(OT)
Hi Peter,
What I meant by that comment about the current concentrated power being "unconstitutional" and the separation of powers being toast is this. What Madison and at least some of the other framers had in mind by setting up the three branches of govt the way they did was that each branch would be independent of the others. They would each counter the possible excesses of the other, and the interests that they represent. "Ambition must be made to counter ambition. The interests of the man [i.e., the officeholder] must be connected to the constitutional rights of the place [i.e., the office/branch of govt]. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? ... In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the enxt place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions" (Federalist 51).
If you go back and read some of Madison's essays in the Federalist Papers as well as some of his other essays, you will see that, in his view, the proper relation between the executive and legislative branches was not that they should always work together; the "auxiliary precautions" that he wrote of in the above quote include each branch having a healthy skepticism of the motives of the other. While he knew that parties would eventually form, he didn't foresee exactly how powerful the parties would become, and to what extent they would dominant both branches (the judiciary was not quite an afterthought, but it was certainly not regarded in the same light as the legislative or executive branches at that time).
So, while not technically "unconstitutional," IMHO, we are in violation of the spirit of the Constitution as it was conceived by at least some of the founders. This was the danger that the Antifederalists warned of in their critique of the constitution, and why ratification was touch and go.
I think that there is more danger now than at any point in my memory or at least since LBJ got the Tonkin resolution passed of major policy mistakes (both foreign and domestic) occurring because of the effective control of the entire govt by Republicans, and inadequate scrutiny of those policies, and, frankly, find it a little scary. I could make a long list of those possible mistakes, but I doubt that anyone really wants to read them, so I'll refrain.
Sam |
