18 ms·

So that they can imperfectly be held accountable by all imperfect people. Now let us find a nice foundation of sand to build a castle on.

by woodman 11y ago

dsp1234 11y ago
I could rip a piece of paper with my bare hands. Give me 300 million pieces of paper sandwiched together and I couldn't.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  But they burn quite good.
  - danudey 11y ago
    Actually stacks, sheets, or bindings of paper are extremely difficult to burn compared to individual sheets.
    - woodman 11y ago
      Stacks burn, but not as energetically as a single sheet with a high surface area to volume ratio. The stack might just smolder for 229 years, because the flame resistant treatment turned out to only be flame retardant. Something something Alien and Sedition Acts... this metaphor cannot be tortured any further.
morgante 11y ago
If you're going to debate this, at least read Federalist 51. The whole point of checks and balances is to get good results from imperfect people. You can use the ambitions of one individual or group to hold the ambitions of another group in check. I feel like you're just trying to be snarky and or gratuitously negative though.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Reasonable results that allowed most people to go about their lives unmolested from imperfect people. I don't think they imagined "good results".
- woodman 11y ago
  Oh I remember my highschool civics lessons, but I then went on to study game theory. Consider the incentive imbalance: if it costs me 10k hours to legislatively get one penny from every citizen, and the same number of hours are required to frustrate my attempt - guess who has the greater incentive.
- vezzy-fnord 11y ago
  Checks and balances are fine in theory. In practice, the executive and judiciary are overpowered. Judicial review quickly becomes judicial activism. Executive orders are a unilateral get-out-of-checks-and-balances-free card in many cases, lamentations of scholars notwithstanding. Additionally, there is no proper "federalism" so to speak of. It's a marble cake federalism of various entangled relationships and procurements between federal, state and private institutions with disparate enforcement and contractual obligations. Americans have deified their Founding Fathers to such an absurd extent that they seem to be unable to think critically. That maybe Hamilton and Madison were engaging in wishful thinking. That maybe the anti-federalists were right. That maybe Henry Clay's American System and his antecedent in Hamilton largely botched the ideal separation-of-powers republic from the beginning.
  - mentat 11y ago
    And congress isn't overpowered because it just makes laws and authorizes spending?
  - ktRolster 11y ago
    <quote> Executive orders are a unilateral get-out-of-checks-and-balances-free card in many cases</quote> If congress wants to, they can overturn most of the executive orders by passing a law. It's not like those are magical powers.
progressive_dad 11y ago
airbubbles + manstrength: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3yvxuMGwCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3yvxuMGwCg
hobs 11y ago
Well, better throw that Von Neumann architecture in the TRASH then.
CyberDildonics 11y ago
Unfortunately all we have is sand.

So that they can imperfectly be held accountable by all imperfect people. Now let us find a nice foundation of sand to build a castle on.

by woodman 11y ago

So that they can imperfectly be held accountable by all imperfect people. Now let us find a nice foundation of sand to build a castle on.

dsp1234 11y ago

I could rip a piece of paper with my bare hands. Give me 300 million pieces of paper sandwiched together and I couldn't.

venomsnake 11y ago
But they burn quite good.
- danudey 11y ago
  Actually stacks, sheets, or bindings of paper are extremely difficult to burn compared to individual sheets.
  - woodman 11y ago
    Stacks burn, but not as energetically as a single sheet with a high surface area to volume ratio. The stack might just smolder for 229 years, because the flame resistant treatment turned out to only be flame retardant. Something something Alien and Sedition Acts... this metaphor cannot be tortured any further.

morgante 11y ago

If you're going to debate this, at least read Federalist 51. The whole point of checks and balances is to get good results from imperfect people. You can use the ambitions of one individual or group to hold the ambitions of another group in check. I feel like you're just trying to be snarky and or gratuitously negative though.

fweespeech 11y ago
Reasonable results that allowed most people to go about their lives unmolested from imperfect people. I don't think they imagined "good results".
woodman 11y ago
Oh I remember my highschool civics lessons, but I then went on to study game theory. Consider the incentive imbalance: if it costs me 10k hours to legislatively get one penny from every citizen, and the same number of hours are required to frustrate my attempt - guess who has the greater incentive.
vezzy-fnord 11y ago
Checks and balances are fine in theory. In practice, the executive and judiciary are overpowered. Judicial review quickly becomes judicial activism. Executive orders are a unilateral get-out-of-checks-and-balances-free card in many cases, lamentations of scholars notwithstanding. Additionally, there is no proper "federalism" so to speak of. It's a marble cake federalism of various entangled relationships and procurements between federal, state and private institutions with disparate enforcement and contractual obligations. Americans have deified their Founding Fathers to such an absurd extent that they seem to be unable to think critically. That maybe Hamilton and Madison were engaging in wishful thinking. That maybe the anti-federalists were right. That maybe Henry Clay's American System and his antecedent in Hamilton largely botched the ideal separation-of-powers republic from the beginning.
- mentat 11y ago
  And congress isn't overpowered because it just makes laws and authorizes spending?
- ktRolster 11y ago
  <quote> Executive orders are a unilateral get-out-of-checks-and-balances-free card in many cases</quote> If congress wants to, they can overturn most of the executive orders by passing a law. It's not like those are magical powers.

progressive_dad 11y ago

airbubbles + manstrength: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3yvxuMGwCg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3yvxuMGwCg

hobs 11y ago

Well, better throw that Von Neumann architecture in the TRASH then.

CyberDildonics 11y ago

Unfortunately all we have is sand.