Questionable Presidential Authority

 

Limits on presidential authority are something that we’ve discussed before on Ricochet. The topic comes up again with Joe Biden’s mandate through OSHA that companies fire employees who haven’t been vaccinated for COVID-19, unless they submit to a weekly test. This post is not about arguing for or against vaccines. I don’t care if you are for or against these vaccines, as there are oodles of posts that cover that topic already. What I am concerned about is the trend of making the presidency a more and more powerful office with each generation.

Does anyone claim with a straight face that when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was established by Congress in 1971 that members of Congress believed they were giving the agency the power to dictate that companies fire employees? How many people in 1971 thought that it would be kosher for a future president to use OSHA to command companies to fire tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or conceivably even millions of people? There is the black-and-white letter of the law and there is reality. The reality is that government tends to do whatever it can get away with. If the citizenry makes enough noise or files enough lawsuits, maybe government will back down and obey the law. If the citizens shrug, mutter, and get on with things, government will continue to act as if it has a particular authority, regardless of what the law actually says.

So what happens next? What else may President Biden decide should be a fireable offense? We know the left loves programs like racial sensitivity training. Numerous Ricochet members have relayed stories of the nonsensical programs or presentations they are obliged to sit through at their jobs. Does anyone doubt that there are progressive Democrats who think everyone (or at least everyone white) really ought to be required to attend programs like this? But that’s crazy, right? No president would command all companies to send their employees to racial/cultural sensitivity classes and fire the refuseniks. But why not?

1. COVID-19 is so deadly serious that the president can command companies to fire people who are not vaccinated. Public health officials last year advised that everyone who can work from home should do so, and that non-essential businesses should voluntarily close their doors temporarily to stop the spread. Many state governments had emergency proclamations that forced non-essential businesses to close for weeks or months, because the threat was perceived to be that deadly.

2. Racism is apparently a far greater threat than COVID-19. Many public health officials said that while you shouldn’t go to work, school, sporting events, weddings, funerals, or even Thanksgiving dinner with your family; gathering in large crowds to demonstrate for George Floyd and against racist cops was fine because racism in America is by far a greater threat than COVID-19.

3. If Covid is a 5 on a 1-10 scale of national dangers and racism is a 10, and you can must be fired for not fighting Covid with every possible tool, why shouldn’t the president be able to dictate your dismissal for not attending classes endorsed or maybe even taught by Black Lives Matter?

We’re also told that climate change driven by CO2 is the greatest threat mankind has ever faced.  Maybe Joe Biden should order companies to fire employees who drive to work when they live within walking or bicycling distance.  Who knows what a president may fire you for in the future if this mandate comes to pass?

The inclination of some will be to say that’s why we need to replace Biden with a Republican. I agree that there are a hundred good reasons to replace Biden with a Republican, but would argue that no president from any party ought to have the authority to command companies to fire employees. I could elaborate on this but don’t want to turn this into a fight over a certain ex-president. Suffice it to say that Democrats who are supportive of this president having this much power should ask themselves if it might not backfire when there is another Republican president.

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  1. HankRhody Freelance Philosopher Contributor
    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
    @HankRhody

    Randy Weivoda: no president from any party ought to have the authority to command companies to fire employees.

    This is the heart of the matter. Getting tangled in the law and the supreme court decisions and all that; that’s also a distraction. You can’t give the government that much power and still be a free man. Full stop.

    • #2
  2. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Try not to mix logic and politics. It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number to a real number, it becomes a complex number. Likewise, politics taints everything it touches, making it more politics. Although that did lead to a great story about politics and the afterlife.

    • #3
  3. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda: no president from any party ought to have the authority to command companies to fire employees.

    This is the heart of the matter. Getting tangled in the law and the supreme court decisions and all that; that’s also a distraction. You can’t give the government that much power and still be a free man. Full stop.

    Yes.  It’s the eternal temptation of power.  We just need to get one of ours into power, then we can make the other tribe behave as we wish them to.  It would be immoral even if you almost always had one-party rule.  But it’s also stupid when we know that decade after decade the seats of power keep swapping back between the two major parties.

    • #4
  4. Tex929rr Coolidge
    Tex929rr
    @Tex929rr

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    We just need to get one of ours into power, then we can make the other tribe behave as we wish them to.

    Which is believed by way too many people on both sides.  Add this to the notion that it’s right and proper for the SCOTUS to make things up, mix in a legislative branch allergic to actually writing laws and here we are.

    Remember when GW Bush said he thought McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional but he signed it anyway? Grrrr.

