DAILY TOL: Tree of Liberty

The framer’s of our Constitution were a non-trusting lot.  Even a cursory examination of how the three branches of government interact shines a bright light on either their intense paranoia or inspired genius.  They knew that in man’s quest for power and control, the people would fear a government that did not fear the people.

The best way, they reasoned, to keep a government fearful of the people is by keeping that government from amassing too much power.  The first step to keep a government from amassing too much power is to split it into three parts.  Then, just to be sure, our framers interlocked the three parts in such a way that any stretch by one part to gain power would place stress on the other two and thereby maintain the desired equilibrium.  Paranoid…perhaps.  Genius…undoubtedly.

We have the Legislative branch where the raucous House of Representatives provides the closest link between the elected and the electorate to which they have to answer every two years.  It is in the House that passions flare and the inspired ideas of the people are often first given voice.  If the House is the cup in which our passions boil, the Senate is the saucer that protects the People from scalding coffee that sloshes over the side.  The Senate…where one lone voice can halt the entire body and where 60 must agree before a vote can even be taken.  It is in this most deliberative of bodies where the President must go for advice and consent when appointing those who have their hands on the levers of power.  This advice and consent provides accountability to the People indirectly through their elected Senators.

We recently witnessed one of the most crucial examples of advice and consent with the confirmation of our new Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor.  This confirmation process isn’t optional.  It is clearly spelled out in Article II, Section 2 of our Constitution which states that all “high government positions,” are required to be confirmed.

How then is it that President Obama has more than 30 unelected, unconfirmed, high government positions currently filled with people answerable only to the Executive branch.  This is simply unacceptable and we must immediately demand that these positions either be confirmed by the Senate or explicitly require by Senate resolution that no appropriated funds can be used by, or in the service of, these Czars.

Because it is fashionable to place all Patriotic arguments in terms of Left and Right, Blue and Red, Donkey and Elephant, I include for your linking pleasure a pleathora of liberally inclined patriots who have taken serious issue with this egregious extension of power by the Executive branch.

• Salon
• Senator Byrd
  • CBS
  • NY Times
  • La Times
  • CNN
• CNet

Read for yourselves.  Become educated, which means doing more than mindlessly ingesting data without engagement or analysis.  This is our Republic.  Take responsibility for your role as a member of the electorate.  Hold your Senators accountable by demanding that these Czars, too, be held accountable.

My son and I had an interesting conversation this morning and having recently started this blog, I spent a bit of extra time thinking how I would respond.

Here’s the backdrop.  On Friday, he was in the room when a news report was broadcast that a few of the USS Cole family members were asked to leave the White House and were not allowed to speak with the press while on the grounds.  This little nugget was bouncing around his head until this morning when he asked what it was all about.

As parents, we are presented these teachable moments all the time; life is nearly one continuous teachable moment, but that’s another story.  Part of the problem in our country today is that parent’s often infuse blind ideology into their responses or, worse, cede the discussion entirely to our school systems, which have a decidedly ideological bent.  This approach, while making the parent or teacher feel pretty good about themselves at the time, can create a life-long impediment in our children’s ability to judge situations and arguments based on the merits rather than some deeply ingrained ideological filter.

All that said, here’s how I responded:

Read the rest of this entry →