The obstacles to reining in this vast overreach of powers are daunting to say the least. Supporters will argue that Congress is unqualified to regulate in these areas, so therefore unelected boards of self-proclaimed experts are necessary. Courts have been similarly abrogated.

Almost a century into the administrative state, these agencies have proven to exceedingly efficient at issuing regulations and then levying fines and directives for failure to comply.

This might advise a catch-all bill against quasi-judicial bodies and the agencies more broadly, capturing most of the administrative, regulatory state that lords over the populace like the unelected kings of old, and restoring to Congress powers to make laws, and courts to adjudicate them.  That is, if there were any political will in Congress to do so.

The primary challenge, therefore, is political. Does either party take a strong stand against this concentration of powers in executive agencies? Can one even find legislative majorities in both houses of Congress to do anything but perpetuate this pervasive administrative state?

No more so than one can find the votes to rein in the budget’s $2.2 trillion so-called “mandatory” spending programs that operate on autopilot without any annual appropriations votes in Congress.

Or to bring the Environmental Protection Agency to heel, which in its 2009 “carbon endangerment” finding essentially rewrote the Clean Air Act without a congressional vote to define carbon dioxide — a biological gas necessary for the very existence of life — to be a harmful pollutant regulable under the law.

Or to unwind Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac plus the Federal Reserve — whose administrative control of housing finance and low interest rates policies helped cultivate the housing bubble that almost wrecked the global economy. Or to curtail the Fed’s quantitative easing programs, which because such policies are not subject to congressional authorization, clearly abrogate Congress’ constitutional power to coin money.

One could go on, but suffice to say, the Framers never intended the vast bureaucracy with such wide powers seen today to be created when the Constitution was proposed in 1787.

Leaving the American people to wonder what can even be done about it. If the government is not following the Constitution, and elections alone will not rein in these dubious, extraconstitutional functions of government, what can be done?

A potential recourse for the American people would be the amendments process outlined in Article V of the Constitution. But, that requires two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress to be invoked. Does anyone envision Congress voting for amendments to the Constitution to, for example, achieve a balanced budget or establish term limits for themselves?

If not — and if other reforms cannot and will not be achieved in the normal course of Congress’ business — it would appear that supporters of a constitutional, limited government lack any conventional recourse. […]

[…]

On the 237^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of our nation’s founding, it is reasonable to question whether our current government reflects the principles in that document of freedom and the Constitution that followed 11 years later.

If not, the Founders anticipated that there may be a time when government “becomes destructive of these ends” and needs reformulation.

Ultimately, it will be up to the people if they want to tell their state legislators to invoke their constitutional prerogative to limit government via an Article V convention. With Congress seemingly powerless in the face of this federal Leviathan, the amendment process may be the only way left to “alter or abolish it.”

Romano’s discussion focuses largely on amendments and a constitutional convention, the latter of which I believe to be a dangerous course given the century-long indoctrination of the American people over the idea of positive rights.  In fact, I suspect a convention in the current political and informational climate would produce something closer to the Soviet constitution than to our own.

And of course, the political will of the ruling class to rein in its own power is simply non-existent:  at a time when the GOP is actually supporting an immigration bill that would give the power of stewardship over newly-legal citizens to leftwing activist groups — the same arrangement as under ObamaCare — it seems a safe bet that the rise of an administrative state against which they can campaign and rail, but which nonetheless does the dirty work of raising the revenues the Congress then gets to dole out, is to the ruling elite a wonderful thing, at once distancing them from many unpopular “laws” while at the same time effectively shrinking the circle of liberty around the individual, creating a reliance on government that allows it to grow in scope and power.

Which is why many of us here — and I believe Levin will likewise take this route — are promoting a resurgent promotion of federalism, a stand-off between state Governors and both the federal government, up to and including rulings by federal courts that seek to take away powers from the voters of a given state that are allotted to them under the Constitution.

Nullifcation; a rejection of federal funds; a refusal to honor the rulings of an administrative state that, rather than serving as the intended check on jealously guarded power, works increasingly with the 3 major branches of the federal government to seize jurisdiction, having already grown so beyond its enumerated powers as to be unrecognizable.

From a rhetorical and marketing standpoint, Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz (among others) have had it right:  we need to relentlessly highlight the shadow theater of a two party system that hides what is at its heart nothing more than a cabal of the ruling class.

And this could require something as radical as a third party, which can be sold as a second party — an alternative party — to what has become a one party system disguising itself as an adversarial two party system.  The proof of this collusion is everywhere, theatrics aside, so the time may be ripe for an uprising that pulls in rote-voting Democrats who aren’t leftists and who are being harmed by the industrial policies that both parties farm out to unelected bureaucrats in agencies beyond the reach of voters.  It could pull in libertarians, classical liberals, constitutionalists, conservatives (including social conservatives, who are consistently molested in their beliefs by the left’s litigious agenda, even as it is the socon right who is painted routinely as the bad actor in the culture wars; this is a lie, as mostly what socons want is the right to live their conscience and a protection of their religious liberties).

I’m not sure where Levin or others will go with this — I suspect a term-limit on justices, along with efforts to repeal the 17th amendment and promote defenses of the 9th and 10th amendments in state Supreme Courts using state constitutions — all of which will be taking steps in the right direction.

Here in Colorado, Weld County and a lot of the rural neighboring and contiguous counties have begun rumblings about secession and new statehood, knowing that Congress would most likely never approve such a thing, but making it clear that, in that event, it will be up to the power corridor of Denver / Boulder to try to move in — perhaps with federal help — to impose many of its laws on a citizenry that feels unrepresented and refuses to abide with the kinds of unconstitutional laws coming out of the Democrat legislature (highlighted recently in the ridiculous gun control measures passed largely as a result of lobbying from Michael Bloomberg, Joe Biden, and east coast interests).

When I started blogging, no one would have said I was some fringe kook.  But the fact is, I haven’t left my country; my country has left me.  Or rather, it’s been taken.  And I, like a host of others, believe it’s time to take it back, and we will continue to work to find ways to do so peacefully and within our constitutional rights.

Which is an animal that is increasingly endangered, its habitat paved over and its numbers culled in the rush to build a progressive Utopia.