Many, many times this President has abused that oath he has taken:
Abuse #1 - Regardless of how well someone might think the war against Qaddafi went, there is no doubt engaging our military forces in that war was a violation of the Constitution and the War Powers Act. Obama needed to get Congressional approval to continue that effort beyond a short period of time, permission that is required under the Constitution, and permission that was not even asked for, never mind granted.
Abuse # 2 - One of nation's most enduring and beautiful beliefs is that every American citizen is entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Another belief is that every American citizens is guaranteed due process of law to defend his actions to a jury of his or her peers. Again, no matter how well it turned out, the Obama administration abused these tenets, life, when it unilaterally decided to assassinate Anwar al-Awlaki, a leading anti-American terrorist that had taken refuge in Yemen.
Yes, al-Awlaki was a bad dude. Yes, al-Awlaki wanted to kill Americans. And yes, the country is probably safer and better off now that he is dead. However, it raises a horrible specter of a U.S. President, who is in charge of the largest and most powerful military force in the history of mankind, can decide without any judicial review and approval and without Congressional review and approval to kill an American citizen because, yes, al-Awlaki, was still an American citizen.
Once a line like this is crossed once, it becomes easier to cross that line a second time. It becomes even easier to cross it a third time and before you know it, we have ourselves a dictatorship government that can unilaterally decide to kill or imprison any citizen without trial. The potential for abuse is very strong. Think about the great despots of our time. Mubarak in Egypt, Assad In Syria, the Shah in Iran thirty years ago, etc. They very quickly found it easy to trample on individual rights and abuse "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for their own personal and political gain.
Abuse #3 - And to make this abuse even worse, reputable press sources have indicated that an entire formal government process has been established within this administration to review and recommend future assassination targets, both Americans and non-Americans. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is now being systematically threatened in the name of national security and potentially political gain and suppression. Very scary.
Abuse #4 - The Defense Of Marriage Act was passed during the Democratic Presidential administration of Bill Clinton. It defined marriage as the union between one man and one woman, an obviously discriminatory and abuse of gay citizens' rights across the country. I find it a repulsive and freedom deprivation law that should be repealed as soon as possible. Denying rights to any American should not be institutionalized by a central government. That is more like a Taliban form of government than a democracy form of government.
However, it is the law of the land. It has to be enforced until repealed, that is how this country is supposed to work. The President of the United States cannot unilaterally decide what laws to enforce and what laws to ignore, that is not how the Constitution is set up.
Unless you are President Obama. He unilaterally decided that the law was discriminatory and that his administration would not defend it in court. Thus, although he had sworn to uphold ALL the laws of the land, as is his responsibility under the Constitution, that oath obviously had little impact on his actions.
The sad part of this whole affair is that he did not have to go down this road of Constitutional abuse. In the first year of his Presidency, his party held a majority of the seats in the House Of Representatives and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. He could have easily done this the right way back in 2009.
However, as we have noted many times in this blog, Obama was too busy "playing" President that year than "being" President. He set the record for most foreign travel in the first year of an Presidential administration. He jetted off to Europe to try and get his home town of Chicago the Olympic games. He visited Europe other times, Asia, and went to Cairo to make a speech at a university.
He was all over the place except in Washington where he could have gotten this law repealed in a matter of days. Now, rather than repeal it via the Constitutional processes we have lived by over the past two hundred years, he decides he can just ignore the law and the underlying Constitutional processes that go with it.
Abuse #5 - After the Gulf Of Mexico oil rig spill, this administration put a drilling moratorium in place in order to understand what went wrong and to not repeat the tragedy. Sound reasoning. However, the moratorium went on much longer than most people. The issue eventually ended in the courts where proponents of drilling wanted the moratorium lifted.
A judge ruled in favor of the proponents and ordered the moratorium lifted, which was exactly what the Obama administration did. However, the President almost immediately replaced it with a second moratorium that was only a rehashed version of the first moratorium that the judge declared invalid, an obvious and thinly disguised attempt to get around the judicial ruling.
Consider what Judge Feldman, the presiding judge had to say about this blatant disregard for the rule of law:
“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance, Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt.”
Being held in contempt of court can certainly not be in accordance with the oath to uphold the laws of the land. And what is especially galling is the fact that the second moratorium was so blatantly a reimposition of the first illegal moratorium. It is essentially the executive branch of the government thumbing its nose at the judicial branch.
We could go on with other examples but you get the picture. Well, maybe you don't. The above examples are a lot of words to describe the contempt this President has for the Constitution but like they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words." Which is exactly what artist John McNaughton did in his Presidential mural and the accompanying YouTube video that can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KGlBHyVeYU
I find it a very powerful message, his work artfully displays and captures the facts of Constitutional abuse listed above. I do not remember voting anywhere to void the Constitution and the form of government it lays out. The current political class, of which Obama is just one member, does not have that right to do so, only the consent of the governed can make those changes in a democracy such as ours. The picture could not be any clearer, as presented by Mr. McNaughton.
For a second picture of how our freedom and democracy have been abused and tainted by our current set of politicians, please visit the following post from this website about the Freedom Pyramid, the most frequently viewed post in the history of this blog:
http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2010/11/american-freedom-pyramid-where-it.html
Celebrate freedom everyday because with our politicians, you do not know how long you will have it.
We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:
http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/
The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.
The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of our times.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/
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