We live in a constitutional republic in which our elected officials are bound by the constraints of the Constitution, which means they don't have a license to do whatever they please, even if they think it would be best for the country.



That President Barack Obama so flagrantly violates this enshrined legal principle and much of his Democratic Party supports him in doing so is why so many other people are outraged and, at times, fear for their country.



Under past presidents in my lifetime (I was born after FDR), Republican and Democratic, we have not had to live in fear that the party controlling the executive branch would become a law unto itself. Mockers will cite President Richard Nixon's transgressions, but they don't register a blip on the radar compared with the colossal abuses of power this president and his party routinely engage in.



Many of us — and I'm not talking about the type inclined toward conspiracy theories, which I most definitely am not — truly wonder what these people will do next. How will they act outside the scope of their constitutional authority to take action they claim will be beneficial? It doesn't matter if their planned actions will be beneficial. Illegal actions are not permitted, even if for ostensibly benign purposes, lest we descend into tyranny and lose our liberties.



Leftists, who own and control the Democratic Party, subscribe to the axiom that the ends justify the means, so it is hardly surprising that they are so casual about the limitations on government institutionally imposed by the Constitution. They believe — and daily demonstrate, in general terms — that if a policy is desirable, they will find a way to implement it, irrespective of whether they have the constitutional authority to do so. It's such an antiquated document, after all.



This is such a dangerous mindset and one that will inevitably lead to the end of the republic as we know it if we don't get control of it.



Under no other president, for example, would I have worried that we might find the executive branch attempting to enter into an agreement with a foreign country involving something as monumentally important as nuclear weapons without acknowledging the obvious truth of its being a treaty and requiring the Senate's approval. Indeed, it is so clear that Obama has no authority to do this I am almost surprised that even he has had the audacity to attempt it. But nothing from this man should surprise me or anyone else anymore.



Intellectually dishonest leftists can play semantic games and engage in legal sophistry all day long about such an agreement's not falling within the legal parameters of a treaty, but every last one of them knows better.



Thank goodness that some Democrats have taken the honorable position and forced Obama to confer with the Senate, but it is deplorable that we would ever get to the point that the Senate needs to be voting on a matter validating its own unambiguous authority and duty under the Constitution.



This is disgraceful.



Given that Obama told a group he had no authority under the Constitution to grant amnesty on his own when Congress had affirmatively rejected the DREAM Act, we know he intellectually comprehends the constraints on his executive power. When he reneged on his statement within a short period of time and took unilateral action anyway, we had further confirmation that he is not only disingenuous and insincere but also an opportunistically rogue president.



People think they know the difference between a democracy and a republic. But some of them don't appear to understand that for our republic to work, the rule of law has to be honored. This means that we are a nation of laws, not men, such that all people, even our president and all other elected officials, are bound by the law.



Our constitutional republic has a major democratic element: The people elect their representatives, and they are also the ones with the vested interest in ensuring that these representatives act within the law. When elected officials thumb their noses at the law and do what they please, they are disenfranchising the voters and systematically dismantling the very system that ensures our liberties.



Obama, with his faux compassion and tolerance, has, with the sinister stroke of his poison pen, not only granted legal status to millions of immigrants in wanton violation of the Constitution but also bestowed major substantive benefits on them that affect the rest of us. He has granted some 541,000 people Social Security numbers, which, according to Sen. Jeff Sessions, will enable them to draw federal tax credits and Social Security retirement and disability benefits.



If this is anywhere close to accurate, people should be utterly outraged and appalled. The people, through their elected representatives, are supposed to have a say in these matters, and they've already spoken legislatively against Obama's action, which, along with so many of his other ones, shows he has no respect for the rights of the people and that he has cynical contempt for the Constitution.



If you think I'm being too harsh, then I think you are being too complacent. This is our nation unraveling before our eyes. When will more people speak up against these abuses? When will Obama's party, including its rank and file, demand law and order from the highest elected official in the land?