Government of the bureaucrats, by the bureaucrats, for the bureaucrats

The tyranny of the bureaucracy

…government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -
Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

The founders of America, in forming a union between independent states, set out to create a new and unique government, one free from tyranny, whether autocratic, oligarchic, or of the majority. For this reason, they rejected the ideas of monarchy, socialism, pure democracy, and others. Instead, they instituted a republican form of government wherein the people would elect to office individuals who would serve as their representatives. These representatives would be responsible for legislating within the bounds of the founding documents that were established to frame the workings of the government, and they would be responsible for ensuring the rights and liberty of the people were protected.

Somewhere along the line, things broke. The government began creating agencies, bureaus, centers and commissions, and departments. As often happens with bankruptcy, his phenomenon came slowly at first, and then all at once. I personally attribute much of this to the ratification of the sixteenth and seventeenth amendments, and have written specifically about the seventeenth amendment:

Who broke the republic?!?!

While the government certainly may create entities to enforce laws passed by Congress, we’ve run into the problem of these entities enacting rules and regulations that are treated as, for all intents and purposes, laws. This violates the Constitution:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 1

The entirety of the very first section of the Constitution assigns all legislative power to Congress - no one else. No bureaucracy has power to legislate, only to enforce. The Constitution likewise does not give Congress authority to delegate their legislative power. Section 8 of Article 1 details much of Congress’ power, and the last paragraph provides a little more info on their legislative power:

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8, Paragraph 18

There are specific powers enumerated to Congress in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, and it is for these purposes and the purposes of executing any other powers granted by the Constitution to government, or to departments or officers of government, that Congress has the power to make laws. Nowhere is Congress granted authority to delegate legislative responsibility.

Nonetheless, over the years, the people and the States have tacitly, and perhaps unwittingly, ceded their rights, their power, to the federal government and the bureaucracy. Herein lies the problem. The bureaucracy has grown so overwhelmingly large, so far-reaching in its scope, that the federal government, a polity that was intended to be small and limited, is now the largest employer in the country. I can’t imagine what the salaries, benefits, and pensions alone cost the American taxpayers on an annual basis, never mind all of their drunken-sailor-on-shore-leave deficit spending; but the problem goes far beyond finance. This alphabet soup of agencies is essentially running the country.

As the bureaucracy grew, so did the powers delegated to it, or assumed by it. As already stated, these organizations make rules and regulations that are treated as law. Violation of their rules and regulations carry fines and may incur jail time; how else, then, are we to view these other than laws? Perhaps a few examples would prove helpful. President Biden attempted to use OSHA to force businesses to mandate, under threats of hefty fines, that their employees take the Covid shots. The ATF, who at one time approved of stabilizing braces for firearms defined as “pistols” (generally, pistol length carbines), just passed a new rule regarding these devices, which were purchased legally by millions of Americans, such that, if within 120 days of the rule being published in the National Register the firearms with these devices installed are not registered with the ATF, or the braces removed, the owner will instantly become a felon. The FDA is in a continuous quest to regulate nutritional supplements. The SEC can fine companies, and have executives jailed, for violating many of their regulations. They have now created a task force to go after corporations for ESG-related “violations.” Do I even need to elaborate on the IRS or the Department of the Treasury? There are so many of these bureaus regulating so many matters that they touch or impact virtually every aspect of our lives. By what Constitutional principle are they granted this power? Where is the article or section detailing the regulatory power of the bureaucracy? There is none! Yet all of these agencies are staffed by unelected officials who legislate by fiat. This is the very definition of tyranny. This is the tyranny of the bureaucracy.

Perhaps worse, the people also have little recourse against these groups. While we go to the ballot box to re-elect or replace our representatives, bureaucrats sit safely in their appointed slots. They give the appearance, often, of answering to Congress or the President, yet shy of retirement or moving through one of the many revolving doors between the public and private sectors, they rarely change position. It is in roles like these that so many fail upward (Anthony Fauci is a perfect example of this phenomenon - a man who failed his way to the top of the NIAID). Such people deliberate and debate and then dictate decrees to which they demand our deference.

There is also a lot of money in many of these posts. The aforementioned Mr. Fauci was, prior to his retirement, the highest paid bureaucrat in the federal government. Many who traverse the turnstile between the bureaucracy and corporate America make fortunes doing so by first enacting regulations to benefit the businesses into which they bounce. One of the most prominent of these portals exists between the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry. Scott Gottlieb exemplifies this for us in having been commissioner of the FDA from 2017 through 2019, and leaving to become a member of the board of directors for Pfizer (he currently holds multiple positions in addition to his Pfizer board role, and he also fought to have Twitter censor what he deemed “Covid misinformation”).

It would be one thing if the people’s plenipotentiaries were penning proposals to pass to the president; it is quite another for unelected officials to be drafting decrees under a delegatory system of government. Unfortunately, it will be a gelid 24-hour period in the nether world before any of these organizations relinquish the illegitimate power granted them.

According to our founding documents, power in this country flows from we the people, not from the government nor the bureaucracy that has largely consumed it. Therefore, we the people need to reclaim our rightful power and demand our representatives diligently defund and dissolve these departments with all due dispatch. If we wish to return to the type of government explicated by Lincoln, and by the Declaration of Independence, a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, we must pour the alphabet soup down the drain. Until then, our worst laws will remain better than the bureaucratic tyranny to which we are being subjected.