Comment by lmm
1 year ago
> "The Congress shall have Power ... To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof" - Article 1, §8, United States Constitution.
Don't stop there, carry on and read Article 2: "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America...he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed". Nothing in there about anyone else taking the faithful execution of the laws upon themselves.
> Nothing in there about anyone else taking the faithful execution of the laws upon themselves.
I agree. Everyone else must follow the law as stated in the U.S Code, as codified by Congress, as stated in article 1, section 8.
Bit weird to make a fuss about the constitution just to say the law is the law, you make it sound like breaking the ordinary law is unconstitutional.
But yes, everyone has an obligation to follow the law, which is what exactly this EO is about. Federal agencies don't get to pick and choose their own creative interpretations of the law, they have to follow the actual law. The president literally has a constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and this EO is him doing that.
The EO contradicts the Constitution by declaring that agencies must refer to the President and the Attorney General for all interpretations of the law. This is a novel proposal not rooted in the historical functioning of the federal government.
The government agencies' powers come from the legislature and must follow U.S. Code, derived from the legislature's laws. Agencies hire their own counsel to make guidelines and regulations from U.S. Code.
As a technologist, you have the confidence to interpret the law and the Constitution from your version of reasoning from first principles. However, the Supreme Court and other courts repeatedly disagree with your interpretation, which willfully ignores the first article in favor of the second.
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So what’s in it for you to give up your rights to a tyrant? Do you really believe that it’s “your team” that’s winning?
Ever tried getting the bureaucracy to acknowledge your rights in practice and do the things they're charged with doing when they've decided you're on the "wrong" side? Yes, I believe "my team" is winning; I haven't lost rights (yet), I've gained them. I worry about the pendulum swinging too far, I wish it hadn't come to this, but there's a whole class of people that have been shamelessly partisan for years, and even now are unrepentant and contemptuous of the people they're supposed to be serving, and that system has shown itself to be unwilling to be reformed. I had hoped that the first Trump presidency would be a wake-up call, that the Dems would finally remember they need to at least pretend to care about the working class, but instead we got more of the same. So here we are.
Wait, are you claiming that an administration currently being advised if not outright directed by the wealthiest man in the world is going to guarantee justice for the working class? Do you realize how that sounds?
Do you think massively cutting government grants that go to all kinds of social services in order to pay for 4.5T in tax cuts that mainly go to the wealthy, is going to help the working class?
Moreover, inter-term government workers are hired to be explicitly non-partisan. You want them to be non-partisan in order to guarantee continuity of government between administrations and to enforce the law as determined by the courts, non-politically. This is what actually guarantees your rights under the constitution. The minute you introduce political bias into this process is when you begin to deviate from the rule of law and actually abridge peoples’ rights.
And I’m sorry, but your “team” is going to have to face a reckoning if they continue to take power unconstitutionally. That abridges my rights as a citizen of the republic and forfeits their mandate to rule. We will all have the moral right and duty to use force if necessary against any politician who upholds this illiberal order. I hope you like violence, because that’s what you’re asking for.
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