Political environment, checks and balances?

Question

In our current political enviornment, do you think the framers' concepts of separation of powers and checks and balances have been effective or ineffective in preventing any one of the three branches from dominating?

Answer 1

its good on paper but as i learned in college and still learning that its not effective at all. there are few phrases in the constitution that says...if the government isn't doing the right thing for the people, the people should elect a new way of governing themselves. but over time our government has became way more important then the people it governs.
so to further answer your question...the so called checks and balances don't work and u wont have to go back and dig the evidence for that in our history. just look at the system now. democrats control the congress, rebulicans control the executive office and then we got supreme court which is busy deciding on issues like if the gay marriage should be legal. nothing will change, this is not a democracy and i will guarantee you that next president would be democrat. and in UK which has some what similar system...their next pm would be their current finance minister....the deals have already been made amongst the parities and we have no checks and balances. if we did, we wouldn't be in Iraq.

Answer 2

Very complex question because you have to keep in mind that what the framers wrote, concerning the powers of the executive branch specifically, has been altered a few times. It was drastically altered during the Nixon administration and again by Reagan's admin. We are once again seeing it altered with all the signing statements of Bush forcing his interpretation of the laws, not Congress's.

Now based on those alterations to answer your question and by pure logic, what the framers intended has been ineffective; but once again, not by their errors... by the errors of a few far right conservative administrations appointing far right conservative judges in the appeals and supreme court positions.

Answer 3

I cant improve much on Roo's answer, he said it like it is....we have lost sight of a democracy and are in fact somewhere in the rehlm of plutocracy or aristocracy. Big money rules, the people go along for the ride. The US populus are very well entertained, very well fed, but not near as informed as they should be.