    • #5
  5. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Randy Weivoda: If Covid is a 5 on a 1-10 scale of national dangers and racism is a 10, and you can must be fired for not fighting Covid with every possible tool, why shouldn’t the president by able to dictate your dismissal for not attending classes endorsed or maybe even taught by Black Lives Matter?

    The President doesn’t need to do anything because private businesses are already doing this . . .

    • #6
  6. DonG (CAGW is a hoax) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a hoax)
    @DonG

    Congress and state legislatures need to step in and fix these problems.  They won’t, because they don’t want to be responsible for anything except spending money.

    • #7
  7. Dbroussa Coolidge
    Dbroussa
    @Dbroussa

    If the citizens shrug, mutter, and get on with things, government will continue to act as if it has a particular authority, regardless of what the law actually says

    Yep, and we see the courts making this harder and harder every year. What’s worse is that the Right tends to like originalist justices that issue narrow opinions which ends up meaning it takes even more lawsuits and more time (and money) to reign in the govt.

    In large part the problem is that we are focusing on the wrong actors. It’s not the elected officials that we should worry about. They aren’t the real problem, it is the bureaucracy that is our real problem. Let me propose a hypothetical…say a President Trump proposed that OSHA force companies to fire people that refused to grt vaccinated with “his” vaccine that Operation Warp Speed ran through testing and he said was safe. None other than VP candidate Harris said that she wouldn’t use such a vaccine in her debate with VP Pence. Would OSHA have enacted his diktat? Would they slow walk it while saying they were going as fast as possible? Would they fail to complete critical paperwork opening it up for a quick legal challenge to stop it? We saw all of that in the Trump administration and in every prior GOP administration. The bureaucracy craves power and they will do anything to get it and maintain it regardless of the politician over them. They are a tumor, a malignant one and acting like a GOP President can control them is a fantasy. Until we realize that, we will continue to be frustrated by the GOP and the results of elections. We have almost no actual control over the Federal govt anymore and it benefits the politicians to have it that way. 

    • #8
  8. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO!  Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

     

    • #9
  9. Fake John/Jane Galt Coolidge
    Fake John/Jane Galt
    @FakeJohnJaneGalt

    Biden’s authority is absolute.  He has an army and is not afraid to use them.  He has a mandate and both houses of Congress.  Note that they installed him as POTUS in a questionable election and jailed many that protested it without any trials.  The OSHA ruling will stand because not enough will stand against it and his party will support it.  Sure SCOTUS may overturn it in a few decades if a GOP is ever elected again and may want to use that ability but that is then and this is now.  

    • #10
  10. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    Speaking of real numbers, it is odd that Arahant made the first comment, then when I checked back later his comment had been renumbered to #3, Hank’s comment was #2, and there is no #1.

    • #11
  11. Unsk Member
    Unsk
    @Unsk

    This matter goes straight back to the Administrative State problem.

    Article One, Section One of the Constitution:

    “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” Got that- All legislative powers shall be vested in Congress and no one else.

    But thanks to our wondrous Supreme  Court and it’s inflammation of Marbury vs Madison back in the 1930’s,   it decided it could change the Constitution at will to fit it’s Progressive whims, so it granted to the Federal Bureaucracy not only the power to legislate to make law, but to be the judge and jury of those laws the bureaucracy made.

    To make matters even worse, in the Chevron decision of the late 80’s, the Supreme Court decided  that these great new  laws made by the Bureaucracy had the power to supersede those of Congress and were the ultimate arbiter of what’s what. So in effect the Supreme  Court set up the situation for an un elected, unaccountable bureaucrat like the Mass Murderer Dr Fauci and his murdering minions at the FDA, CDC and NIH to create draconian laws that have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and have ruined the lives of millions.

    But then our Supreme Leader Uncle Joe Biden  doubled down on this treasonous travesty and under his unconstitutional edict/Executive Order   based upon what powers  I don’t know declared War on the American Worker and set up his  Employer Vaccination Mandate to be issued and enforced by that Unconstitutional Administrative State Agency  OSHA, which always craves greater and greater power. Natch.

    Randy: “:Does anyone claim with a straight face that when the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was established by Congress in 1971 that members of Congress believed they were giving the agency the power to dictate that companies fire employees?”

    Randy, you wouldn’t want to spoil OSHA’s fun would you? You Meanie! I mean anything goes for the Federal Bureaucracy these days unless the Supremes put a real Kabosh to their powers, and this is a great chance for OSHA and other Feds to grab tremendous powers.

