03-06-2018, 02:35 PM
(03-06-2018, 01:53 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: In terms of strictly governing the country regardless of generation, Congress over the last 30 years or so simply has too much power. Under the current system as interpreted over the past few decades; the president simply cannot do his/her job. If the president is not allowed to unilaterally enact policy; How can He/She properly direct national security? The answer is the he/she would be unable to, because everything is currently subject to having to be cleared through congress in order to be implemented. Granting the president the power to unilaterally authorize war and to declare war would be a major reform of the system.
If things get really dicey, Congress will be obliged to meet the dangers of the time even if that implies an expansion of the legislative purview. We do not want the President acting unilaterally except to make ultimate choices that are his alone due to the obvious need for secrecy and definitive choice (the use of Executive Orders by the President peaked during American involvement in World War II. FDR performed beautifully, so he could get away with it.
Unilateral decisions by the President on non-trivial matters and not on simple interpretation of laws is either dictatorial or despotic, and thus contrary to the American political tradition.
We will need a President with a moral compass, respect for process and precedent, high levels of integrity and wisdom, and clear-headed rationality as a rule. I think that Xenakis would be perfectly happy with someone like Obama except for having a conservative agenda. Indeed, I can predict that the next conservative President who has real success will have a personality much more like that of Obama even if he has an agenda that includes the evisceration of trade unions, a big cut-back on the welfare state, privatization of much of the public sector, and tax reforms that load more taxes on the non-rich but create capital for investment in job-creating plant and equipment.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
