president are bound to obamacare by the constitution.



Also, not all executive orders are unconstitutional. Most are quite legitimate. However, liberal presidents have been writing and getting away with extraconstitutional orders for some time. Clinton did it and Obama does it on nearly a weekly basis. Executive orders are supposed to be for the purpose of directing federal agencies but way too much authority is given to agencies to write their own rules of operation so the agencies and the presidency end up writing their own legislation as long as congress does not object.

I am not expert, so perhaps I am wrong, but I do not think unconstitutional laws are void automatically. Where in the constitution does it say that? More of concern to me is this idea that anyone and everyone can declare a law unconstitutional and thus opt to ignore it. Perhaps you were limiting yourself to the federal branch, but if not, we have various states saying that the health care law Congress passed is unconstitutional and therefore they can "nullify" it and ignore it. We have citizens who think the income tax is unconstitutional and then choose to ignore it. To me that is a recipe for anarchy. And for the record it is not just "liberal" presidents who have issued executive orders that are unconstitutional. President Bush issued some doozies in the wake of 9/11 regarding 1st A and 4th A protections I think we all thought we had...

Article II, sec. 1, p. 8, President ... will ... preserve, protect and defend the costitution....

(The president is the only office specifically assigned this responsibility by the constitution.)



amendment IX The enumeration... of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny... others retained by the people.



amendment X The powers not delegated to the united states ... are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.



(The constitution prohibits the federal government from claiming any aditional powers or rights to itself. This maintains that the government serves the people and not the other way around. The federal government must prove itself constituional to the people, not the otherway around. We The People created the constitution to form a limited federal government, the federal government did not create We The People. Therefore, disregard for unconstitutional laws is not anarchy but is in fact the constitutional responsibilty of the president and the right and duty of every American, if not then we cease to be. Our rights are given of God, not government. Therefore, any relenquishment of those rights to government is to put government before God. The constitution is to rule the federal government, not to rule the people. That is God's job.)

Nice quotes. If such laws are void automatically, why does the Supreme Court decide some cases on determining whether a ruling on the unconstitutionality of a law should be applied retroactively to preexisting cases? If you were right there would be no need to decide such issues since the law was unconstitutional from the gitgo....It too the Supreme Court some years to determine that it had the right to declare laws or actions unconstititional yes? That suggests to me that it is not entirely clear that laws are void from the beginning and that not every one at any time gets to ring the bell and say that law is no longer valid and can be ignored.

Okay I hope you will forgive me for the quotes but I was just trying to show that I wasn't pulling this out of the air.



What you are now talking about is the inevitable human factor. The Supreme court is rarely unanimous and often disagrees or reverses itself but it will log in an opinion just the same to have an official response. So the term void does not properly or totally describe what is taking place but the reality is that the constitution is the law and though it has final say humans must decide if they are going to follow it or not. Each branch of the government has and does do things that are unconstitutional or at least extraconstitutional. It then falls on the people to decide if they are going to tolerate it and let it go on or not. Generally, as the declaration of independence tells us, the people tolerate a lot of abuse before they are motivated to act, which is unfortunate. So the use of the word void either becomes meaningless or in effect according to the will and tolerance of the people.



Kind of like saying something is against the law however you still may not press charges but even if you do not press charges it doesn't change the fact that it was against the law.

I see where you are coming from and think I understand. My concern or problem if you will, and perhaps tangential to your line of thought, is with those people who think they can arrogate to themselves the power to choose which laws to obey because the other ones are unconstitutional. So some dudes refuse to get a drivers license because they think such laws are unconstitutional. We have crazies here in Idaho who think they do not need to pay income taxes beecause of their view that those laws are unconstitutional etc etc. This breeds anarchy and confusion and is not conducive to a civilized society. We must have a process in place to overturn a law that is not contingent upon or permissive of John Q Public doing it on his own...

