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Clickbait. Administrative agencies are not criminal courts: prosecutor, judge, and jury. All the people piling on Amazon should realize that, someday, a 2nd T
by AlbertCory 3y ago
Clickbait.
Administrative agencies are not criminal courts: prosecutor, judge, and jury.
All the people piling on Amazon should realize that, someday, a 2nd Trump administration could appoint people to an agency who do things you really don't like. That's why everyone should care about separation of powers.
- vkou 3y agoSomeday a bad Congress can make bad laws. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have laws (or not have a Congress). This argument against executive agencies is nonsense. Complete nonsense. The executive only has power delegated to it by legislature. If it's misusing that power the legislature can always pass a law that makes the agency do something else. If Congress isn't passing such laws, it's clearly happy with the current state of the agency. If you don't like the NLRB, vote for a Congress that will dissolve it. I can't imagine that will be a popular campaign platform, but you never know... (I know why this nonsense argument is so popular these days - the Republican plan for governance is having a Congress that won't do anything - so in order to implement their reactionism, they need to do it through unelected, appointed judges, who don't need consensus when imposing their agenda.)
- AlbertCory 3y agoad hominem arguments. "Those bad people are saying it, so it must be wrong." Read the Constitution and the Federalist papers someday. Also read about "Chevron deference" which is going away soon.
- peddling-brink 3y agoThe comment you responded to was nearly as far as you can get from ad hominem. Yes they mentioned the Republicans, but not as a reason for their arguments. They attacked the republican plans and strategies.
- philwelch 3y agoWe already have a set of laws—the Constitution—that governs which laws Congress is allowed to pass. What’s more, not only does the Constitution categorically blacklist certain laws (e.g. the Bill of Rights), it also specifically whitelists the limited set of purposes Congress can pass laws for (e.g. Article I, Section 8). And the Tenth Amendment makes clear that the federal government has no powers beyond the ones explicitly delegated to it by the Constitution.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- akira2501 3y ago> a 2nd Trump administration Every administration in my lifetime has done this. Administrative power is the boogey man, not the New York real estate developer who temporarily holds it.
- wolverine876 3y ago> Every administration in my lifetime has done this. It depends on what you mean by "this". Every administration has used political appointees and has some bias toward the president's policies. The Trump administration took it much further than anyone before, putting political appointees in traditionally non-partisan positions (e.g., approving health policy), and using the powers of government to benefit the president personally and politically. The Trump campaign has put together extensive plans to take that much futher, to maximize it. The 'matters of degree' are all that matter in life. Nothing is absolutely pure or evil. But the differences are life and death, freedom and servitude. There is some freedom in North Korea, some servitude in the US, but I wouldn't say they are the same.
- jfengel 3y agoThe problem with separation of powers is that it can ultimately lead to no power. If you neuter the executive branch agencies out of fear that an opponent would use them against you, then you also have no opportunity for those agencies to do you any benefit. To do something beneficial, you have to do both. You have to make some mechanism by which the government can accomplish things, and then vote in a government that does what you want. It's an ongoing process. Separation of powers is the reason that the legislature is practically useless for defending your rights. You have to get many different groups to sign off: the House and the Senate (by a filibuster-proof margin) and the President, and hope that the Supreme Court doesn't just throw it all out. There are so many places where a defender of the status quo can just put their foot down and say "no". The executive branch is just about the last place where action can actually be taken. And that, too, is incredibly slow and cumbersome, but it's at least not impossible.
- AlbertCory 3y agoI guess you don't like our Constitution, then?
- philwelch 3y ago> Separation of powers is the reason that the legislature is practically useless for defending your rights. Separation of powers is actually very useful for defending your rights from the government, which was the original motivation.
- jfengel 3y agoTwo and a half centuries later that motivation would be expected to drift. Especially as many people had no input into that original drafting, and have concerns that aren't well represented.
- philwelch 3y agoThat's why the Constitution includes a provision that allows the Constitution to be amended.
- wolverine876 3y agoWhat solution do you have? The article III judiciary doesn't have nearly the capacity nor the expertise to fill in for the administrative agencies.
- two_handfuls 3y agoThis is not about separtion of powers. This is about Amazon’s desire to be allowed to threaten and discriminate against unionizing workers.