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Originally Posted by aceventura3
I simply don't understand where you want to take this.
I certainly accept the fact that a President has power and can act on his own initiative without consulting others. However, in our form of government his acts are validated or invalidated by the actions (or inactions) of the other branches. Therefore I do not accept the broad concept of the President being able to act unilaterally, especially when it comes to matters like war, torture, habeas corpus, etc.. Certainly, I can accept the flaws in our system relative to timing. My question to you was was regarding the timing issue. The President can ask others to execute a decision based on his sole judgment. However, even that requires complicity on the part of others for execution of his decision and is therefore not unilateral. If the President fails to uphold the law of the land, our other branches have an immediate obligation to address that situation in my opinion. Again, in my view that is not "unilateral".
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By that standard, is the failure of Russia to nuke the USA in response to US action a condoning of US action?
In order for the Judicial branch to say "no" to the executive branch, they need a case brought before them. And, to quote the asshole on your 20$ bill, "the supreme court has made it's decision. Now let them enforce it" in response to Andrew Jackson's plans to commit genocide on the Native Americans living on land the Andrew Jackson wanted for white people.
Similarly, in order for the Congress to censure the President,
they have to impeach the president. This is a long, drawn-out process that requires a large amount of resources and time. Can the President not be guilty of being an idiot, an asshole, or a fuck up without the implicit consent of congress unless congress impeaches the president
every time the President does something wrong?
Under that kind of logic, I hold you personally responsible for every act I do. You could come up here and prevent my action (sure, you don't know where I live -- but you could spend lots of money finding it out, I'm not untrackable).
It's a complete abdication of any responsibility for any action whatsoever, as far as I can tell.
Similarly, guess what happens if the President says "go and do X", and you don't do X? You, personally, are pretty much fucked. The President has made it clear that if you obstruct his choices, he'll fire you and ruin your career. So when the President tells you to do something that seems merely questionable, and doesn't want to here "but, that's dumb", you can either quit your job, ruin your life, or do the merely questionable act.
Under your standard, the fact that 1000s of people are willing to do what the President
tells them to do, even if the act seems questionable to them, means that they collectively are responsible for the President's decisions?
Remember: the President doesn't say "here is what is going on. Here is what I think will happen. Thus, I think you should do X. Do you concur?" The President is expected to have access to information that you don't have -- in theory, that information might be sufficiently sensitive that you _shouldn't_ know it, even if things are working fine. So sure, it might be a bad idea to invade Iraq without a good reconstruction plan -- but you are the General in charge of the invasion, and you don't have the
time to make sure that the President is doing the job. Barring your invasion orders being utterly idiotic on their face, with no possible way to make them not-stupid, you presume the President has delt with the other problems outside of your domain.
And that holds for lots of people. Maybe a handful know the entire plan -- and they have raised their objections asto why it is wrong, but their job is to advise the President, not override the President. Even if they quit, they aren't legally allowed to go off and tell other people that the President is being an idiot.
I don't get it. Do I just misunderstand your position?