The checks and balances of our form of government are something like the balances of my own checkbook: there are so many checks that there is no balance.
It was the intention that the Senate be less volatile than the House of Representatives, and perhaps that it be a bit less democratic, too. The State with the smallest population gets two Senators, just as the State with the largest population. The Senate is designed to represent political entities--States--equally, undoubtedly as a check on a national government: States rights!
Even though the number of Representatives in the House is proportional to population, they are not purely democratic, either. California could be argued to have a more directly democratic system, with its common use of initiatives, in which a majority of voters can fix into law decisions that must be implemented--for instance, that property taxes be limited, or gay marriages be outlawed, or whatever the public thinks at the moment--but it does not require that taxes be raised to pay for them. How is that for idiocy? Representatives to the House must be elected every two years, which means that if you get elected, you immediately start to run for your own re-election. If you represent a district with a lot of Tea Baggers, you will probably begin to see, almost immediately, what a grand group of patriotic Americans they are, and how much sense paranoia makes.
Even the President is not directly elected. States get a certain number of electors, and the direct votes the people cast is apportioned to the electors. In some States, the candidate with the most votes gets all the electors, and in some, they are apportioned proportionately. Even while electing a President, we are a representative government (we elect people to represent us), and not a democracy. It has happened that the person elected President got fewer direct votes that the person who had the most votes. The President is supposed to be an executive--"The Executive Branch"--in whom the nation invests its image and intentions.
The Supreme Court is designed to arbitrate between whatever the Congress and the President do, and the Constitution that gives them whatever rights they have. Strict Constitutionalists think that the Supreme Court should only parse the language of the document, and others think the Supreme Court must account for the changes more than two centuries make in how things happen. It is difficult to know how a strict consitutionalist can even respond to an industrial revolution, or a worldwide internet. They probably ought to say, "Leave us alone!"
During the last two centuries and more, The Presidency has garnered more and more power. For instance, even though the Constitution says that only Congress can declare war, the President can send in the troops, anyway: thus war.
The Senate has realized all its original aspirations: they are the Ultimate Foot-Draggers, in the name of caution. They have even given up majority votes in favor of demanding almost impossible margins to enact anything. It used to be even higher than the present 60%. They are not just sea anchors: they are shipwrecked. The six years between their need to be elected, intended to buffer them from the equivalent of Tea Baggers and Joe McCarthys war mongers, has been internalized: they shoot themselves in the foot.
The House of Representatives has sold its soul to whomever will bankroll their unending re-election campaigns. They do not have two unfettered weeks after being elected to do what they said they would do: they go to fundraising events and learn what they have to do to be re-elected.
The Supreme Court, whose membership now is thoroughly compromised by arm-wrestling between the President and the Senate, is a contest to see who can live the longest. The tactic is to find the youngest nominee with the most innocuous history, who has hidden his or her real intentions best, who will live long enough to plug the plumbing with whatever their advocates do not want passed.
The President, who often knows what a mess he is in, often tries to take advantage of the self-emasculation of the Senate, and the simple fact that most House members have put themselves up for sale on E-Bay, and hopes that somebody in the Supreme Court will die in time to allow a few things he wants to happen.
Meanwhile, We the People, who wanted A More Perfect Union, have decided that State Militia cannot protect us against our own government, and that we should pass out guns to free-lance patriots. We agree that government is bad, and that people like us should control it. We hate taxes, and want everything that taxes make possible. We are a peace-loving nation that thinks maybe we should bomb Iran, too; you know, just to send a message. We are probably mostly Christian, so we mostly don't really think people who aren't Christian are real Americans. Thinking is hard work, so we like Sarah Palin. When things get tough, we are quick to believe that somebody is conspiring to lead us all to Communism, or Haiti, or Kenya.
So how do you think we are doing these days, with that hop-ey, chang-ey thing? Is it workin' out for ya? And if it isn't who do you think is to blame?
There is probably enough to go around.
It was the intention that the Senate be less volatile than the House of Representatives, and perhaps that it be a bit less democratic, too. The State with the smallest population gets two Senators, just as the State with the largest population. The Senate is designed to represent political entities--States--equally, undoubtedly as a check on a national government: States rights!
Even though the number of Representatives in the House is proportional to population, they are not purely democratic, either. California could be argued to have a more directly democratic system, with its common use of initiatives, in which a majority of voters can fix into law decisions that must be implemented--for instance, that property taxes be limited, or gay marriages be outlawed, or whatever the public thinks at the moment--but it does not require that taxes be raised to pay for them. How is that for idiocy? Representatives to the House must be elected every two years, which means that if you get elected, you immediately start to run for your own re-election. If you represent a district with a lot of Tea Baggers, you will probably begin to see, almost immediately, what a grand group of patriotic Americans they are, and how much sense paranoia makes.
Even the President is not directly elected. States get a certain number of electors, and the direct votes the people cast is apportioned to the electors. In some States, the candidate with the most votes gets all the electors, and in some, they are apportioned proportionately. Even while electing a President, we are a representative government (we elect people to represent us), and not a democracy. It has happened that the person elected President got fewer direct votes that the person who had the most votes. The President is supposed to be an executive--"The Executive Branch"--in whom the nation invests its image and intentions.
The Supreme Court is designed to arbitrate between whatever the Congress and the President do, and the Constitution that gives them whatever rights they have. Strict Constitutionalists think that the Supreme Court should only parse the language of the document, and others think the Supreme Court must account for the changes more than two centuries make in how things happen. It is difficult to know how a strict consitutionalist can even respond to an industrial revolution, or a worldwide internet. They probably ought to say, "Leave us alone!"
During the last two centuries and more, The Presidency has garnered more and more power. For instance, even though the Constitution says that only Congress can declare war, the President can send in the troops, anyway: thus war.
The Senate has realized all its original aspirations: they are the Ultimate Foot-Draggers, in the name of caution. They have even given up majority votes in favor of demanding almost impossible margins to enact anything. It used to be even higher than the present 60%. They are not just sea anchors: they are shipwrecked. The six years between their need to be elected, intended to buffer them from the equivalent of Tea Baggers and Joe McCarthys war mongers, has been internalized: they shoot themselves in the foot.
The House of Representatives has sold its soul to whomever will bankroll their unending re-election campaigns. They do not have two unfettered weeks after being elected to do what they said they would do: they go to fundraising events and learn what they have to do to be re-elected.
The Supreme Court, whose membership now is thoroughly compromised by arm-wrestling between the President and the Senate, is a contest to see who can live the longest. The tactic is to find the youngest nominee with the most innocuous history, who has hidden his or her real intentions best, who will live long enough to plug the plumbing with whatever their advocates do not want passed.
The President, who often knows what a mess he is in, often tries to take advantage of the self-emasculation of the Senate, and the simple fact that most House members have put themselves up for sale on E-Bay, and hopes that somebody in the Supreme Court will die in time to allow a few things he wants to happen.
Meanwhile, We the People, who wanted A More Perfect Union, have decided that State Militia cannot protect us against our own government, and that we should pass out guns to free-lance patriots. We agree that government is bad, and that people like us should control it. We hate taxes, and want everything that taxes make possible. We are a peace-loving nation that thinks maybe we should bomb Iran, too; you know, just to send a message. We are probably mostly Christian, so we mostly don't really think people who aren't Christian are real Americans. Thinking is hard work, so we like Sarah Palin. When things get tough, we are quick to believe that somebody is conspiring to lead us all to Communism, or Haiti, or Kenya.
So how do you think we are doing these days, with that hop-ey, chang-ey thing? Is it workin' out for ya? And if it isn't who do you think is to blame?
There is probably enough to go around.
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