Reclaiming CNMI self-government

“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher,” Abraham Lincoln observed in 1838. It’s a relevant quote, putting into perspective how Congress has turned the federal government into an “administrative state,” according to Dr. Mathew Spalding, director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

Said he, “Congress passes massive pieces of legislation with little serious deliberation and is increasingly an administrative body overseeing a vast array of bureaucratic policymakers and rule-making bodies. Although the Constitution vests legislative powers in Congress, the majority of ’laws’ are promulgated by administrative agencies under the guise of ’regulations’-a form of rule by bureaucrats who are mostly unaccountable and invisible to the public.” It’s important to know that the creation of “lordship” of federal bureaucrats is far removed from the basic principle of the “consent of the governed.”

Spalding quoted Alexis de Tocqueville who “warned of a tendency of democracies, bent on bringing about equal results in all cases, to succumb to a centralized and consolidated government that promises to master every social condition and outcome in pursuit of this elusive goal. Government would become the all-powerful instrument serving these insatiable appetites. Self-governing citizens would degrade themselves into passive subjects of an impersonal, bureaucratic nation-state.”

If you will, people could normally resolve differences on most major issues but they shy from doing so as to allow government to step in. When it does, we surrender what’s rightfully ours and in the process allow government to gain control over our lives, as it waxes more intrusive via the law of unintended consequences. The symbiosis is self-perpetuating. The U.S. Constitution is the paramount law of the land. It gave the federal government limited power. It provides for representative institutions, not lords in a federal nation-state.

To acquiesce federal intrusion is itself a quiet admission that it is fine to compromise self-government that can only hail from the “consent of the governed.” Federal lords would feed upon an authority that was never granted them by the U.S. Constitution. Thus, it would be exacting a government that dictates whimsically. This must be denied forthwith!

The Obama administration has forked out some 84 major regulations, excluding future regulations. No wonder the convulsion of the national economy sputtering to death. Too, there are 144 major pending regulations that would cost $100 million each. It seems the new role of our national government is analogous to a stagecoach careening wildly with people’s money, trampling pedestrians and smashing everything on its way. If you will, this is what they did to the local economy–trampled it into total paralysis.

Given the economic hardship forced by federal laws of sheer uncertainty and paralyzing economic contraction, it is imperative that leadership collectively pins down explicitly the additional costs piled on private industries since the imposition of federal immigration and minimum wage. Let’s show this to sponsors of the two laws. It’s also good to know exactly how these federal impositions have sent the local economy into convulsion now hooked to life support of some sort, awaiting its last breath.

Dr. Spalding warns all citizens of the task ahead: “We must restore America’s principles-the truths to which we are dedicated-as the central idea of our nation’s public philosophy. But before we can rededicate ourselves as a nation to these principles we must rediscover them as a people. Only when we know these principles once again can we renew America.

“Only when we understand the significance of these principles can we grasp the nobility of our accomplishments as a people and see how far we have strayed off course as a nation. Only then can we realize the societal choices before us and begin to develop a strategy to reclaim our future.”

We also must do likewise. Our narrative is simple: Tell the feds self-government is founded on “the consent of the governed.” We’re not ready to settle for lordships.

Difficult as it may seem

Understandably, most politicians here would be at a loss if they were to navigate the principle of the “consent of the governed.” It is demonstrative of the incipiency and obvious intransigence of the elected elite to return to basics so they can understand what those principles say especially as it relates to constitutional limitations on federal and state powers. Furthermore, simple research would give each policymaker or good students of government clarity of understanding that government and its mandates hail from the “consent of the governed.”

It brings home what the founding fathers had in mind when they wrote the preamble of our country’s Constitution that starts with “We the people.” Notice, it never says “we the lords” of federal agencies who relish writing umpteen number of regulations and insist that they be followed. No sir! Such lordship has caused major dissatisfaction among people throughout the union who declare that such arrangement is so far removed from the founding principles of our country.

We must value highly the system of first principles with unconditional conviction. It’s time to recapture the future of our country and this archipelago with untiring vigilance to guard what rightfully belongs to “We the people.”

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If the NMI wishes to rebuild the prevailing dysfunctional relationship with the feds, then it needs to convey official communication to appropriate federal officials to seek formal discussion of issues. Posturing in the pages of newspapers satisfies the ego but only renders our barking up the wrong tree. Bring the issue formally to Washington where both sides could engage in constructive discussions to rebuild and establish synergistic working relationship. Must do it sooner than later so the healing process begins. It would grant everyone the opportunity to work together to reclaim the future of our country and these isles. Must return to “We the people.”