Letter to the Editor The Sun-Sentinel

January 16, 2012
Letter to the Editor
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd.
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316

RE The “serious things” that Clarence Page speaks to in this morning’s paper

Sirs,
As a former 1%er I still retain a sense of noblesse oblige when it comes to enlightening non-thinking, ink stained modern American Liberal wretches – Silly me! As if there were any other kind – such as you. Your column this AM makes you today’s piñata. It is, as always, filled with fallacies of thought and reasoning that the Greeks exposed 25 centuries ago. They melt like an April snow when faced with inconvenient things like facts and the truth.

You say that “Serious Things Are In Play In Recess Appointment Fight”.

In the still uncompleted History of men governing themselves Chapter 1 begins in the agora 25 centuries ago. When “free men speak with free tongues” became known, not as a gift from government, but as a “gift from beyond the stars”, the process of controlling government, not empowering it, began.

I am going to fast forward more than 2 millennia to the very hot summer of 1787 in Philadelphia. I hoped I have piqued enough interest for you to do some homework on the intervening 22 centuries

The key thing isn’t that man’s quest for liberty always involved stopping a government from doing something. Alas, modern American Liberals and their forebears that their “non-malodorous fecal matter syndrome” will enable them to “bell the tiger”. They believe, deeply, that a government powerful enough to “help” people will not “hurt” people. The only exception to this happens when a Republican is in the White House.

It requires a mindset that substitutes feelings for ideas, that judges policy on expectations rather than on results. As proof of the above I offer into evidence the never ending War on Poverty, dysfunctional agencies as disparate as the Department of Education and the department of Energy. Crop prices are at all-time high. Why do we still pay farmers not to grow crops?

Causes de jour such as cowboy poetry, saving the whales, recycling, paper or plastic, organic produce [as opposed to the soon to extinct inorganic produce] teenage obesity and bullying – Dare I say that a fat and nerdy 13 year old, absent an athletic, dean’s list 17 year old brother, will have trouble at lunch time even if Moses should add another commandment forbidding bullying? – Midnight Basketball, drowning polar bears, causes ad nauseam suggest a lunacy so absurd that terminal enuresis can result from even casual exposure to it.
At the very least the monitum on handling sharp objects and operating heavy machinery should be made clear.

To the point at hand; viz. recess appointments.

The Constitution has clear and unqualified language giving the President the power to do some things without review.

One of these is the power to pardon. Who can forget Denise Rich giving Big Bill Clinton some private lessons up close and personal on his own saxophone and her ex-husband, convicted felon Marc Rich, getting a walk about 45 minutes later?

The power to make a recess appointment is also unreviewable provided Congress is not in session. In this particular instance Congress was still in session. Thus, the appointment is invalid.

To the typical modern American Liberal it was the case of a good man stifled by rotten Republicans overcoming a small obstacle to help those in need. In the end, the specific appointment or procedure is irrelevant. The good end, having a kinder, gentler National Labor Relations Board, is worth bypassing something as silly as the law. In this the obstacle, the law, was deterring the implementation of the greater good.

When a Democrat is in the White House it is simply a test of getting things, particularly a good thing, done. When a Republican is in the White House it is an example of the dreaded Imperial Presidency.

In the end, when the law is tossed aside because it is inconvenient we launch a whirlwind sure to consume us.

Today’s lesson ends with a warning from a 16th century lawyer:

“Would you cut a great road through the law to get at Devil?”
“I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
“Oh. And when the last law was down and the Devil
Turned round on you where would you hide, the
Laws all being flat? Do you think you could stand
Upright in the winds that would blow then?”

Alas, his advice was not heeded. As a consequence of even offering it Thomas More’s head was cut off.


Kevin Smith