In a word, No. Our countries framing fathers, as astute as
they were about the human condition, could not have fathomed the complexity of
the country their form of government would have to manage. Yet, in their own time they realized what
was good about some components of government modeled on the British should be
maintained like the court system and other aspects such as having a monarch was
detrimental to the overall condition of man.
The Bible backs that up and their having lived under a King confirmed
it. Thus knowing that the country
needed a executive to take the country into the future there had to a means of
controlling the office when persons like Presidents Taft, Polk, Johnson, Nixon,
Carter and Obama held and hold the positon.
Then, of course, would be the tug-of-war between the two. So, the third arm of the judiciary was put
into place principally to protect the construction of the constitution. Then rulings by the Supreme court are done
in light of what the constitution permits.
All that in its
simplistic description has turned out to be the best form of government in the
recorded history of mankind. Even
still, as well put together as it is the founding fathers put off and delayed
for later generations problems they knew they could not address and put in
place our present form of government.
The principal one of the time was slavery. Second, was monetary with the funding of the
government. Even then money talked; the
congress voted to assume the revolutionary war debts of the states which the
states were eager to go along with and that strengthened the federal government
in the process. Yet, with the tit for
tat between the federal government and states rights our form of government
bounced precariously along until the civil war.
After that, the federal government reigned supreme. Fortunately our construction of government
was still controlled by representatives of the people. As to the party system, an old saying is
birds of a feather flock together.
George Washington
was the first and last of the no party presidents. Since then everyone has aligned themselves
along with one set of ideals or another according to how the party platform was
framed. Issues of concern were things
like shall there be a national bank, paper money be allowed and if a runaway
slave should be returned to the owner if caught, should Texas be annexed and if
Missouri should be a slave state or not.
Later, it was how long ought to be a work day and how old a child has to
be to be worked, what's a fair wage.
Now is can gay people marry, can
we lay a pipe across the country, should Iran have a nuclear bomb, are women allowed to abort an unwanted child
whenever they want to. People come down
on both sides of these with a degree of passion that rivals the near beating to
death of Senator Sumter with a walking cane by a congressman that thought he
was righting an insult Sumter committed in a senate speech vilifying the
congressman's relative.
As we flock to our
party and cast our vote we really cross our fingers and hope that the people we
put in office are true to their word as to being like minded with us. As a democratic republic, we place these
people in place to create laws and vote in a manner that is good for the
country as a whole and our state, district and us personally. We trust them to acquaint themselves with the
particulars of what they do vote on and some times we have to realize that they
have more information in hand that may preclude what we feel about
something. You would think the days are
gone of politicians telling one group from the back of the train platform one
thing and another group something else.
For instance, telling southern California growers you will funnel water
from the delta to their fields and then go to Sacramento in northern California
and tell them no way would you ever siphon off water to southern
California. The situation is
politicians still do that and even though we can put sound bits next to each
other and hear for ourselves the disparage between them the people still get
voted into office. Why is that?
Jesus said,
"Ye, who is without sin cast the first stone". For the most part people try and overcome
their baser selves, live by the golden rule, be truthful and have integrity and
we would love to see those people we put into political office be better than
we are in those regards to being selfless and grasp for the greater good. Many are that way, they are quietly working
almost in the background oiling the bearings of the government keeping it
running smoothly sweeping away as they can the gravel people like Al Sharpton
throws into the works. A few of them
percolate to the surface and become a lightening rod for their parties
platform. Presidents have pitted
themselves against congress over and over throughout the centuries. Andrew Johnson only avoided getting thrown
out of office by one senator vote for breaking a law enacted by congress to
hamper him. As you study the presidents
the most successful and endearing presidents
with their party, the people as a whole and reported favorably by
historians are the presidents that worked closely with congress. They rarely got their hands slapped by the
Supreme Court for over reaching their constitutional authority.
Do you suppose the
people that voted for the past few governors of Illinois that are and have been
in prison said as they cast their ballot, "I'm sure he can do a lot of
good for us before he gets caught and jailed." I suggest not. Would you feel bad or feel you wasted your
vote on a crook, a deceiver, a man feathering his own nest or those of his
cronies? If not, it isn't because you're bad, but that you didn't know all you needed to and trusted the party to put
the right fellow before you. This is
the same for both major parties.
Our system isn't
broken, just the opposite. It works
excellent. It is malleable, we let
things bad things happen, true, but we do it at the ballot box which is the
same place we can go to correct it.
This current administration in the white house is treating the
system like Stretch Armstrong trying to
see where the limits are. The system
won't break. Congress hasn't been as
dutiful as they ought to have been to reign in the executive branch, the
Supreme court has tried but has no enforcement arm and relies of the executive
branch to enforce the law. This is not
the first president to thumb his nose at the Supreme court and congress and
probably won't be the last. Regardless
of who is elected in 2016 is unlikely they can do anymore harm to the country
than has already been done. But, if Iran
gets an atomic bomb we might have rethink that.
No comments:
Post a Comment