    Today the Vaccination Mandate, tomorrow the Climate Change Mandate and then ya know the real biggie – the ultimate power –  is coming. Yes, our Climate Change and International Health Savior Bill Gates thinks we need an International UN run Imperial Authority  to demand everyone in the entire world get a “patch”  against his latest concoction he’s working so hard likely with the Chinese to create – a”huge smallpox pandemic”, a patch   that has with it a few other little powers like total surveillance and mind control rolled right in so we can let the Godly World Economic Forum run all our lives  and make us permanent slaves. Wouldn’t that be great? What’s not  to like?

    • #12
  12. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    Speaking of real numbers, it is odd that Arahant made the first comment, then when I checked back later his comment had been renumbered to #3, Hank’s comment was #2, and there is no #1.

    So the number of primes has gone down by 1, which is itself a prime, so Pls disregard this comment.

    • #13
  13. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Unsk (View Comment):

    Article One, Section One of the Constitution:

    “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” Got that- All legislative powers shall be vested in Congress and no one else.

    But thanks to our wondrous Supreme  Court and it’s inflammation of Marbury vs Madison back in the 1930’s,   it decided it could change the Constitution at will to fit it’s Progressive whims, so it granted to the Federal Bureaucracy not only the power to legislate to make law, but to be the judge and jury of those laws the bureaucracy made.

    To make matters even worse, in the Chevron decision of the late 80’s, the Supreme Court decided  that these great new  laws made by the Bureaucracy had the power to supersede those of Congress and were the ultimate arbiter of what’s what.

    Yes.  If Congress is going to delegate some rule-making authority to an agency because they don’t want to debate and decide how many red cells a blackberry can have and still be graded as U.S. Number 1, I get it.  But they should not behave like Frankenstein and create a monster, then run out the room and not look back to see what the creature is doing (I’m referencing the book of course, not the movies).  Congress absolutely has the authority and responsibility to rein in these agencies when they go beyond their original purpose.

    • #14
  14. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    Speaking of real numbers, it is odd that Arahant made the first comment, then when I checked back later his comment had been renumbered to #3, Hank’s comment was #2, and there is no #1.

    Daylight savings time.

    • #15
  15. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    No debate. Just the facts.

    • #16
  16. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    No debate. Just the facts.

    I will be arguing that addition of a real and a complex number is undefined.  Just as soon as I can tie it back in to Presidential Authority.  I never hijack posts.  Well, not Randy’s, anyway.  At least, not in months ending in an “R”. Anyway, I am then going to write a scathing reply to myself, to the effect that reals can be represented as complex numbers, so they can be added.  “You are ignoring the fact…” I will patiently respond.  I hope that at this point more people will engage in the discussion.

    • #17
  17. philo Member
    philo
    @philo

    Don’t forget that the CDC considers gun violence a public health crisis. Once CDC recommendations are codified into all USG contracts, all bets are off.

    Randy Weivoda: If the citizens shrug, mutter, and get on with things, government will continue to act as if it has a particular authority, regardless of what the law actually says.

    As I already abuse the quote all too often, here it is again:

    “[A] significant and growing portion of the American population is losing have lost the virtues required to be functioning members of a free society.” – Charles Murray in Coming Apart (Page 289), 2012

    Even here, we have so many that are willing to rationalize away their liberty for a noble cause. We tend to scoff at the obvious demagoguery of the well worn “common sense gun legislation” twaddle but watching “conservatives” line up with common sense mandate rationalizations is rather sad.  I just have to say, … … <<< Hey, look at that squirrel. He has the new book by that GA Sec of State HERO!!!! Let’s go over an play with him. >>>

    • #18
  18. Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler Member
    Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler
    @Muleskinner

     OSHA has always been controversial. 

     

    • #19
  19. MeandurΦ Member
    MeandurΦ
    @DeanMurphy

    Muleskinner, Weasel Wrangler (View Comment):

    OSHA has always been controversial.

     

    and now this joke has authority to dispense jobs

    • #20
  20. Stad Coolidge
    Stad
    @Stad

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    Speaking of real numbers, it is odd that Arahant made the first comment, then when I checked back later his comment had been renumbered to #3, Hank’s comment was #2, and there is no #1.

    It’s a conspiracy!  Oops, COC violation . . .

    • #21
  21. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Stad (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    Speaking of real numbers, it is odd that Arahant made the first comment, then when I checked back later his comment had been renumbered to #3, Hank’s comment was #2, and there is no #1.

    It’s a conspiracy! Oops, COC violation . . .

    You haven’t heard? “Conspiracy theories” are from now on known as “spoilers.”

    • #22
  22. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    It used to be said that only in a Free Country like The U.S.A. could you choose where, when and for whom to work. In those awful despotic countries you were told where, when and for whom to work.

    • #23
  23. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    No debate. Just the facts.

