Precedent

"The government expands at will, based on what might be charitably called flimsy constitutional reasoning and less charitably and more accurately called arrogant judicial tyranny. Government authority these days rarely comes from the Constitution as written but from the last carefully crafted misinterpretation of it. This is called legal precedent."

--Linda Bowles (1952-2003) Columnist
Source: Enlarging government's power a step at a time,
CONSERVATIVE CHRONICLE, May 1, 1996.