A Fourth Branch of Government: The Bush Branch
By James T. Moore (09/30/07)
The executive branch? The legislative branch? The judicial branch? Forget it. They're history. You've heard of fiat currency? Well, now we have a fiat government.
When the founding fathers put this nation together they very wisely made checks and balances a key issue. To do this, they purposely did not lump the three functions of government together under one roof. Instead, they very astutely separated them into three branches: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial; the U.S. Constitution makes this crystal clear.
Those extremely savvy gentlemen did this for a very good reason, a reason also made crystal clear by some of these visionary men: Jefferson: “In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” And Adams: “Whoever would found a state and make proper laws for the government of it, must presume that all men are bad by nature.”
All of us bad by nature? Now that’s being refreshingly upfront!
Given that accepted nature of man, our founders hitched up their trousers and did the one thing they knew might work if followed through and strictly adhered to: they divided the government up so that nobody could get more powerful than anybody else.
Pretty ingenious. Too bad the whole thing is gradually falling apart. Which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that John Adams had his head on straight when he said that all men are bad by nature. And because we are, we have allowed the worst among us to prevail. To that extent, the American government can no longer boast a separation of powers, because there are no longer three branches of government to separate, or to boast about. We are now a government of ONE branch, the executive. And because this president wields executive power with more arrogance, more lawlessness, more secrecy, and more disdain for the Constitution than any president in recent history, calling it the Bush branch is a fair appellation.
The Bush branch of government is precisely what James Madison “saw” when he warned that “the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether heredity, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”
So while the Bush branch gets stronger and more tyrannical by the day, even at the expense of liberty, the other branches are withering away and dying.
Let’s turn the spotlight on these now defunct branches of government and see how they’re gradually withering out of practical existence. As a general accusation, Congress has meekly surrendered its constitutional powers and abdicated its responsibility to the citizens they serve. The judicial branch has allowed itself to become a foil for the Bush branch, instead of the sole and independent arbiter of the law, as defined by the Constitution.
Think not? Think again.
Since the Civil War, when Lincoln assumed “temporary” dictatorial powers and trampled parts of the Constitution, others in power have done likewise, but with much more brazen and egomaniacal fervor.
Today, more than ever, Congress does little else but sit on its duff arguing filibusters, stem cell research, same-sex marriage, raises for themselves, and doesn’t even bother to read freedom-limiting legislation, such as the Patriot Act, and the Homeland Security Act, before they vote.
Meantime, the Bush branch moves in and handles the “minor” details; like sending our boys and girls off to die fighting in an unnecessary and undeclared war, bankrupting our nation with foreign “inducements” and military over-spending, writing his own laws by Executive Orders, and finessing us into a Global Empire, all without any advice or consent of the Congress.
In short, by turning its back on its obligations and playing “hide the law books” the Congress is now acting as a rubber stamp for the Bush branch of government. And even the ink pad is drying up.
As for the usurpation of judicial power by the Bush branch, Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post reporter, put it this way: “The judiciary isn’t a presidential tool. The president has the right to impose his views of the world on foreign policy---that’s what we pay him for, alas---but not on the federal judiciary, an independent and coequal branch of government. He shouldn’t be allowed to pack the courts to advance the far right’s political agenda. The fact is, Mr. President, federal judges aren’t your hired hands. They work for me too. They work for all of us.”
No, I’m sorry, Mr. Robinson, the fact is, the judicial branch USED to work for all of us. So did the legislative branch. So did the executive branch. But now only the Bush branch is working, with all the usurped powers that go with it. And I’ve got news for all thinking, but uninformed Americans: It’s not working for you and me. It’s working for itself. Or haven’t you noticed?
James T. Moore
http://jamestmoore.us/
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