    I will be arguing that addition of a real and a complex number is undefined. Just as soon as I can tie it back in to Presidential Authority. I never hijack posts. Well, not Randy’s, anyway. At least, not in months ending in an “R”. Anyway, I am then going to write a scathing reply to myself, to the effect that reals can be represented as complex numbers, so they can be added. “You are ignoring the fact…” I will patiently respond. I hope that at this point more people will engage in the discussion.

    Tell me first who won.

    • #24
  24. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Percival (View Comment):

    Stad (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):

    Mark Camp (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    It’s like real and complex numbers. If you add a complex number…

    No, Arahant, NO! Not more Ricochet debate on real numbers and complex numbers!!!

    Speaking of real numbers, it is odd that Arahant made the first comment, then when I checked back later his comment had been renumbered to #3, Hank’s comment was #2, and there is no #1.

    It’s a conspiracy! Oops, COC violation . . .

    You haven’t heard? “Conspiracy theories” are from now on known as “spoilers.”

    Oooh!  That’s what he meant.

    • #25
  25. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin

    OSHA has never had this level of authority before.   I study OSHA regulations on a regular basis, so I am fairly confident in this.

    OSHA has never mandated that employees get a medical procedure (beyond a test or a physical).  OSHA can say that an employer has to have workers wear proper PPE like hard hats, gloves, ear protection, and eye protection.  If you refuse to wear the PPE, an employer could fire you.  However, for the only form of PPE that has some invasive effects (respirators, not surgical masks) the responsibility is on the employer to adjust by providing suitable PPE.

    The Bloodborne Pathogens (1910.1030) standard does mention the Hepatitis B vaccine.  However, the standard only requires employers to provide the vaccine at no charge to the employee.  In fact, it explicitly allows employees to opt out of the vaccination with no consequences by filling out a form, and the employee can get the vaccine later at any time at the employer’s expense. 

    After all, OSHA is about protecting workers.   It’s not about making workers better people or even fighting pandemics.  OSHA does not address workplace violence like that faced by police and high-end security guards. It does not directly protect non-employees from injuries caused by something from inside the workplace, like an explosion.   This is not and never has been its job.

    We need to push back hard on this kind of flexibility, or we will end up living in Fake John Galt land

    • #26
  26. HankRhody Freelance Philosopher Contributor
    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
    @HankRhody

    edit. Wrong thread.

    • #27
  27. Randy Weivoda Moderator
    Randy Weivoda
    @RandyWeivoda

    Over half of the states are suing to stop the vaccine mandate and I assume other entities are, as well.  Let’s hope that the courts stop the mandate before anyone is actually fired for non-compliance.  But what happens if OSHA’s hammer comes down, companies fire thousands or hundreds of thousands of employees, then a few months later the mandate is definitively ruled to be unconstitutional?  If you were fired for non-compliance, do you sue your employer and they in turn sue the federal government?  Can you sue the federal government directly?  Why isn’t anyone in the White House thinking about this?  If I were in their position, I think I would put a pause on enforcing the mandate until I knew whether or not it would be ruled constitutional.  Is Joe Biden assuming he will be dead before the case is decided, so he’s not going to worry about it?  Or do these people actually, truly believe that this will pass Constitutional muster?  Maybe they reckon there is a fair chance of it being overruled but since it will be future taxpayers who will be paying for the lawsuits, not them, they just don’t care.  So many questions.

    • #28
  28. HankRhody Freelance Philosopher Contributor
    HankRhody Freelance Philosopher
    @HankRhody

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    but since it will be future taxpayers who will be paying for the lawsuits, not them, they just don’t care. 

    First off, money is irrelevant to the progressive. The money comes from somewhere and goes somewhere but so long as history is moving in the right direction they don’t really care where (so long as a certain amount of it sticks in their pockets, mind you.) 

    Secondly, assume that you can get redress from the feds via lawsuit. That means a whole lot of trouble on your part to get the lawyer and go a suin’. Remember the phrase “the process is the punishment”? You’re still being punished for your recalcitrance to get on the right side of history, so the progressives are still happy with that outcome.

    Thirdly, it is not at all obvious that the courts will allow lawsuits, or even strike down the mandate to begin with. I mean it’s perfectly obvious to me that the mandate is illegal and unconstitutional, but judges can be pretty obtuse. Especially those on the left.

    • #29
  29. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    Why isn’t anyone in the White House thinking about this? 

    Maybe they don’t want to break their perfect record.

    • #30
  30. Mark Camp Member
    Mark Camp
    @MarkCamp

    Percival (View Comment):

    Randy Weivoda (View Comment):
    Why isn’t anyone in the White House thinking about this?

    Maybe they don’t want to break their perfect record.

    COL!

    • #31
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