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This deeply misunderstands my point and the basics of how society works: if you put bad people in charge of any part of a country, the system will suffer and u

This deeply misunderstands my point and the basics of how society works: if you put bad people in charge of any part of a country, the system will suffer and ultimately break. No contrivance of checks and balances will let you escape from the basic duty of making sure bad people don't get power of something important. A balance is a tool that simplifies a task, nothing more.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> if you put bad people in charge of any part of a country, the system will suffer and ultimately break Defining "bad" in this context is where the advice becomes useless. "Constitutional respect and restraint" is a dog chasing its tail, since the question is punted to the meaning of constitutional respect and restraint. At the end of the day, certain types of people will always be drawn to power. And the people in power will inevitably have certain undesirable traits in common. The solution to this is, in part, testing for tyrannical tendencies in elections. But it's also in having systems in place that impede fast, fundamental decision making of the type that turns democracies into tyrannies.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Certainly it is not always obvious who shouldn't be let in and who should get a second chance, but such is life. Keeping those not appropriate is out is still the task, even if "appropriate" varies strongly with the precise context. And without a deep discussion on what precisely is appropriate for all the contexts the state operates in, insistence on bureaucracy is merely (intended or not) a codification of conservatism.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > insistence on bureaucracy is merely (intended or not) a codification of conservatism That's actually the point. You get a group of people together to agree on who are the good people. You put them in place. You then install mechanisms to ensure that original view of "good" propagates, with changes being heavily guarded until a consensus similar to the original one re-appears. Governing isn't about good and bad. It's about amongst whom consensus must be formed to produce action. Expanding the pool of necessary votes is what checks and balances accomplish.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> if you put bad people in charge of any part of a country, the system will suffer and ultimately break Defining "bad" in this context is where the advice becomes useless. "Constitutional respect and restraint" is a dog chasing its tail, since the question is punted to the meaning of constitutional respect and restraint. At the end of the day, certain types of people will always be drawn to power. And the people in power will inevitably have certain undesirable traits in common. The solution to this is, in part, testing for tyrannical tendencies in elections. But it's also in having systems in place that impede fast, fundamental decision making of the type that turns democracies into tyrannies.

SiempreViernes 7y ago
Certainly it is not always obvious who shouldn't be let in and who should get a second chance, but such is life. Keeping those not appropriate is out is still the task, even if "appropriate" varies strongly with the precise context. And without a deep discussion on what precisely is appropriate for all the contexts the state operates in, insistence on bureaucracy is merely (intended or not) a codification of conservatism.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > insistence on bureaucracy is merely (intended or not) a codification of conservatism That's actually the point. You get a group of people together to agree on who are the good people. You put them in place. You then install mechanisms to ensure that original view of "good" propagates, with changes being heavily guarded until a consensus similar to the original one re-appears. Governing isn't about good and bad. It's about amongst whom consensus must be formed to produce action. Expanding the pool of necessary votes is what checks and balances accomplish.