Faithfully executing the law

I wonder why the Constitutionally required oath of office for the President requires that he swear to "faithfully execute" the law of the land. Do you suppose it is because if the President were able to decide which laws he would or would not uphold might make it difficult to limit the power of the Executive branch? Imagine that Congress were to right a law that said that the President could not tap the communications of American citizens without the permission of the Judicial Branch. If the President did not faithfully uphold this law it would be impossible for anyone outside of the Executive to know about it. He refuses to get the permission of the Judiciary. He refuses to comply with information requests from the Legislative. Any case that comes up before the Judiciary by a potential victim is quashed because it would reveal State Secrets. The only way that any evidence would ever be forthcoming if a crime such as this were being committed would be in the format of an Impeachment Hearing whose main accusation was that the President was not faithfully executing the law as his oath compelled him to do.

Terrific Book to read

"The Ominvore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan is a very thought-provoking and educational book about food in the United States. In three parts, he examines the industrial food chain, the 'organic' food chain, and an example of hunting and gathering his own food. He makes no conclusions about these as to which is better or worse in general, but makes many specific and intelligent observations about the effects they cause and the value of food in each method.

When examining the industrial food chain he traces food from it's origin in a corn field in iowa thru the industrial meat production at a feed lot in Kansas. He follows this same corn into the industrial processed food system and ultimately ends up enjoying the product of this system at a McDonald's restaurant near his home. Along the way he meets people who's living it is to create food this way. He discusses at length the interesting fact that this system consumes vast amounts of energy and distorts whole areas of the country in order to make cheaper and cheaper corn. I would venture to say that most people have no idea that corn and corn products are so inexpensive because government policies and subsidies trade our tax dollars for less costly corn for the middle men in the corn industry. Chicken production is also greatly dependent on corn production. This chapter is by far the most enlightening.

The 'Organic' food business is also very enlightening in that he has traced an industry that started off with a mission to create healthy and sustainable agriculture that would prove that food does not need to be created with dangerous and energy-costly chemicals to compete with industrial foods. Thirty years on, this industry finds itself making more and more changes to these farms to get more and more produce from them, indeed they are becoming like their nemesis, the industrial farm. He spends a great deal of time contrasting a true organic farm from an industrial organic farm. Once again, in this chapter we find the semi-visible hand of the government making life difficult for the farm trying to do things the simpler way.

When he turn his attention to hunting and gathering we find the author obviously learning the most personally. He quite obviously had a blast with the people that he found to teach him to kill and dress a wild pig in Califonia, and to find wild mushrooms in the California mountains. By the end of this chapter the reader is likely to find himself wishing we could all live this way. I personally have wondered if I would have as much fun eating beef if I had to do the killing and dressing myself, but doing my own killing would make the eating something that I would better understand the sacrifice made by the eaten.

Read this book and you will learn a great deal about your nation, it's government, its farms and farmers, and yourself.