The System

How much do you know about how our system works (or is supposed to)?

I ask because, as I wrote earlier this week, many people do not seem to understand how it works or appreciate its adversarial nature.

To recap what you probably learned in school, we have three branches of government: Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. Each of these have powers and responsibilities. And they are nominally equal. Each of them have limits and each are checked by the others. The history of the government in the United States is a history of each branch seeking more power while trying to restrict the other branches... in my opinion.

The latest attempt is the President's "threat" to use executive orders and veto power to accomplish his goals. Will he be successful? Do you support this or fear it? I believe these are important questions and ones which should be a part of a public debate.

In that post I mentioned above, I complained that too many people seemed to embrace the idea of a single party system. This is a real fear of mine. I have seen, up close, nations that were run by single parties or effectively single party systems. I was raised during the Cold War where the primary enemy was the Soviet Union. Much of what I was taught about the USSR was propaganda but much of it was not. It was a police state, make no mistake. On the other hand, I never thought it came even close to launching a nuclear strike on the U.S. I never thought its leaders were that stupid.

Many of the crises we experienced during the Cold War were overblown (probably for political reasons) by our political leaders and by our media.

I have often thought that a parliamentary system  is an ideal form of government. I am moving away from that. It is, in my opinion, more democratic than the one we now have but I also think it is less efficient and more unstable. Risking  someone invoking Godwin's Law, I believe that Hitler rose to power in a parliamentary system and could not have done so under the one we have.

Just something to think about over the next few years. I believe we are approaching a critical point in American history. I could be wrong, it's been known to happen.