CHECKS and BALANCES IN AMERICA'S GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WORK?

Question

i was arguing with someone the other day who was blindly accusing bush of declaring war on Iraq. I told him basically that ush DOES NOT HAVE THE POWER to declare war on another country.

Bush can make the case for war, but, in the end it is CONGRESS that must declare war on the opposing country.

However, the War Powers Act and the Constitution allow the president (and are suppossed to regulate) the president's issuing of troops and placement of them - he must still contact Congress within a few days to notify them of his actions.

It has dawned on me however that the checks and Balances system does not work if both the EXECUTIVE BRANCH and the LEGISLATIVE BRANCH are predominantly republican and the Judicial branch is filled with buddies of the EXECUTIVE BRANCH.

This being the case, the government right now virtually HAS NO CHECKS AND BALANCES and is actually closer to being Totalitarian, a dictatorship or Authoritarian.

respond in a civil tone or you WILL BE REPORTED and your comment DELETED.

I am a republican so I don't appreciate slurs such as "liberal", etc,etc.

If you cannot abide by my rule don't bother posting an answer because you won't be considered for Best Answer - rather you'll be REPORTED.

I welcome both sides of the argument as long as intelligent responces are used.

Answer 1

you are quite right

the famous checks and balances have been in erosion since the beginning, when wealth/power concentration started, despite the laws intended to prevent it

people still put too much faith in laws, 2500 years after anacharsis laughed at solon for thinking laws would stop the big fellows -

it ought to be obvious that the law is moral and good [ie, tends to the survival of the state and the happiness of all] only if the law is more powerful than the state's wealthiest citizen

a us senate committee reported that big business was more powerful than the govt in the 1950s - the writing has been on the wall for over a century, since the robber barons

as far as i know, the growth of this fundamental danger to the state and happiness has never even been warned of, or discussed, or feared

the founding fathers knew this - that is why they prohibited entail, primogeniture, fixed clergy salaries, and warned against the corporation which could get round the laws limiting fortunes

why on earth the american people, nor any other people on earth to date, did not cling to this fundamental simple commonsense point, that tyranny is impossible only if unlimited fortunes [which are always unjust fortunes] are prevented, i do not know

we just dont have enough wits to keep ourselves safe and free

i dont know if we are getting closer to grasping this fundamental essential point, or if we are as far from grasping as ever we were

to a moderately intelligent person it ought to have been obvious that money is power, overpay is overpower is tyranny is the end of the land of the free, ie is the end of safety and freedom, equality, justice and fraternity

much greater money is much greater power is power to send everyone with less power to do whatever the powerful want them to do, like go to war and plunder for them and die defending the plunder

how did america and france go from ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity in 200 years to the state we are in, of super hyper concentration of wealth/power?

ie, fortnightly pay from US$1,000,000,000 to US$1,

pay from a million times to 1000th of world average,

1% getting 90% of world income while doing 1% of work - getting US$70 trillion more than they earn - of stealing US$70 trillion a year - of stealing US$70,000 per family

ie, complete failure to obey the fundamental principle of safety, justice, survival of states, human happiness, social order?

do we love selfdestruction?

ie, utterly free growth of overfortune/ overpower/ violence/ danger/ suffering to tyranny in 200 years?

against the explicit and commonsense wisdom of the founding fathers?

but why didnt the founding fathers limit fortunes absolutely to 2 or 10 or 100 times the average fortune?

it is obvious that the hardest working person cannot work much harder than the average working person, who works over 50 hours a week [homemakers 70-90 hours a week] - why was it not obvious that maximum fairpay could not be much more than the average pay?

since justice in pay was so essential to liberty, freedom, peace, happiness and everything, why was there no effort to refine the quantification of pay justice, to quantify the maximum just fortune?

why was it not obvious that there is making money, and there is raking money? that work of one person is limited, so fortunes must in justice, peace, happiness, liberty, be limited , not unlimited?

did the overpaid so quickly get their hands on the levers of state that they could prevent effective limitation of fortunes as the good founding fathers intended?

there is indication that andrew hamilton was already one of these destroyers of the justice, liberty, peace, happiness and sustainability of the american state

why was there in 200 years not one professor to explain that the federal reserve in private hands was an unlimited power to rob the nation of everything, money, power, liberty, safety, equality, happiness, and survival?

there should have been 100s! 1000s! to explain this

why was there no one to explain that every one of the socalled reasons for higher than average pay were not reasons, were full of holes, were without sense, and were with the greatest danger to everything?

the work is spread, so must pay/power be

justice is equal pay for equal work

the purpose of govt is justice

whyy has there been no education in the many wideopen legal ways by which money shifts ceaselessly automatically from earners to nonearners?

everyone knows that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, it is obvious this is unjust, it is obvious that the state needs justice to survive and for its people to be happy and free - so why have there been no efforts to counter this injustice?

the cup of folly has been overflowing for 200 years

the cup of selfdestruction, of destruction of liberty and happiness, has been overflowing

Answer 2

Bush doesn't have the legal power to do a lot of things he's doing. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to stop him from doing them.

