Fund Your Utopia Without Me.™

11 July 2013

Jonathan Chait, Why Would Anyone Have Anything But 'A Burgeoning Hatred For Lawmaking' Considering...





'One of the novel developments in conservative thought during the Obama years is a burgeoning hatred not merely for government but for lawmaking. Before the Obama era, the ends of crafting laws divided the parties, but the means did not. The process of corralling votes, placating hold-outs, and hammering out compromises was not something either side especially loved — you’ve heard the classic line about watching the sausage get made — but also not something that one side disliked more than the other. But a hatred for lawmaking has emerged in the Obama years, first as a Republican tactic, and then as an apparently genuine belief system.

The distrust for lawmaking is the main argument — wait, “argument” is too strong; maybe premise? — of a rare joint op-ed by Rich Lowry and William Kristol, editors of the National Review and the Weekly Standard. Lowry and Kristol urge House Republicans to kill immigration reform, because passing it would involve legislating, and legislating is bad.

They don’t put it exactly like that, of course.'

- Jonathan Chait, Conservatives Hate All Legislation Now, New York magazine, 9 July 2013




Why should anyone in the country have nothing but a 'burgeoning hatred for lawmaking'?

Does the Fed government enforce the immigration laws on the books?

No.


Do the Feds (down 40% from the Bush administration) and many states enforce the 18,000 gun laws that are already on the books?

 No.


Do the Feds not ignore laws that they do not like?

Yes.


Does the President not decide whether laws will be enforced or implemented - even if the laws specify how the Federal government MUST ENFORCE a law or how it MUST IMPLEMENT it?

 Yes, see Obamacare (employer mandate, the CLASS Act, and income verification, to name three); immigration laws; and DOMA before Section 2 was struck down?


Does the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court not rewrite laws to achieve his aim even if those laws were already rewritten by Congress before passage so as to be specific in its intent?

Yes. See Obamacare, specifically.


So, pray tell, Jon, why on Earth would anyone want more laws when the Feds do not enforce or adhere to the laws already on the books and further legislation will only serve to erect 'a multitude of New Offices, and sen[d] hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance'... for the sole purpose of fatiguing [Americans] into compliance with [their] measures'?

You'd have to be insane, a Loyalist, and/or a glutton for punishment.




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