The great American experiment is based on the revolutionary idea that power flows from the people not the government; the rights of people granted by the Creator, not the Divine right of kings.

Lincoln encapsulated that when he said:

…government of the people, by the people, for the people…

The Constitution defines a government where the people exercise power by electing -- and getting rid of -- politicians. Because in the vision created by the Framers, laws can only be created by the people’s representatives, Congress, the people control, albeit indirectly, what laws are passed.

This makes sense, since the people are the ones who have to deal with the consequences of any law passed by Congress. If people have no control over those who pass laws, then there is tyranny; a group of elites who can command the people and who the people cannot remove.

The sad reality is that America is no longer a country run by a government of the people. Decades of fascist maneuvering by Democrats has destroyed the representational nature of American government and disenfranchised the people.

The elimination of people power began with the Supreme Court’s acceptance of the idea of the “living” Constitution; i.e., the idea that the Constitution means whatever 5 judges thinks it means rather than what the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution thought it meant.

Irrespective of how one feels about reading a criminal their rights, it’s absurd on the face of it to believe that the Founders felt that Mirandizing criminals was a Constitutional necessity, given that no one had broached the subject in the first 100 years after the Constitution was ratified.

Similarly, one can be for abortion yet admit that nowhere in the Constitution is there any “right to privacy” nor did the Framers think that the Constitution would legalize a practice they abhorred. Instead, the Court imposed on America its personal morality. A court that decides what it thinks the Constitution should mean is no different in nature than a monarch such as King George III; the Court overriding the laws of all 50 states and legalizing abortion for any reason at any point in a pregnancy is of the same nature as King George III unilaterally demanding that Americans house British soldiers in their homes.

Recently the Court has solidified its power by declaring that citizens don’t have the right to sue when politicians don’t enforce the laws passed by the people directly. Seven million Californians passed Prop 8 that declared that marriage was between a man and a woman. The fascist Democrat politicians of California, including Jerry Brown, refused to defend the people’s law showing that Democrats do not believe that power flows from the people. But if the people don’t have standing to demand that the laws they pass be enforced clearly the people, in the eyes of the Supreme Court, have no power.

Similarly, Eric Holder and Obama declared themselves above the law by refusing to enforce DOMA -- and encouraging state attorneys-general to do the same. Clearly, if politicians can pick and choose which laws to follow, the people have no power, since even if they manage to get laws enacted, the people have no assurance that their “rulers” will follow those laws.

Of course, Obama’s imperial presidency and his refusal to act as though there are any Constitutional restraints on his personal power also work to remove the people from the decision-making process. However, rather than using his pen, Obama usually relies on the hoards of overpaid government workers to enforce his will on the people.

The final step in disenfranchising the American people and making them subjects of a new royal class composed of government bureaucrats, judges, and politicians has been the rise of what’s called administrative law; rules created by unelected government workers that Americans must follow.

In America today, if Democrats think that men accused of rape on college campuses should be denied due process they need not pass a law, rather they only need an unelected and essentially unfireable government bureaucrat to write a letter to colleges threatening to remove all federal funding unless men’s due process is removed.

Similarly if Democrats wish to crush the poor with massive increases in their energy bills they need not pass a law. Instead they just have the EPA issue a mandate that essentially outlaws coal burning power plants that will dramatically increase energy costs; a highly regressive “tax” since the poor spend a much higher percentage of their money on energy than do the rich and middle class.

The elimination of people power helps explains why the Democrat agenda advances despite electoral wins by Republicans. While many Republicans are in fact more interested in the donor class than the people, the reality is that under the government described by the Constitution, Democrats could not just stonewall. To advance their agenda Democrats would have to compromise. We saw that during the Reagan administration, where the Democrats had to go along with key parts of Reagan’s agenda in order to further their own objectives.

Today the Court and unelected bureaucrats can further the Democrat agenda without Congress doing anything. Hence Democrats have no need to compromise.

Gridlock is the result not of partisanship but of the institutionalization of Democrat power through the Courts and administrative law -- and of course Obama’s executive orders. Because Democrats can get what they want without Congress passing laws, Democrats need not compromise and they know that the MSM will blame Republicans for Congress’s lack of action.

Tip O’Neill had to work with Reagan in order to get what he wanted; Pelosi and Reid don’t have to work with Ryan or McConnell to get what they want.

If anyone doubts that Americans are now controlled by their masters in government, they only need look at the fact that not only do government workers have job security, something the people don’t have in the Obama economy, but that they earn 78% more, on average, than the people. Liberals claim that that’s because government jobs require more skills than private sector jobs. That claim shows just how elitist liberals are -- they actually believe that being a government paper pusher is more demanding than being a plumber, a software engineer, or the owner of a small business.

In the Soviet Union, the nomenklatura, the ruling class, was marked by its special privileges and its higher pay, just like government employees and politicians in America today. Following the money tells us who are the rulers and who are the ruled in America today.

To turn this around we need to eliminate the ability of unelected government workers to make law and we need to reign in the Supreme Court.

It’s time for conservatives to demand power for the people and a return to what should be all American’s rightful inheritance; a government for, by, and of the people.

You can read more of tom’s rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious and feel free to follow him on Twitter