(Untitled)

[abdiel]

I’m as bad as anyone I know when it comes to compulsively checking the news - hittiing refresh every few minutes, or just wiling away the hours by rotating among Fark, Digg, Reddit, and company, sometimes stooping pretty low and reading stories that didn’t even make the front page (which are just even more stories about Ron Paul this or Ubuntu that

Comments

Re: National Plan

[anonymous]

I agree Rakeela? He is the only one with fresh idea their. Actually addressing a key reason why the price is out of control. Maybe because he was in healthcare he understand treating the cause in important to finding a cure. Not just putting bigger, fancier bandaid.

Re: National Plan

[inhumandecency]

That's because Ron Paul is a libertarian. As a socialist-leaning liberal, I have to frequently remind myself of this. His "mind your own damn business" stance is refreshing after decades of the Republican party selling itself out to people who are not-so-subtly signaling that they'd like to send me to the Camps. But it's an open question whether the other part of his attitude -- "every man for himself" -- would be more or less horrifying to me than the current system of originally decent social services, now defunded and sold out to corporate cronies.

[inhumandecency]

Yes, that is why presidential pardons are unsettling -- that, and the fact that their gravity still resonates with me in a way. We want the president to have the powers of the king -- to go beyond the law, to right the most fundamental wrongs, to heal with a touch. This conflicts with the nation's founding ideals in an utterly fundamental way, but it's tolerable and perhaps a worthwhile corrective if the president is a truly just and merciful person. But when the president is selfish, petty, and posturing (and I'm not attributing this solely to the current president, or solely to his party), then his power to annul the law truly shames the nation.

[adupont]

Nixon was a lightweight. In the future, breaches of trust between government and society won't have smoking guns or half-erased tapes. As the last seven years have illustrated, the major abuses of power will occur in the blind spots and loopholes of the Constitution, pushing at the seams of government, and nobody will quite know what to do.

I've been asking myself what those loopholes are - the things I'd change if I were able to rewrite the Constitution. The apportionment of congressional districts would be at the top of the list, but soon after would be the frightening amount of implicit power given to the executive branch. Pardons, commutations, recess appointments... these are powerful tools that assume the good faith of a unitary executive. We may finally have reached the point where good faith can no longer be assumed.