I’ve written about this before, the evils perpetrated upon our constitutional republic by establishing federal agencies as a substitute for the framework of governance originally established by our founding national law. Federal agencies have effectively swept away all vestiges of the checks and balances system, and have done more to concentrate power within the federal behemoth than the election of 10 Barack Obamas consecutively could ever achieve.
Our very first federal agency was the Interstate Commerce Commission, established in February of 1887. The act granting authority to establish this agency established something called agency law. The Act itself was worded purposefully vague, and granted the agency authority to write its own rules, manage the enforcement of those rules, and depended upon the Judiciary for what little check on its power the weakest branch of our government would care to muster. The Judiciary of course elected to defer such oversight authority, deferring in almost all instances to the, “wisdom of the experts within the agencies themselves,” for such matters. With that almost exclusively followed path set forth then, continued to this day without interruption, all federal agencies effectively have the power of all three branches of our federal behemoth, concentrated within the hegemony of the current bureaucracy. What’s worse, since it is nearly impossible to fire federal workers, that bureaucracy remains in place and devoted to its own belief system, irrespective of which leadership team to manage the whole mess is actually decided upon by the American People. If for example Conservatives win national elections, the federal agencies will undoubtedly continue to run with a decidedly liberal bent, they’ll just be a little more discreet about it for 4 or 8 years.
it’s taken a while, 127 years to be more specific about it, but this very week, one of those newly formed agencies showed perfectly, why we should all be very terrified.
From the Town Hall article linked to above:
Last week the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, through the power of Dodd-Frank, passed a rule giving the agency unprecedented power to shut down businesses, no matter what the reason, at any time it wishes through a cease-and-desist order. Further, the rule puts businesses at the mercy of the CFPB and they cannot go back into operation until government approval or a court ruling is made over an issue. Subsequently because bureaucratic decisions and court rulings take a substantial amount of time to happen, businesses cannot survive during those waiting periods. Here are the details (emphasis mine):
In a notice published in today’s Federal Register, the CFPB has announced that it has adopted its interim final rule on temporary cease-and-desist orders (C&Ds) without change. The final rule takes effect on July 18, 2014.
The CFPB is authorized to issue temporary C&Ds under Section 1053(c) of Dodd-Frank. That provision authorizes a temporary C&D as an adjunct to a cease-and-desist proceeding brought under Section 1053 against a covered person or service provider. A temporary C&D is effective immediately upon service and remains in effect unless modified or terminated administratively by the CFPB or set aside on judicial review.
Reasons!? Reasons!? They don’t need no stinking reason to shut you down! This latest rule of course is being inflicted now to threaten banks who do business with gun dealers and manufacturers. So, rather than inflict gun control, which is prohibited by our Second Amendment, and further, is opposed by the vast majority of American citizens, they’ll just make certain that gun shops can not participate in the market place of capital commerce. They won’t be able to process credit card payments, deposit checks, or cash, or use checking accounts to pay their bills and such. All of course because the CCFB has granted itself this authority, and it’ll doubtless take the Judiciary a decade or so to sort it out, assuming that our weakest branch of government even cares to do so.
On Father’s day I had a conversation with a liberal. I reminded him that the entire purpose of the Second Amendment was to protect the citizens of the newly formed nation from any future government tyranny, so that the federal government would always be as afraid of its citizens as the citizens were of the government. He immediately quipped, as if I would be silly to consider that necessary today, “do you even think that’s an issue now?” When I answered you bet, he labeled me a fringe radical fanatic. (I love that softball opportunity to slap someone down by the way.) So I of course asked if his definition of a fringe radical was someone who did not wish to live under the societal rules that he agreed with and sought to inflict. That was a conversation ending question, and it felt good. This latest bit, something I wish I had in my arsenal a week ago, is that perfect example of government tyranny run completely amok.
Make no mistake about it however, this is something far bigger than the threat to use a back door method to inflict gun control. It is far bigger even than the CCFB. It is the agency system of governance itself that must be dealt with. The only President ever, who attempted to do something to reign in the out of control behemoth that our federal agencies have become, was Richard Nixon. This, as much as anything, was a reason for why he was so hated by the political left. We need the political will and fortitude not seen since Reagan to do that, and I actually have someone in mind. We’ll be discussing that on Monday. I’m going out on a limb and making an endorsement, even before anyone declares for the upcoming 2016 bloodbath.
