by Allan Erickson
Striker Summary: America’s Founders brilliantly ratified a system which honored the idea of a divided government – separation of powers – and positioned the “several states” to also act as a check on National government overreach. Current Democratic leadership is ignoring their genius.
by Allan Erickson
The genius of the Founders plays out in real time today. They foresaw many threats to liberty and made provision for their defeat. Two essential principles must be in place to protect liberty: the rule of law and the separation of powers. Destroy these two and the entire Republic collapses. So it is no surprise our enemies always attack the rule of law and the separation of powers.
The Founders not only balanced powers at the federal level by establishing the three co-equal branches—executive, judicial, legislative—they also placed the states as self-governing entities. Even with the U.S. Constitution as the supreme law of the land, the states have a special role governing in their jurisdictions, sometimes to the point of confronting the federal government.
Today we see many governors in active opposition to federal overreach. (Radical governors actually violate the Constitution as in the instance in Arizona recently involving gun rights versus executive orders.) The lightening rod issue of the day when it comes to battles over separation of powers and the rule of law is illegal immigration, or more accurately put, the invasion of the U.S.
More and more we see governors demanding the feds enforce standing immigration law. When the feds refuse, governors are stepping up both to confront the feds, and to enforce the law. This governor-sponsored rule of law is enforced to protect citizens and preserve both national and state-level sovereignty. Governors of sanctuary states are a growing part of the problem.
Governors in Florida and Texas are leaders in saving liberty by enforcing the law in their sovereign states. Even mayors, who once promoted sanctuary cities, are recognizing the crisis invasion, demanding the feds provide relief. Most notable in this regard, New York City, where illegal immigration is actually destroying the city.
It has been said without borders people have no nation. Our enemies totally disregard our borders because their primary goal is conquest. When citizens ignore or outright disobey the rule of law, enemies have a field day, our current status.
Perhaps city, state and federal officials will unify to defend our country and protect the lives of all involved. Success will require a thorough commitment to the rule of law: enforcement, deportations and border control. Meanwhile, thanks to the separation of powers, certain authorities are doing the right thing.
Even the Biden administration confesses a total failure by resuming the building of a wall which the administration fought tooth and nail, breaking the law all across the board. Every official involved in helping aggravate the crisis should be prosecuted by a fair and impartial judiciary, and a courageous legislature. Rather than fulfill its oath, the Biden administration has twisted the judiciary, making it a tool of the executive to thwart the legislative branch and attack the citizenry.
The legislative branch has much to do to confront and reform the judiciary and the executive branch, that is, if the House can finally install a Speaker with the guts to do the heavy lifting, especially when it comes to extravagant federal spending and the resulting economic collapse, dead ahead. [Editor: Note: this column was submitted before Republicans elected Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House.]
Meanwhile, the Founders are tearing their hair out!
The views here are those of the author and not necessarily Striker Journal.
Originally posted here.
Image: Adapted from: Matt Shirk – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38367871
Allan Erickson—Christian, husband, father, journalist, businessman, screenwriter, and author of The Cross & the Constitution in the Age of Incoherence, Tate Publishing, 2012.
Striker Journal 