The Enemy Within­–and It’s Not Donald Trump

Matt Vespa

 

Despite calls from people who claim they will flee the county if Donald Trump is elected president, this new book is sort of a timeout from the partisan noise. As some already know, especially the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party, both sides are up to their necks concerning the expansion of government power. In short, Democrats federal expansion when it comes to social services and the welfare state; Republicans act in a similar manner when it comes to national security policy and the Pentagon.

Both areas are fraught with danger concerning trampling American civil liberties and constitutional rights, not to mention setting our wallets aflame in wasted tax dollars or increasing debt. Yet, the most damage isn't necessarily concentrated in the Capitol building, though that's where the life blood comes from, but the various administrative arms that dot Washington.

The gross unchecked power of Washington’s bureaucracy is exactly what John Yoo and Dean Reuter want to illustrate in the book Liberty’s Nemesis:

If there has been a unifying theme of Barack Obama’s presidency, it is the inexorable growth of the administrative state. This expansion has followed a pattern:

• First, expand federal powers beyond their constitutional limits.
• Second, delegate those powers to agencies and away from the elected politicians in Congress.
• Third, insulate civil servants from politics and accountability. Since its introduction in American life by Woodrow Wilson in the 20th Century, the administrative state's has steadily undermined democratic self-government, reduced the sphere of individual liberty, and burdened the free market and economic grown[…]

Many Americans have rightly shared the Founders’ fear of excessive lawmaking, but Liberty’s Nemesis is the first book to explain why the concentration of power in administrative agencies in particular is the greatest – and most overlooked – threat to our liberties today.

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