Post by AztecWilliam on Apr 2, 2010 7:21:52 GMT -8
Shortly before the ObamaCare bill passed the House, President Obama said that he was not interested in the process by which enough of the Democrats had been "convinced" to vote yea. It was the result that mattered, he added. That fact has bothered me ever since I heard him say it. Here's why.
Barack Obama taught constitutional law. One supposes that a man with that credit on his resume would understand why process is so vital to American democracy. In a dictatorship, laws mean just what the ruler wants them to mean at any given time. Or, to put in another way, laws are not meant to limit the dictator's freedom of action.
In a republic such as ours something quite different is, or at least is supposed to be, the case. Laws are meant to define what the citizen may not do but also what the government may not do to the citizen. The whole idea of a constitution is to have a framework that enumerates the powers of the government and provides a process through which laws may be created or changed.
I am troubled by the fact that Mr. Obama is more interested in outcome than in process. That is the hallmark of a tyrant, not an elected officeholder sworn to uphold the very document, the U.S. Constitution, whose fundamental reason for having been written is to specify the processes by which we are governed.
One has to wonder just what Professor Obama had to say to his students about process.
AzWm
Barack Obama taught constitutional law. One supposes that a man with that credit on his resume would understand why process is so vital to American democracy. In a dictatorship, laws mean just what the ruler wants them to mean at any given time. Or, to put in another way, laws are not meant to limit the dictator's freedom of action.
In a republic such as ours something quite different is, or at least is supposed to be, the case. Laws are meant to define what the citizen may not do but also what the government may not do to the citizen. The whole idea of a constitution is to have a framework that enumerates the powers of the government and provides a process through which laws may be created or changed.
I am troubled by the fact that Mr. Obama is more interested in outcome than in process. That is the hallmark of a tyrant, not an elected officeholder sworn to uphold the very document, the U.S. Constitution, whose fundamental reason for having been written is to specify the processes by which we are governed.
One has to wonder just what Professor Obama had to say to his students about process.
AzWm
