Thursday, July 25, 2013

Battling inertia

I haven't even looked at this blog since I moved.
Looking today I see that there were 4 posts I apparently never finished.  I posted them anyway just to have a clean start.  I will make this a better one, for as long as I continue to use the blogger format.

I have been thinking about the way our system works (or does not work) and the way we think it should work.
A recent decision by the Supreme Court makes it easier for states to implement voter discrimination laws.  Voter discrimination is nothing more than those in power altering the system to preserve their power.  Did the Court do wrong?  Probably not.

We tend to think there is something called "the law" that governs everything and if Congress screws up, the President kills US citizens with drones, or the Supreme Court says a corporation is a person, it does not mean they "got it wrong," as though all they did was miss the mark trying to hit some sort of Platonic ideal law.  They just disagree for whatever reason.

Our founders seem to have understood this.  That is why there is the balance of power system of the three co-equal branches of government.  If the Court has done something that the Congress and the President think is wrong, they can come up with a new law, or repeal the law the Court interpreted.  It is, and should be, a competition among the branches, not all three aiming for one ideal.
Party affiliation has been allowed to overlay the branch system so that if you can get enough of your party in multiple branches you can kill that inherent competition of checks and balances.   But I will save the anti-party rant for another time.