After Bush....How much of the president's power should be contained

[IChing]

Constitutional Crisis what do you think about
activist judges and a congress that doesn't listen?

[lvx35]

1. What good is it to limit the power of a Dem president if the republicans will just take it back...

when they get in?

[IChing]

3. This is a poll that examines our constitution

including the powers of each branch of government.
Because right now
the power of the presidency does not respect or listen to any branch
and that power has been given gladly over the years.

[lvx35]

4. I'm sick of them breaking it and us cleaning it up again and again.

whoever gets in should use the power they have to make changes before making things right.

[IChing]

5. I didn't have room for 1786

I think this nation needs to reevaluate
what made this the first democracy that was
the envy of of the world at its time and for many years afterwards.

The three equal branches of government is something
we have lost in so many ways

Justice, democracy and leadership are in turmoil
and that ship is on the sea
of global warming, war, greed and indifference.

[lvx35]

6. well said.

These are sobering times indeed. Sometimes the scope and size of it just sort of overwhelms me.

[rosesaylavee]

2. We need a Constitutional Amendment addressing

this issue to prevent it sliding back and causing future imbalances amongst the branches.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. I think we should have a serious discussion about abolishing the presidency

In my lifetime I have seen the two most abusive presidents in US history: Nixon and Bush the Frat Boy. I don't want to live through one more who thinks that anything he does, by definition, is legal.

If Bush's attacks on constitutional law haven't shown the absurdity of Nixon's pronouncement, nothing will.

I maintain that the power of the presidency corrupts the man in the office. When a shady character like Nixon or a weak character like Bush surrounded by shady characters like Cheney and Rove come to power, we have the makings of a constitutional crisis. The present problem is the worse of the two, since it suffices to remove Nixon, but the cleansing of the government now will require the removal of the entire executive branch.

I favor a parliamentary system, where the legislative body elects one of its own to take responsibility for executive power and thereby keeps a shorter leash on him. It is far from a perfect system, but there no such thing as a perfect system. The Prime Minister can be removed from office for matters considerable short of high crimes and misdemeanors. If things simply aren't going well, that's reason enough to give him a vote of no confidence and take the matter to the voters.

If the Prime Minister abuses power like the two White House rogues I've named, then Parliament is to blame. The remedy is to vote the bastards out.

A Prime Minister cannot operate in secrecy, because he responsible to, not separate from, the members of the legislature. A Prime Minister cannot deceive the legislature, as Mr. Bush did over Social Security and Medicare and the costs of he's screwy ideas, because he is responsible to the legislature who must act on that information. A Prime Minister who deceives Parliament as much and as badly as Mr. Bush deceived Congress would be out of power quick.

The office of the President is to too big for any human being and too grand and imperial to be the cornerstone of a democratic state. Let's do away with it.

[IChing]

8. I think that this should be a national discus-ion

In schools, in college, in the barrios, the ghettos, the slum,
the gated communities and the churches of our souls
that witness the cathedral's of our minds
but never capture the colors

Of a democracy we could have now.