Quote from: Ruto on July 22, 2014, 08:26:04 PMYou must have phrased that badly. After all, you don't actually think that things were better if nothing changed right? I think environmental protection and food safety is a good thing, for starters. And a safety net. Tactics could always be better, but in some cases, you really need to order things. There's no problem with that. What the problem is, is that there are people that know better but are purposely hindering progress or improvements. Also Bush declared a war (some people call him and Cheney war criminals, can you imagine?) and it's cost so much money and Iraq is not really much better off today, with the useless army and militants running things.
He asked "how suing the president isn't the most childish thing in existence," and that's what I'm addressing. If anything, the lawsuit is a broad statement about the need to rein in presidential power rather than about the employer mandate (which Republicans really don't want implemented anyhow, and will probably already be implemented by the time a decision is reached on the lawsuit).
I'm definitely not going to argue that this lawsuit is a wise decision, because it isn't. It's a waste of time. However, the ability to sue the president retains its value-- to challenge the Constitutionality of an act and draw public attention. @Fierce, the lawsuits against Clinton and Reagan were actually both successful.
But to open the can of worms that you're talking about Ruto, executive orders are 100% unconstitutional. All legislative powers reside in Congress, and the most the executive branch can do is enforce and order the enforcement of preexisting laws. The President's "We Can't Wait" policy initiative is read literally as an intent to bypass Congress. Have past presidents used executive orders? Absolutely. Have some of them been helpful in the end? I would say so. But there are currently no limits on what can be ordered, because the law allowing for it doesn't exist. The necessary steps to make executive orders Constitutional have been ignored, and presidents have taken creative liberties in reading Article II.