[From article]
Perhaps on the expansion of “executive orders” and “czars” authoring hamstringing regulations, both to the point of law making, Locke’s quotes are pertinent. (This could also apply to legislating from the bench.)
“The power of the legislative, being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws and place it in other hands.” Second Treatise of Government, #141
[. . .]
And as for the requirement of fair government that the legislators live by the laws they pass, not to be insulated from the effects of the Affordable Care Act, insider trading rules, and many other instances of special exemptions, Locke said,
“They are to govern by promulgated established laws, not to be varied in particular cases, but to have one rule for rich and poor, for the favorite at court and the countryman at plough.” Second Treatise of Government, #142
Madison noted this in his Federalist #57, “…they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends.”
[. . .]
“Arbitrary will”, an interesting term. It must include instances that have now been painted as “prosecutorial discretion” in illegal immigration and federal drug law enforcement. It also must include executive orders that create law or alter its original intent.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/05/john_locke_the_fed_and_the_constitution.html
May 13, 2015
John Locke, the Fed, and the Constitution
By James Longstreet
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