Scandal and Distrust Trifecta

"Let's take a breath and take stock, shall we?" writes Dave Carter @ ricochet.com.

We have the IRS acting more like the KGB, singling out groups and people for harassment on the basis of political philosophy.  We have efforts to learn about the deaths of four Americans under attack overseas, and the subsequent lies that our government told us about that attack, labeled as a sideshow and a political circus by the Commander in Chief.  We have the federal government secretly gathering months of phone records of Associated Press editors and reporters in what AP's management has termed a, "massive and unprecedented intrusion." ... As David Burge observed on Twitter, "MSNBC must be having a hard time deciding which story to ignore first."

As if that weren't enough for Obama, abortionist Kermit Gosnell has been found guilty of first-degree murder for brutally killing newborn babies (a practice Obama refused to vote against as a legislator), Obamacare is going off the rails in a slow-motion train wreck, and immigration reform—Obama's latest play to a political constituency—appears less persuasive after learning the Boston marathon terrorists were recent immigrant-citizens who raked in at least $100,000 in welfare dollars.

The IRS scandal offers valuable lessons, particularly for Obamacare and immigration reform proponents, argues Paul Mirengoff at powerlineblog.com:

But neither presidential outrage nor condemnation can mitigate the central concern that this scandal reinforces — that the federal government is dominated by leftists who, quite apart from what the executive may desire, are eager to use their power to promote liberalism and harm liberalism’s opponents.

Those who share this concern should oppose on principle all expansions of government power that put bureaucrats in a position to advance liberalism through the exercise of discretion, or that rely on them to curtail their liberalism by faithfully following the law. Obamacare is a clear case in point. As Seth Mandel writes:

[W]ith few exceptions, Democrats don’t see ObamaCare as a means to improving health; they see it as a massive expansion of government empowered to transfer wealth and play favorites. Expanding government’s power and reach–if possible, without a related increase in transparency or accountability–is the central ideological component of the modern Democratic Party’s worldview.

When Republicans warned of “death panels,” the overheated rhetoric was describing an entirely realistic scenario: ObamaCare putting unaccountable bureaucrats between patients and their doctors. And the line of attack resonated because the Democrats’ plans were so baldly undemocratic and invasive.

Immigration reform is another example. The Schumer-Rubio legislation puts enormous trust in bureaucrats — both to follow the law and to exercise in good faith the vast discretion the law provides them. We are asked to trust the bureaucracy when it comes to guessing whether impossible-to-calculate border security metrics have been met; when it comes to processing applications for upgrades in status, up to and including citizenship; and so forth.