I haven't written much about politics recently and it's not because I think it doesn't matter. Politics can shove a stick in your spokes like nothing short of war or famine. From your neighborhood association through the Feds, There Be Dragons.
But the political dichotomy is a deep and possibly unbridgeable partisan divide. You either think the President and his Administration are wise patriots out to save the country, or you think they're a pack of flakes, fools and crooks with authoritarian and often theocratic inclinations. Whatever your opinion, it is deeply felt, and there's no reasoning a person out of an emotional conviction.
Me, I'm skeptical of concentrations of power, no matter who holds it. I'm skeptical of allowing narrowly-defined religious dogma to determine laws for civil society -- or allowing any other dogma to make the rules. Government is a big tent; to work for all of us, it's got to have a lot of extra room and a certain degree of stretch. An unpublished comment pointed to my quoting "What all men own, no man owns" as "the reason why communism doesn't work," but that's only a theoretical reason: that kind of communal-property communism has never been practiced past the scale of a self-selected commune, a few hundred people at most, chipping the good dinnerware, abusing tools and leaving the toilet unscrubbed. At the nation-state level, communism fails because it gives individual men too much power and too little accountability -- Mao and Stalin might not have lived like kings, but they could wave their arm and set sweeping agricultural policy or put vast industrial efforts in motion; hunger and privation for ordinary folk usually followed. The difference between them and Louis XVI or George III is little more than details of vocabulary, wardrobe and furniture.
And the difference between that and the Wilsonian "Unitary Executive" our President and his people are implementing is only a little greater, especially as more and more of the Federal government is shoved willy-nilly under the unitary umbrella or smashed into irrelevance. The non-department tagged "DOGE" has attempted to push its way into the Government Accountability Office, which is under the Legislative Branch, not the Executive; DOGE also tried to embed a team at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, established by Congress decades ago as an independent corporation outside of government control (including DOGE) -- Congress was wary of even the appearance of setting up a state-run broadcaster in the manner of some kingdom or "dictatorship of the proletariat." Other Executive tentacles are still reaching out, seeking, grasping.
No kings, please. Not even kings in a plain uniform or a business suit. We haven't needed one in nearly 250 years and we don't need one now.
" the President and his Administration ... wise patriots out to save the country,"
ReplyDeleteWould that that was the extent of it...but it isn't; it goes much further. DJT is seen by some as a Dear Leader, by others as a new King Cyrus, the worldly protector and divinely anointed Redeemer to bring an evangelical Redemption....all too often he's seen as a Chosen One. And he plays to it, presenting himself on his own social platform, not entirely kidding, in a Pope's robes blessing the world, as a badass rocker to a packed arena of screaming fans. Wish that all he or his followers saw him as was as a wise patriot.
My "favorite" bit of AI propaganda drivel is when they try to Rambo him up, with a juiced & swole body, holding machine guns & circled by flag bearing eagles.
DeleteAnd I suspect he honestly sees himself as that image, as do his fawning sycophants & simps.
Congress, the Legislative Branch, is to be limited to enumerated powers and authority. Anything outside of that is forbidden.
ReplyDeleteThe Executive Branch is even more limited. It can only implement the laws that Congress passes. Executive agencies tasked by Congress with purposes outside of Constitutional power should be dismantled.
Our government is not supposed to be a big tent that does a great many things for everybody. It was designed to be a small tent that does only a few things that must be done fairly and impartially.
How's that workin' out, Anonymous? You seein' the President -- or Congress, for that matter -- being especially cognizant of or respectful to the limits on their power?
ReplyDelete"Big tent" has long been used in the sense of inclusion when referring to politics; it is not that the government "does things" for (or more often, to) everybody, but that every adult citizen can participate -- or should be able to. The GOP keeps coming up with ways to define people out, make it more difficult for qualified citizens to vote, to organize, to cheer on or protest, to petition -- or sue -- the government for redress. They keep shrinking the tent -- and increasing the power government has over citizens and residents of the United States. It's not right. In fact, it's exactly backwards.
Deal with what is, not fantasy. That dinky little limited Federal government was being tested severely by the time of the Alien and Sedition Acts. It hasn't gotten any smaller since.
To be fair, both parties have taken it in turn to use the Presidency to crank up executive power over the decades- in fact, it's hard to think of a President in the past century + who's actually worked to reduce the scope, reach, and power to proper Constitutional levels.
DeletePretty much everyone takes what the previous party took, then takes more. At some point, it becomes too much.
To be fair, some of them work a lot harder at expanding Executive power than others, and none more so that the current occupant of that office.
ReplyDelete(Forgot to sign that one) Sadly, the inevitable next Team D POTUS is very unlikely to give up any of what Trump took, and will work to expand that. And the inevitable next Team R POTUS likewise. It's not a problem of party but of power seducing and corrupting. People like Cincinnatus are rare, because most people of all persuasions can convince themselves they'll need that power for the Greater Good, and refuse to lay it down.
ReplyDeleteHuman nature trumps ideology every time, and the idea that we need the Right Person from the Right Party to Fix Things Real Good isn't going to fix things for either side.
As for expanding the executive, I'd argue that FDR is still the champ, but the current guy is working hard to get there.