Transparent TyrannyOpposing it shouldn’t be bad politics. Don’t Republicans understand their duty?By George Neumayr – 11.19.14
Anxieties within the GOP over a possible government shutdown in the wake of Obama’s promise to push amnesty by unconstitutional executive order continue to grow. Those anxieties don’t show much confidence in the American voter.
The fear appears to be that voters will punish the GOP in two years for opposing Obama’s open tyranny. In other words, GOP leaders think the American people prefer unconstitutional government to a limited government shutdown aimed at stopping it. If that is true, American democracy is as degraded as Jonathan Gruber’s infamous remarks suggest.
In a healthy democracy, politicians wouldn’t even debate whether or not to fund an unconstitutional order. They would automatically defund it. That GOP leaders turn to pollsters and image consultants before deliberating on such a fundamental issue is already a bad sign. By saying in effect that they will lose their power if they defend the Constitution, they reveal the emptiness of that power.
And it is not even clear if they are correct in thinking that principled opposition constitutes bad politics. The government shutdown of 2013 obviously didn’t impede GOP success. It may have contributed to it. In any case, it is hard to see how a refusal to fund Obama’s illegal amnesty could prove more dangerous than that shutdown.
more at:
http://spectator.org/articles/61028/transparent-tyranny
