(About a year ago I wrote another piece with the same title. It was a different issue then than now but the ramifications are the same.)

“A Republic, if you can keep it.” (Benjamin Franklin)

The greatest nation in the history of mankind was built on being a Nation of Laws. Our Constitution, the foundation of our nation and the envy of free people around the globe, has unquestionably created a model society that has prospered beyond all others. Our liberty and prosperity is THE reason we have the immigration problem we have today. Those from other countries who don’t have what we have, want what we have, and migrate here by hook or crook. I never hear stories of an illegal alien problem in Cuba, or Russia, or China, or Syria, or anywhere else. Only in America. That speaks loudly to the value of our Constitution and our nation built on laws.

So what do you have when that Constitution and the laws supporting it are violated at will by men in power? You begin the slide downward towards becoming like all the other nations who don’t value our liberties, prosperity, and values. You become like Cuba, Russia and China. You become a Nation of Men with the strongest man rising to the top, becoming a dictator, and the citizens become serfs. Eventually you become a failed state with anarchy.

King Barack Obama I has put us on that path. By ignoring the Constitution and the separation of powers laid out in that Constitution, he has declared himself to be above the law. No matter how one feels about the immigration laws and system, and the need to change it, or the steps Obama took for the illegals, the process matters. He clearly went outside the legal process with his immigration Executive Order even after having said 20+ times on video tape that he didn’t have the authority to do so. Can you think of a clearer example of a man placing himself above the law of the land? And it's not the first time. He has changed the Affordable Care Act, a law passed by a partisan congress, something like 35 times, by himself, all unlawful. Only Congress can do that.  Obama sees something he doesn’t like and changes it with no regards to the separation of powers, the Constitution, or the will of the people. That’s the way Kings, emperors and dictators govern. As the midterm elections and poll after poll shows, he has lost the trust of the majority of our citizenry. And if he gets away with his lawlessness, he will have set a precedent that other presidents will feel they also have a right to do. You can see where this leads. It gradually erodes the power of laws.

Suppose the next president is not Hillary Clinton but a staunch conservative Republican. Someone on the order of a Ted Cruz. First off, Cruz is NOT a “natural born citizen” and it thus Constitutionally ineligible to be president. Ditto for Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio and a few others who have been mentioned as presidential candidates. But neither is Obama and he got away with it thanks to a spineless Congress. Thus a precedent was set and these other non-natural born citizens feel it’s OK for them to pursue the Oval Office. Just like a precedent being set decades ago with the establishment of the Department of Education, Department of Energy, and perhaps half the government departments/agencies we have today. None are constitutional but no authority said so or stopped them. If the first one is not stopped it sets the precedent and it’s far easier with the next one. Soon you’re out of control, expensive, and inefficient. We’ve been there, done that.

So, it’s January 2017 and an illegal Ted Cruz is now president. He decides the EPA is a problem. He doesn’t like their interfering with nature and slowing business growth so by Executive Order he abolishes it. Or maybe it’s the aforementioned Department of Education that he feels is a propaganda machine, that education is a state function not a federal function (he’s right) and thus by Executive Order abolished it. Would the Democrats be up in arms over these actions? Suddenly the “process” and the Constitution becomes important to them whereas it’s not now with immigration. You can easily imagine your own scenarios whereby a conservative, feeling he’s not restrained by the Constitution, (believing in the "living" document nonsense) will act similarly to the progressive in the White House today. We will have abandoned our Nation of Laws of 220+ years in favor of being a Nation of Men and eventual suicide as a Constitutional Republic.

With this particular action by Obama he is not solving a problem but instead setting up an incentive for our illegal alien problem to get even worse. Word will spread across the planet that America is not deporting illegals and the flood of illegals will grow across our borders.

“If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.” (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33, January 3, 1788)

In my opinion, it is critical that the Congress, or in their absence We The People, correct this lawless act by Mr. Obama. It is critical that we set a precedent that lawlessness will not be tolerated no matter which political party is in power, and no matter how far up the chain of command the elected official is. No one is above the law. Failing to do so means our demise. We are in a Constitutional crisis and a history- making era. This Obama era will be recorded in history books with the same level of importance as the FDR era, the Cuban Missile Crisis and few others, all of which changed the course of history. We better get this right. But does the new Republican majority agree or are they part of the problem. The Constitution is clear on what action should be taken when the Executive has committed numerous “high crimes and misdemeanors” (Article II, Section IV, US Constitution). That action is impeachment yet our political elitists seem to have taken that off the table. Just another example of the rule of men instead of the rule of law. They try lesser, ineffective actions instead of what the Constitution calls for. No spine, no character, no integrity.

Thus far Mr. Obama has gotten away with becoming President though not Constitutionally eligible to do so; with knowingly using a forged “official” government document to mislead the citizenry (his birth certificate), which is a felony; the cover-ups of Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS scandal; the lack of transparency of Obamacare (deliberate lying to deceive); and purging hundreds of military officers who won’t carry his water for him. That’s just the top few. And thus far, he has gotten away with it. He has made lying an art form.

The issue with these and the immigration Executive Order is not illegal immigration; it is and it isn’t. The real issue is will America fall to the same weaknesses of other previous republics by allowing the wishes of powerful men to usurp the rule of law as established by our Constitution? Are we a nation of laws or a nation of men? Are we America or a third world banana republic? Will we correct this problem or commit national suicide? We are a republic, will we keep it?

Mr. Reams is a Christian, family man, combat veteran, retired small business owner and a senior citizen. www.allianceofconstitutionalpatriots; http://VeterensVent.wordpress.com.