An intriguing and distressing feature of the Biden administration and congressional Democrats is that both have a propensity for law-breaking and lawmaking.  They’re different sides of the same coin.  While the former is obviously bad, in the wrong hands, the latter is no less wicked.  Lawmaking, when done punitively, for gross partisan advantage, when favoring some over the many, and/or for pure power acquisition, will as easily offend and injure those citizens subject to bad laws as any violation of law.                

Said the ancient Roman thinker Tacitus: “The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”

Tacitus’ wisdom is timeless, for what do we see from the Biden administration and the Democrat-run Congress but a profusion of initiatives that they intend to make laws -- laws that meet the criteria for being bad. 

To date, systemic inertia -- due, in large part, to thin Democrat congressional majorities -- internal divisions and squabbling, and a grasping incompetence have roadblocked the Democrats’ ambitious agenda.  Pray that the GOP captures Congress in the midterms.    

What, after all, is the “For the People Act” but a federalization of state elections for the purpose of granting Democrats naked partisan advantages in future elections?  It’s a gambit to entrench one-party rule.  It’s banana republic worthy. 

The Heritage Foundation did a deep dive into the ruinous impact of H.R. 1 on elections across the nation.  Heritage’s report sums up the potential damage:

The H.R. 1 would federalize and micromanage the election process, imposing unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional mandates on the states.

It would reverse the decentralization of the American election process -- an essential protection of our liberty and freedom.

It would implement nationwide the worst changes in election rules that occurred in 2020 and further damage or eliminate basic security protocols.

If Democrats ever pass this monstrosity, what, then, are the consequences for at least half the country?  Answer: Disenfranchisement.  That’s not merely a perception that one’s vote doesn’t count, it’s actually one’s vote not counting in a rigged system.  So malevolent an offense against so fundamental a right will cause tens of millions of citizens to regard all law as suspect, if not outright counterfeit. 

In a free country, a government’s legitimacy flows from the people.  If Democrats manage to rig elections by law, then it follows that those “elected” to make and enforce the laws are illegitimate and will be regarded as such.  Their power will derive from their ability and willingness to manipulate and use force -- implied or evident -- to impose laws upon the people. 

While no citizen likes all laws, and no law is perfect, laws are generally respected and complied with when the processes by which they arrive are generally deemed fair.  The process of striking, reforming, or replacing laws must likewise be arrived at through processes that are broadly recognized as reasonable.      

It isn’t hyperbole to state that H.R. 1 in itself is a recipe for national tumult and subsequent disintegration.

Another potential offender is the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion infrastructure measure, so-called, which is the subject of internal Democrat haggling now.  The initiative’s price tag is expected to be reduced to within the $1.5 -$2 trillion range to appease Joe Manchin, who’s something of a tightwad by Democrat standards.      

But it isn’t just the insane profligacy of the measure that makes for bad law (the nation is daily clocking nearer a mindboggling $30 trillion in debt).  It’s everything loaded into this absurdly massive 2,465-page bill that makes it all the more toxic.  Democrats have decorated this measure with rights- and liberty-trampling provisions. 

So great the governmental overreach in this proposal, so numerous the offenses against citizens, it’s hard to prioritize what’s worse. 

Let’s highlight the IRS bank account snooping provision.  The Daily Signal’s October 20 discussion with Jessica Allen, the executive director for Heritage Action for America, lays bare this provision’s dreadfulness.    

Per the Daily Caller, October 26, Manchin appears to have nixed the idea of a more intrusive IRS -- nixed it for now.  Understand, though, that in a bill so sprawling, there are ways Democrats can, last minute, sneak in language that at least opens the door to the IRS having future access to your bank statements.  Vigilance is advised.

Allen had this to say about the IRS proposal:

We saw yet just yesterday that they’re changing the threshold from $600 to $10,000 in bank transactions, then it would require the IRS to be allowed to be able to snoop in your bank account.

Well, if you’re an average American, you probably have $10,000 worth of bank transactions a year just by simply paying rent or simply paying your mortgage. And so to think that this is all of a sudden going to limit the spine or weaponizing of the IRS against Americans is just not true. Biden is trying to appease us, but he’s really missing the point. We don’t want to see American institutions going after us, going after all of us, everyday average Americans. And that’s what this bill does.

While Manchin may have -- temporarily -- stopped the Democrats’ goal of spying on your bank transactions, the measure brims with other “bad.” 

It pushes the largest illegals’ amnesty in history, and as Allen states, “[I]t’s a huge amount of cost on taxpayers, let alone the issue of safety and security when we have a crumbling border...”

Then there are the unhinged “climate change” provisions that will pile costs and regulations on an already burdened economy.  Federal climate change subsidies feed boondoggles.   

Despite Jen Psaki’s sophomoric spin -- that spending won’t be paid for through higher taxes -- Allen warns that “taxes are going to increase” across the board. 

Senators Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema simply can’t strike enough horrid provisions to make this legislation acceptable.   

Now let’s take a quick look at Democrats’ lawbreaking. 

It accelerated in 2016 with Hillary Clinton’s collusion with the DoJ, FBI, and CIA, principally, in trying to smear Donald Trump and derail his presidential campaign.  This criminal effort continued and doubled down during Trump’s presidency -- an effort replete with a special counsel (led by Robert Mueller), relentless harassment, and culminating in two unwarranted impeachments. 

Whereas blue America may take smug satisfaction from their politicians conspiring with top federal appointees and bureaucrats to try to destroy a duly elected president, half or better of America took notes.  If the system can be weaponized to attempt to down a blameless president, what says that the feds can’t waylay ordinary citizens -- like parents whose “crime” is objecting to school curricula at local school board meetings?  Aren’t those folk domestic terrorists, Merrick Garland?    

Finally, Monday on Fox News, Tucker Carlson took aim at Biden breaking the nation’s border and immigration laws.  The segment is worth watching in its entirety.  Said Carlson:

So why hasn't he [Biden] been impeached? Not because he has bad character or is senile, but because he is breaking federal law. Not long ago, Joe Biden would have been impeached for that. Even Democrats understood not so long ago that immigration law is fundamental to any country.

In fact, why isn’t Biden being impeached?  Doesn’t the presidential oath of office mean anything anymore?  What is the magnitude of injuries to the rule of law resulting from lawbreaking and bad lawmaking by wantonly partisan and ideologically driven Democrats? 

As fantasy writer Anne Bishop penned: “When honor and the Law no longer stand on the same side of the line, how do we choose[?]”                          

J. Robert Smith can be found regularly at Gab @JRobertSmith and occasionally on Parler, again @JRobertSmith.  He also blogs at Flyover.

Image: House Democrats

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