We Do Not Have A Democracy, Either Direct or Representative

After Thursdays post, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but there are things of which gentle readers need to be made aware. I have harped on this before, but this is the first time I have seen another writer bring this up.  Molly Slag, at the American Thinker has a piece today entitled Do We Have A Democracy? the main point of which is that, when most of the "laws" are made, enforced by, and adjudicated by, unelected bureaucrats, no, we don't.

 It is wrong, it is unconstitutional, but you can see why Congress would like to put the burden on to unelected bureaucrats. After all, is anyone of our 535 members of Congress and the Senate really excited about PM10 or PM2.5? Can anyone but a Squad member seriously propose to spend 10s of millions dollars per person to make the country safer for the very vulnerable? And if so, why are there so many still needing oxygen units to live?

The weight of the many regulations that affect literally every aspect of our lives can be measured in dollars which one estimate puts at $1.9 trillion. Now the Office of Management and Budget claims that the "benefits" far outweigh the costs. But do they, or is this just more government gas-lighting? These regulations are usually a one size fits all sort of thing. For instance, if you need a new water closet, it will be a low flow water closet. ALL new water closets are low flow. Now, low flow may make sense in California where water is scarce. Here in North Carolina, we usually have so much water it literally flows off the land and into the rivers and streams to exit in the ocean. But when you must defecate, you also must flush at least twice, sometimes three times to get all the particles down the drain. One wonders how much water is saved?

The US Constitution provides in Article 1 Section 1:

"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."

This says in very plain words that all of the federal government’s legislative powers are vested in Congress. That means no person or institution has any power to make a federal law except Congress. Hence, no one can enact federal law except the people’s elected representatives. That is the constitutional guarantee of the representative form of democracy in the federal legislative branch.

In particular, the bureaucracy has no power to make laws. That is, no federal agency can write laws. But of course, today, they all do! Federal administrative regulations have the force of laws, and their total mass and effect are far greater than congressionally-created laws.

This points us to two recent cases challenging the Chevron Deference doctrine, which gives deference to federal agencies in cases challenging their rulings. If the Supreme Court overturns Chevron it will start to unravel the tangled web of federal regulation. But it will only be a first step in a long process of unwinding the deep state.