As far as Iraq and Afghanistan, there are two Congressional Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) that give him the authority under the War Powers Act to send troops to those countries. Neither is a formal declaration of war, but such is not needed simply to send troops over there. And once deployed, his inherent constitutional powers allow him to give orders to those troops.

The "war on terror" is nothing more than a marketing phrase. It has no legal status or effect whatsoever.

And you're right about the checks-and-balances problem, especially with so many people saying "I don't care what that judge ruled. I think Bush didn't break the law and nobody is going to convince me otherwise."

The only hope is that the judicial branch will continue to draw the line in the stone and say "No more. The law is the law, and being president doesn't give you any excuse to break it." And that people will respect and obey the decisions of the courts, whether they agree with them or not.

When we stop listening to the courts, and when the executive starts being free to break the laws without any repercussions, we're not on the way toward becoming a dictatorship -- we'll already have arrived.

Answer 3

You raise a good point. With a republican president, a republican congress, senate, and a supreme court stacked with conservative judges, where are the checks and balances?

No one has any less power in the government than the minority party. They can not even hold hearings without permission.

Not to alarm you any more than you already are, in the area of taxation, republicans do not even need to consult with democrats. They can have anything they want.

Power has been handed to them on a plate!

Click the link below. It lists the house and senate members on the Joint Committee on Taxation. They don't even tell you what political party they belong to and it's difficult to even find out what they even have to say on the subject of taxation.

Checks and balances must emanate from the people. We can not simply trust our representatives to do the right thing in our behalf.

Unfortunately we the people, as the ultimate guarantor of checks and balances, have done a poor job in this respect.

Answer 4

Its not one party control that is the problem. The real issue is politicians that only use the 'checks and balances' for political reasons. This applies as much when the majority in congress opposes the president as when they agree.

Answer 5

By the balance of power I think you are referring to the political parties. That isn't the power though. The people are the power and there are tens of millions of people in this country who will stand up, gun in hand and prevent a dictatorship from happening. Remember we have the most powerful military on the planet and they are all sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution and they have the right to disregard any unlawful order. I think anyone who told our military to start shooting American Citizens would have a real problem on their hands. Another note, even if the entire armed forces followed the orders, there are a lot more armed citizens than military.

Answer 6

It still works. If people want to change things show up in November. The idea of Checks and Balances does not mean that one party can not control everything it means one branch can't control everything. No one branch of government does control everything ergo Checks and Balances still works.

Answer 7

I agree with you 100% its about time somebody spoke up. We learned it in elementary school. The government is set up with a system of checks and balances. I do know where the checks and balances are now. Did somebody rewrite the constitution. It seems that the President has full authority in which to make any and all decisions. I think we are on dangerous ground, and we have become to complacent.

Answer 8

You are on to something. The checks and balances are NOT working under this administration. Bush overstepped Congress to get the Iraq war started, or at least got all of his lap-dogs in congress to roll over and play dead. Right now the Power for checks and balances lies to heavily in the direction of republicans - so there are NO che checks and balances.

Right now Bush and his buddies are checking their balances.

Answer 9

i like that....."slurs" such as "liberal"....too much.

anyway, i'll argue that there is most certainly a state of checks and balances still in existence. just because the republicans are a majority in congress, doesn't mean they can act with impunity. just look at the defeat/stalling of several key pieces of republican legislation (drilling in anwar, social security reform, immigration reform, the hang ups with making the patriot act permanent, all the democrat threats of and implimentation of filibuster for bush's judicial nominees, john bolton's recess appointment, etc.)

also, the judiciary is evenly balanced with liberal/conservatives...i believe there are 5 republican nominees and 4 democratic ones on the bench currently.


again, just following curent polital events, the democrats in my opinion, have plenty of check and balance power........too much unfortunately!

Answer 10

your right,,, there is no balance of power,,, so the lawyers and judges will now decide how to stop Bush and team