There comes a certain point when the law of a nation, and the media’s reporting surrounding it, ceases to have any practical value.  That point arrives when certain laws go unobserved by a ruling body, and the media fails to recognize the breach of the social contract that the violation of law represents.

That time, if we’ve been so obtuse that we are reticent to admit that it has already come, is now.

This bit of semantic tomfoolery by the New York Times is a perfect indicator:

Asserting this nation’s law with discretion, Obama intends to order changes to the law that will significantly refocus the activities of the government’s 12,000 immigration agents.  One key piece of order, officials said, will allow many parents of children who are American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents and no longer worry about being discovered, separated from their families, and sent away.

How, exactly, can one “assert” existing law by unilaterally ordering “changes” to it?  And how, if indeed such an impossible feat could be actually be accomplished, could unilaterally enacting a singular ambition of the executive branch be achieved “with discretion” in our government, which clearly defines the legislative body, as elected by the populace to duly enforce its will, as the appropriate managers of the task of creating such “law”?

Irrespective of the rhetoric a progressive might offer as rebuttal, should anything else matter beyond these simplest of facts?  Obama’s decision to legislate amnesty for millions of lawbreakers who illegally entered this country is usurpation of the legislative branch’s authority.  And as Charles Krauthammer recently declared, his apparent disregard for the limitations of his position warrants impeachment.

Don’t be fooled to think that Obama, the media, or any progressive with the slightest bit of knowledge about the idea upon which this nation was founded believes this to be legally on the up and up.  No, Obama and the media aren’t stupid, even though their bumbling defense of this proposed executive amnesty action might certainly make them seem so.  They just think the amnesty for foreign lawbreakers is necessary enough that illegal action is justifiable, and they count on the “stupidity of the American voter,” as Obamacare pitchman Dr. Jonathan Gruber put it, to allow them to enact their vision in spite of popular opinion on the matter.

So they march forward in efforts to destroy the framework of our republic; not because they have any authorized permission to do so, but because they are ideologically driven toward that end.  And they believe that their current path will yield the desired result, fully aware that the New York Times and MSNBC and the millions of dim souls they carry in tow will buy and sell the notion that Obama somehow has a legal right to be a dictator in spite of the constitutional safeguards that prohibit that course of action.  And like clockwork, he and his adoring flock will cling to and espouse the notion that somehow Congress’s inaction these past years of his presidency signifies a breakdown of the legislative process, warranting his usurpation of it. 
Hence, they have pre-emptively spun this all to be about Republican-caused gridlock in Congress to set the stage.  

Once again, we’re faced with the prospect of the government running out of money to run federal agencies in December.  That’s nothing new, of course.  Like a slumlord seeking rent from lowly, down-on-their-luck tenants, reality comes a-calling pretty frequently for America these days, as the irresponsible gaggle in Washington frivolously spends our wealth on ever more expansive social and political pursuits.  Meanwhile, the taxpayers financing their existence are cast deeper and deeper into debt, well beyond our earnings and their receipts.

So here’s a question worth asking.  When the outcome of Washington’s day-to-day activity has been the perpetual increase of debt and federal bureaucracy, what reasonable person wouldn’t welcome a bit of gridlock?  Doing nothing is a preferable outcome to perpetually increasing our debt and finding new ways for the federal government to seize wealth and otherwise impose its influence in our lives.  At least it would be for me, and for millions of like-minded conservatives.  So what we have here is an ideological divide, and nothing more.  The gridlock is not due to Republican insolence and intransigence, as Obama and his flock argue.  The gridlock is due to Republicans’ vocal constituents having disagreed with the heretofore Democrat-controlled Congress’s proposed big-government policies, and their representatives have been challenging the federal expansionist status quo. 

Public opinion at large, as recently evidenced by an election, currently favors the Republican position – at the very least in consideration to sweeping amnesty.  So in what sense, should Republicans be saddled with blame for a government shutdown caused by congressional reticence to embrace a bill, or the proposed executive action, that enacts amnesty for millions of lawbreakers?  And how on Earth could it be presumed that Democrats bear no part of the blame as they stonewall the funding of the government agencies with their unreasonable ambition, which is not only against the will of the electorate, but also potentially illegal in the most extreme constitutional sense?

Any government shutdown due to immigration debate will not be the fault of Republicans.  Only a fool or a relentless leftist ideologue could argue otherwise.  But since fools and relentless ideologues are the bread and butter that keep Democrats’ plates full, we can expect that we will hear a lot about how Obama’s rape of the Constitution is necessary, and that his executive “discretion” is justifiable.

But no amount of nuanced rhetoric or spin can change the fact that if there is indeed a government shutdown, Obama will be to blame.

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.