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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   34887 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 17, 2025

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Regarding the latest executive order re: independent agencies, I'm struggling to understand why conservatives might think this is a good idea long term. Is the plan to just never lose/hold an election again? It seems like trump is massively expanding the scope of executive power versus judicial/legislative power to the point where any president with more than 41 votes in the senate can do essentially whatever they want, with the sole exception of raising non-tariff taxes. Given that its easier to create than to destroy [edit: this was a type, I meant "easier to destroy than to create"], that's of course a benefit for anti-welfare conservatives... but direct presidential command over regulation combined with the stance that the president is beholden to nothing but the supreme court seems like a perfect recipe for vindictive actions against corporations and industries that the president doesn't like. And considering the next democratic president is probably going to look much more like the bernie wing of the party than the obama/biden wing of the party, that's a recipe for economic disaster.

Necessary disclaimer: I'm a trump-hating neoliberal.

The Legislature is meant to be the conservative aspect of the government. It is supposed to codify things that last, because it is very difficult to get a majority vote on something. This is why congress is supposed to ratify things like treaties. If we want stability, it needs to be explicitly enshrined in Congress.

The Executive is meant to be dynamic. It responds to events as they arise and is supposed to be under the control of the elected President. It should work this way. The new President comes in, representing the will of the entire American people, and determines governmental policy not codified in Law. What the executive does should change every time the President takes control.

A lot of things that are "regulations" should be laws, if they are something Congress can agree on. If Congress cannot agree on them, how is it reflective of our Republic to put unelected, unaccountable people in charge of making them and nothing the American people can do to stop them?

The Legislature is meant to be the conservative aspect of the government.

The legislature was meant to be the popular aspect of government. The Senate was supposed to be more deliberative, but there's nothing in, e.g. the Federalist Papers iirc that takes this view.

Are you sure about that? I'd say Federalist Paper No 62 supports me when it discusses the Senate:

IV. The number of senators, and the duration of their appointment, come next to be considered...

Fourthly. The mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be, points out, in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the government. Every new election in the States is found to change one half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions; and from a change of opinions, a change of measures. But a continual change even of good measures is inconsistent with every rule of prudence and every prospect of success. The remark is verified in private life, and becomes more just, as well as more important, in national transactions...

It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?

Another effect of public instability is the unreasonable advantage it gives to the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few over the industrious and uniformed mass of the people. Every new regulation concerning commerce or revenue, or in any way affecting the value of the different species of property, presents a new harvest to those who watch the change, and can trace its consequences; a harvest, reared not by themselves, but by the toils and cares of the great body of their fellow-citizens. This is a state of things in which it may be said with some truth that laws are made for the FEW, not for the MANY.

I read that as talking about the desirability that the members of the senate don't turn over as frequently as those of the house.

Maybe we're talking past each other. One of the reasons it is desirable for the members of the Senate to have longer terms is because it provides "some stable institution in the government." This shows that there was consideration of making the Senate a stabilizing institution in the government, which is in the Legislative branch.

If the objection is that I referenced treaties in my first post, I can pull a reference for that as well. Regarding Treaties, Federalist Paper No 64 has this to say:

They who wish to commit the power under consideration to a popular assembly, composed of members constantly coming and going in quick succession, seem not to recollect that such a body must necessarily be inadequate to the attainment of those great objects, which require to be steadily contemplated in all their relations and circumstances, and which can only be approached and achieved by measures which not only talents, but also exact information, and often much time, are necessary to concert and to execute....

There are a few who will not admit that the affairs of trade and navigation should be regulated by a system cautiously formed and steadily pursued; and that both our treaties and our laws should correspond with and be made to promote it. It is of much consequence that this correspondence and conformity be carefully maintained; and they who assent to the truth of this position will see and confess that it is well provided for by making concurrence of the Senate necessary both to treaties and to laws.

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