Yesterday I listened to quite a bit of the funeral of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The rabbi devoted considerable attention to and lavished praise on the late justice for her efforts in doing justice. She was apparently unaware that was scathing criticism rather than praise.
Under our system it is the responsibility of the executive branch of government which includes presidents, governors, mayors, attorneys general, states attorneys, and law enforcement officers to enforce the law. Interpreting the law is the responsibility of judges, the judicial branch of the government. Whose responsibility, then, is it to see that justice is done? That is the responsibility of the legislative branch.
If you don’t like the law—blame the Congress. If you don’t like the power of executives—blame the Congress. If you think the system is unfair or racist—blame the Congress. If you think incomes are too unequal—blame the Congress. If you think that there’s too much money in politics—blame the Congress.
The calls to “defund the police” or devote more money to housing or infrastructure or just about anything else are being misdirected. They should be directed at the Congress, legislatures, county boards, and city councils. Over the years jobs that were originally envisioned as part-time jobs that would be held for limited periods have transmogrified into permanent full-time jobs with lifetime tenure. Congressmen are enormously overpaid and overstaffed, devoting much of their time to raising campaign treasure chests and running for re-election. It’s bad enough that there are Congressmen who’ve held their seats since Reagan was president. There are Congressmen who’ve held their seats since Nixon was president.
It’s hardly any wonder that they can’t enact coherent legislation or be bothered to enact actual budgets, instead being content to pass continuing resolutions which most of them can’t bothered to read.
They should be too ashamed to run for re-election.
Defund the Congress!
“Over the years jobs that were originally envisioned as part-time jobs that would be held for limited periods have transmogrified into permanent full-time jobs with lifetime tenure.”
Over the years, the United States transmogrified from an agrarian country into an industrial giant with an arsenal of world ending weapons. Makes sense that we should still have a part time legislative branch.
Hell, we have a part time President.
‘Hell, we have a part time President.’
Hell, he has a part time challenger who can barely get out of bed some days. And his replacement can’t be bothered to take questions. And they’re supposed to be improvements on OMB?
‘It’s hardly any wonder that they can’t enact coherent legislation or be bothered to enact actual budgets, instead being content to pass continuing resolutions which most of them can’t bothered to read.’
It’s probably been decades since any member of Congress or their staffs have actually written any laws. That’s what lobbyists and campaign contributors do. At best the critters might do some editing.
As you pointed out RBG preferred to make law, not interpret it. And often did so, quite successfully, to our despite. Unfortunately too many now consider the Supreme Court their legislature of last resort when Congress fails to pass laws, Roe vs Wade being a classic of that.
Decades, huh. Blame Gingrich.
“So Gingrich slashed several thousand staff positions from the congressional committees and abolished the Office of Technology Assessment and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations—agencies of Congress that brought scientific expertise to various issues and studied the impact of federal policies on state and local governments. He probably would have abolished the CBO and the Congressional Research Service if he could have.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/how-congress-used-to-work-214981
Shrinking congressional staff increased reliance on lobbyists.
“The calls to “defund the police†or devote more money to housing or infrastructure or just about anything else are being misdirected. They should be directed at the Congress, legislatures, county boards, and city councils.”
Sigh. And yet people will vote, especially Democrats, for every idiotic “plan” or “reform” they tout but which really just expands the power of these people, and the leviathan government bureaucracy they create underneath them. I’m glad I earned my way out from where I’m truly affected. I pity those who have voted against but haven’t. I blame those who have voted for. Cruel and unusual punishment for those harmed……….although a self inflicted wound for roughly half.
As for Ginsburg, is it safe for sober commentary yet? By definition she had a very distinguished career. Any Supreme Court Justice has. But…… I took it upon my self, in the midst of the elevation to Supreme Being status, to read a number of articles about her. She was a pedestrian SC justice. That’s still rarified air, but sorry, worshipers.
It reminds me of the guy who gets his PGA Tour card. He’s an absolute stud golfer. But he never wins a major. Maybe has a couple non-descript tour wins. He makes a living for quite a few years. I’m telling you, I played high level golf. He is extraordinary at his craft. But in perspective, in the Big Leagues? He’s an also ran.
There are very, very few at the top, top.
Over the period of the last 25 years IMO we have seen a succession of the worst House Speakers in U. S. history, among whose number I would include Gingrich. I attribute it to gerrymandering.
Imagine the situation in which there are two candidates running for election, both of whom support roughly the same policies. How is that the voters’ fault?
I understand your point, Dave, but its almost a straw man.
Do you think trump and Biden support the same policies? Here in the 1st SC a guy named Cunningham votes with Pelosi some 85-95% of the time. His opponent, Mace…..not.
I understand that, say, Chicago or SF, are monolithic. But the voters did that over time. It’s always the voters. You are simply pointing out that voter error over time becomes difficult to change, and the power of incumbency.
There are no living voters who voted for the last Republican mayor of Chicago. No Republican has even bothered running for mayor of Chicago for a decade or more. At this point saying “it’s the voters” is like saying “it’s because of Original Sin” or “it’s because of evil spirits”.
The real problem is that in Illinois the two major parties have a tacit agreement not to compete with each other. John Kass calls it “the Combine”.
“The calls to “defund the police†or devote more money to housing or infrastructure or just about anything else are being misdirected. They should be directed at the Congress, legislatures, county boards, and city councils. ”
The police dont fund themselves, for the most part. I had thought all along the request to reorganize how police are paid was being aimed at city councils and county boards.
Steve
City councils and city boards are largely in agreement with the protesters. They’re not the ones taking the rocks explosives and now car bombs.
Councilmen are not being burned out and looted.
The violence is directed at the police because they are there to contain the violence.
In the instances police are not there yet the violence is directed at local businesses and individuals who are cornered by the mob and coerced to “say her nameâ€, or coerced to swear fealty to Black Lives Matter.
Anyone stubborn or foolish enough to utter “all lives matter“
Will be beaten and kicked by the social justice vigilante mob.
This is warfare and if they keep growing bolder they will regret it.
Have they forgotten what White people are capable of?
I suspect they believe, as Osama Bin Laden did of Americans, that they are fat, lazy, and timorous.
Frankly, I doubt that many legislators at any level actually support the goals of BLM (which are expressly Marxist) or Antifa (which are anarchist) other than in a “last to be eaten” sort of way.