Another Brick in the Wall

Trey Smith

The Obama Administration again waited for a Friday afternoon to announce a major new policy change — repeating its practice of timing important announcements to reduce media and public attention. The latest change is obviously controversial. The Administration will no longer deport illegal aliens under 30 who came to this country as children — effectively negating part of the federal law. It raises some troubling questions, again, about President Obama assertion of executive power. While liberals again celebrate the unilateral action, they ignore that danger that the next president may also simply chose to ignore whole areas of the federal law and criminal code in areas ranging from the environment to employment discrimination. It is one more brick in the wall of the Imperial Presidency constructed under Barack Obama — a wall that may prove difficult to dismantle for citizens in the future.
~ from Obama Administration Declares It Will Not Deport Young Illegal Immigrants by Jonathan Turley ~

This is a subject I have been harping on a lot lately. If President George Bush did x, Democrats were up in arms. Yet, if Barack Obama does x or something similar, there is no uproar at all. This is crass partisanship! Anything is fair game as long as your guy is doing it.

What I find so infuriating is that the majority of progressives refuse to look at the important point that Turley makes above. President Obama has been creating a slew of precedents, ones that may become more ominous than they already are in future America.

Every time a presidential administration thumbs its nose at federal law or the constitution, it sets the stage for next presidential administration to move further away. At the rate we're going, the office of the president will soon become a total autocracy. Once ensconced in office, presidents will rule by decree like a king or dictator and they will use the precedents being established today to prove the legitimacy of such actions.

And don't misunderstand me. Unlike a lot of people, I'm not saying that things could become far worse if a Republican were to become president in the next few years. The party affiliation of future presidents isn't all that important. Based on precedents like the one Turley outlines above, a future Democratic president just as easily will lead us down the same road.

It has been said that absolute power corrupts absolutely and our current president, in many policy areas, has been advancing the notion that he has absolute power. If the American people do not stand up now to reject this notion, then total and complete corruption is soon to follow.