What Kings Do
I'll be honest, I don't care about illegal immigration. As far as I'm concerned illegal immigration in this country started when the Europeans floated over the Atlantic Ocean and took this land from the Native Americans by force. To concern ourselves over illegal immigration today is a bit hypocritical.
Judging from the reactions I've been reading elsewhere I'm in the minority, at least on sites I read normally. There's nothing unusual about that but I do find it rather funny how many people are suddenly up in arms over the fact Obama just changed immigration police using an executive order:
Appearing in the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama announced Friday that, effective immediately, young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally before age 16 and spent at least five continuous years here would be allowed to stay and apply for work permits if they had no criminal history and met other criteria, such as graduating from high school or serving honorably in the military.
By acting unilaterally, through an executive order, Obama underscored one of the great strengths of presidential incumbency: the ability to change the campaign conversation in an instant. In the time it took for word to leak in Washington, Obama's move shunted aside a not-terribly-well-reviewed speech on the economy he had delivered in Ohio a day earlier.
How anybody can be surprised or shocked by the king's latest move is beyond me. Obama has been using executive orders to bypass Congress for a while and has actually been the first president to blatently brag about having such power:
Each time, Mr. Obama has emphasized the fact that he is bypassing lawmakers. When he announced a cut in refinancing fees for federally insured mortgages last month, for example, he said: “If Congress refuses to act, I’ve said that I’ll continue to do everything in my power to act without them.”
Earlier this year Obama went so far as to, basically, collectivize this country's resources through an executive order and granted state officials the power to invoke sanctions against countries that use technological means to violate human rights (with no apparent acknowledgement of the irony involved in such an order).
Some people are pointed to this most recent executive order as proof that Obama believes himself to be a king and are calling on Congress to push back. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Congress isn't going to push back. In fact Mitt Romney isn't even will to say he'll repeal the order. Moving against Obama's latest executive order would be political suicide this close to the election. Once again we see that the only difference between the monarchy in many European countries and the presidency in this country is that one claims their position by divine right while the other claims their position through the peoples' vote.
Even though I don't care much about the illegal immigration debate I will say this maneuver by Obama has apparently woken a few up about the powers a president actually enjoys in this country. That's good, people need to pull their heads out of the sand and stop pretended there is any separation of power in the United States government. All three branches are in collusion to bring the statist agenda upon us.