Hamilton, Madison and Jay would beg to differ on what you have to say about the executive. The executive's purview on legislation is limited to the time prior to its passage. That is he may submit legislation or veto it. If Romney thinks obamacare is unconstitutional he should say so to the courts, not attempt his only judicial review and rewriting of the law. He is setting himself up as a king.

jvquarterback wrote:
Hamilton, Madison and Jay would beg to differ on what you have to say about the executive. The executive's purview on legislation is limited to the time prior to its passage. That is he may submit legislation or veto it. If Romney thinks obamacare is unconstitutional he should say so to the courts, not attempt his only judicial review and rewriting of the law. He is setting himself up as a king.

It seems to me the only way one can come to the conclusion that Romney is trying to become king is by completely ignoring the fact that Obama has already done so with the help of congress. Was Lincoln trying to become king with the emancipation proclamation? Earthly kings do not set people free. Freeing people from slavery or oppression is totally in line with the constitution and declaration of independence.

jvquarterback wrote:
From what I see there are two schools of thought on this thread.



1. The executive has the right to interpret laws, then strike them down (or change them) if found lacking. Does anyone not see that this is the very thing the founders were trying to avoid by seperating powers. If the executive has those rights there no reason for either a legislature or a judiciary - we may as well have a king.



2. The Constitution is broken. The legislature and judiciary have failed in their constitutional duites. The executive should then abandon its duty to uphold the Constitution. As I've said I think rebellion is preferable to this perversion of the Constitution.



I think about 75% of what the federal government does is not authorized by the Constitution. If we wish to revive the Constitution and save it we have to abide by its precepts and elect people who will follow it rather than cast it aside or use it only as a talking point. I think there is hope with Mitt Romney on this count (unlike Gingrich, Santorum, Perry and Huntsman).



But there is also a lot of room for improvement. During the last debate Romney deferred on the question of contraception which is the case that lead to the right to privacy. Well, at least he deferred to the right guy. I'm worried that in the future he will defer to the wrong guys like George Bush did before him.

Wow, I didn't get either of those lines of thought from this tread.

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/political-pictures-bill-hillary-clinton-bush-irrelevant-constitution.jpg" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

tww wrote:

Hamilton, Madison and Jay would beg to differ on what you have to say about the executive. The executive's purview on legislation is limited to the time prior to its passage. That is he may submit legislation or veto it. If Romney thinks obamacare is unconstitutional he should say so to the courts, not attempt his only judicial review and rewriting of the law. He is setting himself up as a king.

It seems to me the only way one can come to the conclusion that Romney is trying to become king is by completely ignoring the fact that Obama has already done so with the help of congress. Was Lincoln trying to become king with the emancipation proclamation? Earthly kings do not set people free. Freeing people from slavery or oppression is totally in line with the constitution and declaration of independence.

Like you say Obama has set himself up as a king and has issued many executive orders in an attempt to usurp the power of legislation. So did many of his predecessors of both parties. If we wish to restore the Constitution to its rightful place we can't start by saying we'll vote for someone who, as his first act in office, will continue to flout the Constitutional separation of powers.

jvquarterback wrote:

jvquarterback wrote:
Hamilton, Madison and Jay would beg to differ on what you have to say about the executive. The executive's purview on legislation is limited to the time prior to its passage. That is he may submit legislation or veto it. If Romney thinks obamacare is unconstitutional he should say so to the courts, not attempt his only judicial review and rewriting of the law. He is setting himself up as a king.

It seems to me the only way one can come to the conclusion that Romney is trying to become king is by completely ignoring the fact that Obama has already done so with the help of congress. Was Lincoln trying to become king with the emancipation proclamation? Earthly kings do not set people free. Freeing people from slavery or oppression is totally in line with the constitution and declaration of independence.

Like you say Obama has set himself up as a king and has issued many executive orders in an attempt to usurp the power of legislation. So did many of his predecessors of both parties. If we wish to restore the Constitution to its rightful place we can't start by saying we'll vote for someone who, as his first act in office, will continue to flout the Constitutional separation of powers.

So leaving those unConstitutional laws in place is a better starting place?