Separation of Powers

Remember American history class, or "civics" or "government" class, where you were taught that the genius of the Founders, guaranteeing out liberties against encroachment by the central government, depended on the "separation of powers" among various chunks of its organization? They were going to fight each other like dogs, and no Big Dog was supposed to emerge to rip our throats out. Well, with all due respect to those Founders (and, believe it or not, I actually do have a modicum of respect for them), look how well that's worked out:

The Obama administration is warning Congress that if it doesn't move to regulate greenhouse gases, the Environmental Protection Agency will take a "command-and-control" role over the process in way that could hurt business.

The warning, from a top White House economic official who spoke Tuesday on condition of anonymity, came on the eve of EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's address to the international conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Denmark.

[ ... ]

"If you don't pass this legislation, then ... the EPA is going to have to regulate in this area," the official said. "And it is not going to be able to regulate on a market-based way, so it's going to have to regulate in a command-and-control way, which will probably generate even more uncertainty."

Lots of your supposed liberty was based on the idea that the legislature -- Congress -- is directly elected (House members) or indirectly elected (senators) by you. Now the non-elected bureaucrats of the "regulatory agencies" (surely, a notion that would have surprised those sainted Founders quite a lot) are warning your elected representatives that they'd best do right, or those same agencies are going to take over and command-and-control us. Command and control? I don't remember joining the army; do you?

I guess you're not required to remember joining. I guess you join just by living here.