Mob rule II

As I said in an earlier posting, politicians love mobs.  Especially irrational, unthinking mobs focused only on short term solutions. 

Mobs don’t care about any rights except their own.  They ignore rules or laws that stand in the way of what they want. Nor do they care about the consequences of their actions.   

All that makes mobs so attractive to politicians.  Well, as long as the mob is the majority, and remains on their side. 

And there, my friends, is the inherent danger of mobs and pure majority rule.  Sooner or later, all mobs dissipate, majorities switch, and you are left with the aftermath. 

The founders wanted a democracy – within limits

The founders tried desperately to stave off mob rule and potential abuse by a majority.  The balance of power incorporated into the design of our government was not an accident.  The Electoral College was not created on a whim.   The founders thought long and hard about how to preserve the rights of the minority in the face of challenges from the majority. 

They knew that absolute power almost inevitably led to abuse of power.  And that’s also why they created limits on what the Federal government was permitted – and precluded – from doing. 

They recognized that if everything was decided by popular vote, with no checks and balances in place, we’d end up with a populist dictator.  We’d get someone who would promise the masses everything to seize power, and then use the resources of the government to retain power.

It wasn’t as if they didn’t understand what could happen under autocratic rule. 

We’d fought against a king and defeated his armies to gain our independence.  We had seen that absolute power corrupted absolutely, firsthand.  We had rebelled against unjust rules and laws forced on us without our consent.  We rose up against restrictions on our freedoms.  And finally we went to war to reclaim our rights, our liberties, and to throw off the vestiges of a corrupt form of government that existed entirely for itself at the expense of the people it governed. 

Sound familiar? 

The nuclear option and autocratic rule

Well, with the Senate vote to eliminate filibusters on many Presidential appointments – engaging the so-called nuclear option – we’ve taken yet another step toward mob rule and the entrenchment of a pure autocratic state.

From now on, many appointments can be confirmed by the Senate with a simple 50 +1 majority vote.  This gives the party in control of the White House and Senate the ability to place almost anyone they want on a series of Federal courts, but not – at least for now – on the Supreme Court. 

The Democrats had been stymied in their attempts to get a number of new Obama-nominated judges appointed to a variety of courts, and to some executive branch positions.  Republicans threatened to filibuster many of the nominees, which would then require a vote for cloture in the Senate, which would take 60 votes to pass.  And the Democrats knew they couldn’t get 60 votes. 

So they invalidated a Senate tradition of more than 200 years that had enabled minority parties to hold up Presidential nominees to executive branch positions and to Federal courts.  Now all you need is a majority in the Senate.      

Why is this important? Its most dramatic impact will be on who gets Federal judgeships. 

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have always been political battlefields.  Both parties have tried to place judges on the benches they think will be favorable to their causes.  Sometimes this works and they get an ideological stalwart; sometimes they get surprised.  Over time a sure-fire conservative can become more liberal and a rock-solid liberal can become more conservative once they are on the Federal bench. 

There’s always that risk, and many Federal court appointments are for life. 

Most of the current battle is over the Federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is a unique entity in many ways.  It tends to get cases that involve Federal regulations.  It’s also seen as a stepping stone for many justices to get to the Supreme Court.

Problem is, that court is currently balanced with an equal number of Democrat and Republican appointed full-time judges.  The Democrats want to add several new judges to that court, obviously hoping to tip the balance and set up a pipeline of more liberal- and regulatory-friendly judges for the next Supreme Court vacancies.  Republicans, of course, want to stop them. 

Hence the impasse.  And the reason why Democrats invoked the nuclear option.       

With the Senate in control of the Democrats, and with Obama in the White House, it’s pretty much clear sailing to do whatever they want in terms of appointments.  They can stack Federal courts with far-left loons if they like and there’s nothing to stop them.  They can turn the D.C. Circuit Court into a rubber stamp for any regulations they feel like imposing.

Since Obama’s already shown a proclivity toward ruling by fiat – using Executive Orders in place of legislation, spawning regulations without Congressional input, much less approval and deciding which laws he will or won’t enforce – this was one of the last checks on his power grabs.

And now it’s gone.  He is officially the King of America.  He can pretty much do whatever he wants.  The only thing standing in his way is the House.  

His supporters are thrilled.  They think this will allow them to shape policy through the courts for years to come.  What they can’t get in legislation, they’ll finagle through regulations, acquiesced to by friendly judges appointed by like-minded progressives.  That’s the plan. 

There’s only one flaw.  When and if the Republicans ever retake the Senate and the White House, the tables will be turned.  Payback will be a bitch. 

The only time it’s good to have dictatorial powers is when you are the dictator. 

When you're not in power anymore, life sucks.