To the editor:
The action that President Barack Obama took on Jan. 4 in appointing Richard Cordray to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was nothing more than a purposeful disregard of the rule of law laid out in our Constitution. To go around Congress is nothing new for Obama, but spineless politicians have done nothing to stop this march down the road to communism and socialism.
Contrary to what many American citizens believe, the facts are we are not ruled by a dictatorship and we are not a democracy - we are self-ruled and we have a representative republic.
In the book "Elementary Catechism of the Constitution," written in 1828 by Arthur J. Stansbury, it is stated, "On this great plan, or Constitution, the safety and happiness of the United States does, under almighty God, mainly depend. All our laws are made by its direction or authority, and whoever goes contrary to it injures and betrays his country, injures you, injures me, betrays us all and is deserving of the heaviest punishment."
At the conclusion, the author writes, " Remember that this precious Constitution thus wise, thus just, is your birth-right. It has been earned for you by your fathers, who counseled much, labored long and shed their dearest blood won it for their children. To them, it was the fruit of toil and danger-to you, it is a gift. Do not slight it on that account, but prize it as you ought. It is yours, no human power can deprive you of it, but your own folly and wickedness. To under value, is one of the surest ways to lose it. Take pains to know what the Constitution is- the more you study, the higher you will esteem it. The better you understand your own rights, the more likely you will be to preserve and guard them."
The book can be found at archive.org/stream/elementarycatech00stanrich - djvu.txt.
Merica Petrella
Steubenville
