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An article by Thomas R. Eddlem, a high school history teacher in Southeastern Massachusetts and a freelance writer who contributes to The New American, Examiner.com, AntiWar.com and LewRockwell.com.

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Down With the Presidency!
A President's Day Message

by Thomas R. Eddlem

Today, President's Day, is the most ridiculous and anti-liberty holiday of the year. Americans are asked to revere the office of president today when they should be fearing it and opposing it with every fiber of their being. The U.S. presidency is by far the greatest threat to liberty for Americans today – far greater than terrorism. And by "fearing the presidency," I don't mean just the current president, Barack Obama.

One of the first things I tell my American history students is that every dictatorship throughout all of history was an executive branch dictatorship. The Roman Senate fell by giving its powers to the Caesars, and the U.S. Congress is following in that path by ceding its power to the president. Conversely, all the free countries in human history have had legislatures dominate and tame the executive branch.

As if to confirm the fact that the presidency is becoming an out-of-control dictatorship, the White House spokesmen Dan Pfeiffer and Rahm Emmanuel told the New York Times this past weekend that if Congress won't pass their agenda they'll enact it by dictatorial decree. "The challenges we had to address in 2009 ensured that the center of action would be in Congress," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer told the Times in Saturday's news dump. "In 2010, executive actions will also play a key role in advancing the agenda."

But the role of the president under the U.S. Constitution is not to make laws. It is simply to execute the laws passed by Congress. Article I, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution begins: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Since the Constitution mandates that "all" law-making powers reside in the Congress, none are left for the president. The president's job is that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed" under Article II, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. Constitutionally speaking, the president was designed by the founders to be nothing more than the errand-boy of Congress.
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But he concludes: "The presidency itself needs to be knocked down from its perch. The only thing that will save the American republic is a renewed focus upon the Congress and cutting down the presidency to size. The founding fathers designed the legislature – Congress – to be the dominant branch of a very small federal government. That's the lesson of history that anyone who takes the care to read the founding documents learns."

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The Constitution. Every Issue, Every time. No Exceptions, No Excuses.

 

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."---Thomas Jefferson

 

"That's what governments are for... get in a man's way."---Mal Reynolds Capt. of Serenity, "Firefly-Class" spaceship

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