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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (226037)	2/7/2002 4:07:26 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Yeah, more important, but that's how the balance is maintained. Any branch which seeks to over-reach itself (as they all do, and will forever more do) must be opposed by the other branch or that power grab becomes more and more difficult to reverse. A power once ceded, is gone. How does the Judiciary insert itself ever more into our national life? It's called 'judicial activism'... they seek to grab some of the powers originally delegated to the Legislative branch. How does the Executive become more powerful (as it increasingly has throughout our nation's history)? It grabs for power when the opportunity presents itself. When was the last time we actually declared a war? (Power originally reserved for the Legislative). That particular power has effectively been transferred to the Executive now. Think the founding fathers ever imagined that agencies of the Executive would ever 'listen' to all communications (as they do now: warrant-less email intercepts, password-sniffing Carnavore programs, facial recognition and emotive inference in public areas, etc.) Think they ever imagined that technology would advance to where the policing functionaries could literally look through walls into private residences to see what was going on (infrared, and other devices)? Think they ever imagined there would be a TAX on income (the one single thing that has collected the most power into the Executive branch)? And how does the Legislative branch accumulate greater powers? Well, they have been mostly out-fought by the Executive branch, and out-maneuvered by the Judicial branch... but when they asserted power over inter-state commerce they made their biggest power grab. That's because nearly EVERYTHING can be considered 'inter-state commerce' in our modern, mobile society. No, the rights of the individual citizen to be secure in their homes from governmental intrusion have been steadily whittled away... but if it wasn't for the ongoing turf battles between the three branches of the government that serve to maintain the balance of powers, we poor smoos wouldn't have anything left at all by now. 'Ya gotta LOVE those turf battles!