Obama Administration Flourishes Under Woodrow Wilson's Alien Government

The arrogance of the Obama administration and his apparatchiks has many scratching their heads wondering how in the hell did America – the land of the free – become a nation governed by bureaucratic despots. In today’s America you can’t build a house, start a business, manufacture a product, or even pack a lunch for your kid without approval from a government thug. Is this what our founding fathers envisioned? I believe they would’ve rebelled against such tyranny. As a matter of fact, they did! So how did we get here?

The Progressives – both republican and democratic – have rendered our federalist system impotent by structurally altering the Constitution. The 14th, 16th, and 17th Amendments have become instrumental tools by which the central government uses to gather power unto themselves at the expense of the states and individual liberties of its citizens. They have rendered the Constitution a mere speed bump on the road to serfdom.

Where did this paternalistic attitude of an administrative state come from? Ronald J. Pestritto summed it up best in his book, Woodrow Wilson and the Roots of Modern Liberalism:

If bureaucracy, as it administers progress, is to act on behalf of the general interest, what is the role for public opinion? Wilson, after all, seems a consistent advocate of connecting politics much more directly with popular opinion. Yet, his writings on the separation of politics and administration show that public opinion is not to be brought more directly into the realm of administrative decision making. “The problem,” Wilson explained, “is to make public opinion efficient without suffering it to be meddlesome.” Public opinion is a “clumsy nuisance” when it comes to the “oversight of the daily details and in the choice of the daily means of government.” So while public opinion ought to be introduced more directly into politics, politics must confine itself to general superintendence – to the role of setting only the broad goals of the nation. “Let administrative study find the best means for giving public criticism this control and for shutting it out from all other interference,” Wilson wrote.

And isn’t that the attitude of the Obama administration and his progressive tyrants? Is this an American ideal? Even Woodrow Wilson confessed this form of governance is alien and un-American:

But where has this science grown up? Surely not on this side of the sea….American writers have hitherto taken no very important part in the advancement of this science. It has found its doctors in Europe. It is not of our making; it is a foreign science, speaking very little of the language of English or American principles….It has been developed by French and German professors.

But the progressives have made this European animal ours. Congress, through a series of legislative acts, has brought about a Wilsonian administrative state. One of the first being the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 (thanks Dewey from Detroit blog). This law grants federal agencies the ability to create and enforce regulations without going through the legislative process. This law let the veritable genie out of the bottle. But Congress wasn’t through. They believed the federal government – through the use of an administrative state – is responsible for guaranteeing full employment.

Excerpt from the Employment Act of 1946

The Congress hereby declares that it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means consistent with its needs and obligations and other essential considerations of national policy, with the assistance and cooperation of industry, agriculture, labor, and State and local governments, ... for the purpose of creating and maintaining, in a manner calculated to foster and promote free competitive enterprise and the general welfare, conditions under which there will be afforded useful employment opportunities, including self-employment, for those able, willing, and seeking to work, and to promote maximum employment, production, and purchasing power.

The Congress of 1946 was a bunch of busy, socialist beavers. But, it didn’t stop there. A later Congress reaffirmed the federal government’s right to meddle in the economy by passing the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978.

The Congress declares that it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with its needs and obligations and other essential national policies, and with the assistance and cooperation of both small and larger businesses, agriculture, labor, and State and local governments, to coordinate and utilize all its plans, functions, and resources for the purpose of creating and maintaining, in a manner calculated to foster and promote free competitive enterprise and the general welfare, conditions which promote useful employment opportunities, including self-employment, for those able, willing, and seeking to work, and promote full employment and production, increased real income, balanced growth, a balanced Federal budget, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to national priorities, achievement of an improved trade balance through increased exports and improvement in the international competitiveness of agriculture, business, and industry, and reasonable price stability as provided in section 1022b(b) of this title.

Are these policies consistent with our founding principles of natural law and limited government, or are they a foreign monstrosity imposed upon us by ambitious statists who have no regards for federalism and individual liberties? I believe Woodrow Wilson answered that for us.

Source: http://www.amazon.com/Woodrow-Liberalism-American-Intellectual-Culture/dp/0742515176

http://www.deweyfromdetroit.com/2012/02/through-portal-darkly.html

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/bills/blapa.htm

http://home.uchicago.edu/~whowell/papers/Agencies.pdf

http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Employment_Act_of_1946.aspx

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/1021