Kyle Reisner

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American Government / Scholarship Essay!
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Prompt: Since you were born, has America moved closer to or further away from the ideals
outlined in the Declaration of Independence?!
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As time progresses, the rate of change in our world - especially in the United

States of America - is exponentially increasing. A whole lot has changed even in the
short time since I was born; iPhones were released to the masses, the internet basically
grew into its own mega-culture, and another billion and a half people have been born.
Likewise, our government has also been changing quite a bit over the past seventeen
years and if the founding fathers could have been here to witness these
transformations, I dont think theyd be very pleased. Over the past two decades, the
United States of America has moved further away from its own Declaration of
Independence, largely due to the act of executive order, and closer to the tyrannical
government it was trying to declare independence from.!
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Executive order, in its essence, is a way for the President to bypass the checks

and balances of the other two parties and just make decisions he feels are right with the
full force of the law, but no vote in the Senate or House and no judicial review. While its
true that executive orders are not always in and of themselves evil and that they are
definitely nothing new - Franklin D. Roosevelt issued 3,522 during his terms in office,
significantly more than any other President in American history - the past few
Presidents, namely Bush and Obama, have issued executive order on larger matters
and with less support than any before them. This can be seen quite clearly in Obamas
recent order to change key provisions of the Affordable Care Act which was made
without consulting the Legislative branch at all. Our President is now making his own
decisions as to what is right for this country, with no legal validation and no one can stop
him. Thats basically the definition of a tyrant.!
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There is absolutely no constitutional backing to give the President this kind of

power, but theyve been doing it for decades. And while the orders of past Presidents

Kyle Reisner

have been largely beneficial, relatively small, or related to wartime (somewhat justified
by time constraints) and have therefore gone unnoticed, orders such as Obamas
changes to the Affordable Care Act directly affect American citizens lives in major ways
and should not be taken lightly. As the law regarding executive orders is not clearly
defined, we the people must be the ones to decide what is right and wrong here and
one man with the power to make decisions for our entire country cannot be anything,
but wrong. !
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This country was founded with three separate political branches for a very clear

reason; to keep each and every politician in check, to make sure no one had the kind of
tyrannical power we so feared in Early America. High level executive orders, though,
very clearly step the line towards that fear and remain completely unjustified by the
Constitution. We declared our independence from the British because we though the
monarchic system was tyrannical and oppressive, but with no one to check his actions
or vote on his policies, its only a matter of time before the position of President
becomes more akin to the position of King. Despite there being no explicit word against
it in our written Constitution, executive order betrays the philosophies and ideologies
this country was built on and its increase in impact and use draws America further and
further from its original Declaration of Independence.!

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Word Count: 574