EXECUTIVE ORDERS

[jimmoore]

WHEN EXECUTIVE ORDERS BECOME EXECUTIVE DISORDERS

One thing very puzzling in American administrations, therefore most argued about, are executive orders. Probably because (1) those two words do not appear in the Constitution, (2) by using executive orders, the president can bypass Congress and rule with impunity, (3) executive orders affect all Americans, usually without their knowledge or right to dissent. In short, executive orders, instead of a presidential convenience, may be the closest thing to dictatorial rule as a free country can get.

So, just what is an executive order?

It is a directive to federal agencies by the president under his statutory powers. And the most troubling factor about it is that every president has used them: from Washington in 1789, to every president since. Nixon, establishing the Department of Commerce; FDR, ordering the internment of 120,00 Japanese Americans, after Pearl Harbor; George W. Bush, creating the Department of Homeland Security; Obama, whose recent Executive Order, “National Defense Resources Preparedness” is alarming, given the agenda of this current administration. Gina Miller, political writer, states that executive orders are setting up a situation to declare peacetime martial law in America. And this is not a Miller fairy tale. Even the Canadian Free Press ran a column titled, “Obama Executive Order: Peacetime Martial Law!”

Executive orders have the legal effect of a law. This makes them inherently dangerous-- especially in America-- because they are one man’s un-reviewed, unchallenged decisions, which may affect millions of unsuspecting citizens. This has the feel of tyranny, and the smell of a ready-to-be-born dictatorship.

A caveat here. Used in a patriotic, America’s-benefit sense, executive orders are, at times, both needed and beneficial. The actions of Presidents Washington, Adams, Madison and Monroe attest to that. But given the human mind’s propensity for doing evil, and damn the circumstances, wouldn’t it be wise
not to trust anyone with this awesome political tool?

And we apparently have the means of doing just that!
As things now stand, new incoming presidents have some important options. They can retain the executive orders issued by their predecessors, or they can revoke the old ones, and replace them with new ones of their own. If, therefore, Mitt Romney takes the helm of American in November, he has the means, and certainly the ability, to create new executive orders to reverse our disastrous fall into the abyss of extinction, and rebuild the kind of America that was, and should still be, the envy of the world.

Mitt Romney knows well the following, but it bears repeating. If a sitting president is defeated in an election, there are usually several months before the incoming president takes office. During that time the “lame duck” president can (and usually will) use every trick in the book to further his agenda, whether for good or evil. This obviously puts the new president at a distinct disadvantage, because it forces him to wait for an agonizing couple of months, watching the “lame duck” president tout his failed policies, before he can move into the White House and clean up the mess.

Hence an idea whose time may have come: For the country’s sake, the waiting time between presidents should be restricted to a “quiet” status quo in which the out-going president may continue to exercise his duties, but is restricted from furthering his agenda with such actions as: making new cabinet appointments, signing treaties and “participation” documents, moves to nationalize private industries, approving foreign loans and domestic bailouts, sending more soldiers into war zones, establishing more agencies and departments, and ceasing all other political activities, such as executive orders, that are reserved for the new sitting president. Or, as a more drastic alternative, the elimination of executive orders entirely.

America is an ideal country, but not a perfect one. Striving for more perfection is not only commendable, it is imperative.