Over at The Other McCain, Stacy has produced another Insightful piece on the current situation with the Wuhan Red China Virus.
I’d like to focus on just one aspect of what he reports and urge you to click here and read the whole post and the Comments section.
Herewith…
Yesterday, President Trump invoked his executive power as Commander-in-Chief to put an American corporation under federal orders:
President Trump blasted the company 3M in a tweet Thursday evening, after invoking the Defense Production Act to force the company to produce face masks. N95 face masks are critical for health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, and there have been issues with mask shortages. “We hit 3M hard today after seeing what they were doing with their Masks. “P Act” all the way. Big surprise to many in government as to what they were doing — will have a big price to pay!” Mr. Trump wrote, referring to the Defense Production Act.
Mr. Trump announced during the White House coronavirus task force briefing on Thursday that he had signed an order for 3M to produce face masks.
Can you see what’s wrong here?
I refer you to a post I wrote back in December instant [emphasis in the original]:
Where in The Constitution does it say the Chief Executive can do this?…
The answer is that The Constitution does not Delegate such a Power to the national government.
…
The First Question that must ALWAYS be asked when passing a Law or promulgating a Regulation is: Is this Constitutional?
A Constitutional Republic exists only when the Public and the Private Sectors cooperate Freely. The Former utilizing only those Powers Granted to it by The Sovereign People through their Federal Constitution and latter of it’s own Free Will.
If a company such as, say, 3M [which is the subject of Stacy’s post], decides not to Cooperate with am Executive Request, then there cannot be any Legal Remedies to the situation.
However, The President does have a way to fight back against such a Refusal: not by Threats of Force or Economic-Legal Sanctions [which are Un-Constitutional], buy the tried-and-true practice of SHAMING.
The President can use his, now daily, Bully Pulpit to call-out an uncooperative company.
We are not at War.
We are battling a Communist originated Crisis, which means we should be paying even more close attention to attempts to set Precedents for our governments at all levels Seizing Power And Control they are not permitted, not Delegated, to Assume. It is during Crises that Freedoms are often Lost.