Obama AND Congress are both responsible for Americans’ loss of freedom

(Freedom.news) It’s not very popular among President Obama’s political opponents to say that the man genuinely is a constitutional scholar, but it’s true: How could someone so masterfully skirt its Executive Branch parameters and limitations unless he knew precisely where to strike, so to speak?

But what is also true is that Obama has a scholarly grasp of exactly what Washington has become: A den of self-anointed, self-interested politicians who, for the most part, couldn’t care less what their constituents want, know that most of them will be reelected anyway no matter what they do (or don’t do), who owe most of their allegiance to the same people Obama’s owes, and who are basically happy with the status quo.

Given this combination of realities, Obama has long known that his “phone and pen” strategy of imperial governance, as well as his obsession with dishonesty and opaqueness regarding his legislative and policy priorities, were never going to be seriously challenged, certainly not by Democrats but also not by a donor-neutered Republican Party.

The evidence of this truth abounds. Obama has emerged unscathed and even victorious from various scandals and battles that would have brought down administrations in earlier times. When you consider what Fast and Furious really was all about (think gun control); the political chicanery behind Benghazi; the overt deceitfulness regarding the passage of the Affordable Care Act; and his unconstitutional executive amnesty, just to name a few – millions of Americans wonder, and rightfully so, how it is Obama has not yet been impeached.

They shouldn’t wonder. Obama figured this game out a long time ago, which is why he so easily wins. But is he solely to blame for his actions?

While it can be said that a president who has taken an oath to support, uphold and defend the Constitution should be held to account, someone has to actually do that. And in our system of government, Congress is the entity charged with that duty.

There is no question Congress has failed in this duty. Time and again, when presented with the opportunity to give due diligence to the Constitution, lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have failed the American people, yes, but also the form of government they were entrusted to preserve. Further, both parties have neglected to not only protect the Constitution but also the sanctity and, in many ways primacy, of the Legislative Branch. Political popularity or allegiance to special interests should never be used as an excuse to permit a chief executive from exceeding his authority, but they so often are.

Yet Obama knew from the outset that the constitutional system he knows so well would not prevent him or hamper him or limit him in most any way, because he knew the checks and balances – actually, the people who comprise the checks and balances portion of our government – were neither up to the task nor willing to take it on.

And so the phone and pen strategy endures. The scandals become political theater. And the Constitution continues to be irrelevant.

This is a danger for all Americans regardless of their ideological stripe, because it means that our freedoms are increasingly being sacrificed at the altar of political expediency selfish agendas. They no longer matter because today we are ruled, not led, by people who believe we no longer matter.

When an elected legislature becomes dismissive of executive tyranny, and the federal court system becomes infested with political ideologues, then there are no more checks and balances.

That makes the political conditions ripe for someone like Obama. He thrives because the system our founders and subsequent American generations fought and died to bequeath us no longer exists.

From this point there are two choices: Restoration of the founding system, a long and arduous process that of course would be worth it; or the republic continues to be plundered and mismanaged until it corruption levels it, in which tyranny will most certainly follow.

There’s no better time to start the preferred restoration process than 2016. And it is an effort that is much broader than just replacing the current occupant in the White House.