The US has to decide whether it believes in law as a mechanism for the legislature to circumscribe the powers of the executive, or whether it believes in law as a mechanism by which the executive is granted unlimited authority.
Bush obviously believes the latter, and laws like USA PATRIOT, or the retroactive immunity granted to telephone companies engaged in criminal conspiracy with the government, suggest that both Republican and Democratic congresses have agreed with him.
I know, but a belief that you can administer justice other than through the law is one of the places Bush's administration was particularly woeful. Short of revolution, the options are that the US can have a strong system of laws, in the hope that they will be just, or it can have the President's dictat, in the hope that it's just.
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Bush obviously believes the latter, and laws like USA PATRIOT, or the retroactive immunity granted to telephone companies engaged in criminal conspiracy with the government, suggest that both Republican and Democratic congresses have agreed with him.
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