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breamfisher
Senior MemberPosts: 13,493 Senior Member
Why are people focusing on the President?
breamfisher
Senior MemberPosts: 13,493 Senior Member
Why are folks up in arms about who we elect as President, as though it's the President and President alone who will run the country? He's the supreme executive, true, but our founders (rightly so) put in place a system of checks and balances with the legislative and judicial branches. While we can't directly influence the judicial branch, the two other branches we can select have a fair amount of influence. But why do folks focus on just the executive? Why haven't I heard or read much on who we elect for the legislative branch?
Think about it.
The legislative proposes and approves the laws. If the President doesn't get any bad legislation, he can't sign it. If the President has legislation handed to him with a veto-proof approval, well, you can override him.
The Senate approves Supreme Court justices. With the right Senate, the President CAN'T appoint justices we don't agree with. They won't approve them.
Same thing with other appointments.
Treaties? The Senate approves those. See appointments.
The House of Representatives controls spending. Worried about government spending? Get the right House.
Yes, the President is powerful, but I worry that so much fretting about who is elected as President overlooks the other branches of government, and one of which we the people have some direct input into. At least that's what I was taught in my high school and college civics classes....
Think about it.
The legislative proposes and approves the laws. If the President doesn't get any bad legislation, he can't sign it. If the President has legislation handed to him with a veto-proof approval, well, you can override him.
The Senate approves Supreme Court justices. With the right Senate, the President CAN'T appoint justices we don't agree with. They won't approve them.
Same thing with other appointments.
Treaties? The Senate approves those. See appointments.
The House of Representatives controls spending. Worried about government spending? Get the right House.
Yes, the President is powerful, but I worry that so much fretting about who is elected as President overlooks the other branches of government, and one of which we the people have some direct input into. At least that's what I was taught in my high school and college civics classes....
Overkill is underrated.
Replies
Yes, you are 100% right, but Obama did not have to take the slack in the rope given him if he really cared about the constitution and our system instead of his own agenda and ideology, but he did demonstrating his character and his intent so that is why we are continuing to talk about him and will until he is defeated or his second term is over. Your question was why we talk about Obama so much!! We certrainly agree with you on the congress and it failures, I was just answering the point of your question.
Even though we thought he would and the President said he would, does not change the fact that he actually did it and shouldn't have done so, and he has really stirred up a lot of dicontent. So, once again, that is why he has earned what he got, it is the consequences of his choices that have created the atmosphere and the response, and he has created so much disatisfaction that people can hardly muster up enough energy from being drained by Obama's actions to give the needed attention the house and expsecally what the senate deserves.
See, this illustrates my point perfectly: I'm trying to talk about Congress, and you're fixating still on the President. Even when someone tries to talk about Congress, we keep on coming back to the President. In that environment, it's really not bad to be a Congressional representative. You can mess things up and everyone will fault the President.
See, this illustrates my point perfectly in answering your question, we bring him up and not congress, because we are justifiably fixated on Obama, because he represents the head or the total problem in a simple way for people to identify the problems of Washington. Most in bring up Obama are bring up in essence the entire sick system that has evolved in Washington. If he falls the nature of Congress will change (whether for better or worse it will change), Congress will be exposed more and open more to our disfavor. Until Obama falls, removed, voted out we will not have a lot of success with congress, but you cut the head off and the snake will wiggle, moving back and forth with quick irregular motions trying to defend itself. Frankly, I will stay fix on Obama just so as to have part in cutting the head off so the long convoluted body that supports him can be dealt with much easier.
Jerry
I bet the animal if you get close enough to his head he can still bit you, I sure would not want to pick him up. A snake is a snake. Like myth of a man walking down the road one morning on the first frost of the year and sees a snake in the ditch. The snake could barely move and asked the man to pick him up. The man said, "NO!!! you will bit me!!" The snake assured the man that he would not bit him, all he needed was to get warm so he could crawl back to his hole. So the man, feeling sorry for him reached down and picked up the cold snake and held him in his hands until the snake got warm and began to move. At that moment the snake bit the man and he threw the snake to the ground and said, "YOU BIT ME!!!! The snake looked up at the man as he began to get weak and said, "you knew I was a snake when you pitched me up!!" And then crawled back in his hole. just saying....
BTW,. if you get bit by the animal, you deserve it. Much like the person who gets bit by a shark after he puts his hand in the fish's mouth.
― Douglas Adams
Ditto Teach.
Also, there is another thread about Remington getting the contract for M-4s that Colt used to have. Mentioned in it was the "Deal" Clinton cut with Colt to impose back-door gun control by giving them sweet contractual deals. The POTUS can do a whole bunch and influence a lot of policy by himself, plus he has veto power. No single member of Congress or even the Supreme Court can weld so much power.
Words of wisdom from Big Chief: Flush twice, it's a long way to the Mess Hall
I'd rather have my sister work in a whorehouse than own another Taurus!
I'm totally with you regarding Congress. It was the huge change in voting in 2010 that not only gave us a Republican House but several new Rep. governors and switched several states to Rep. legislative control.
Focus is on the Prez because, as you say, he's the supreme executive and arguably the most powerful single person on earth. Power and influence of the Executive branch has grown greatly over the last century and it makes a huge difference.
Re. judicial appointments, true, the Senate confirms, but generally the Senate will confirm any nominee who is legally "clean", so a Republican senate will confirm a liberal Democrat nominee whom the liberal Prez selects. Of course the Demos rejected Republican nominees who were qualified but that's Democrats for you.
To me it is simple, the reason to have a guy in the White House, etc., pretty much in any modern system where this person is elected by the people has developed into a twofold deal, one half will applaud all he does and the other half will blame all on this person, meanwhile a lot of folks with a variety of resources and so on will do their self serving bidding.
Thing is that this has been going on for a very long time already and neither part of the half that can see this is going to fess up to it, too much "face" to be lost!
Congress has abandoned some of their lawmaking power and bestowed that power to some of the alphabet soup of bureaus, departments, and agencies. They had no right to do so. So says the Constitution. Why are bad congressmen and senators reelected to term after term? Simple, really. An uninformed and uneducated, and greedy, electorate listens to empty promises of more largesse from the treasury if they elect the person to office. Ben Franklin spoke of this: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." Ben Franklin Bread and circuses for the masses to keep them pacified. Nothing more nor less; the electorate is the victim of it's own greed and lack of understanding of what the function of the federal government is according to the Constitution.
The Executive branch. The President is supposed to sign bills passed by the congress, and give the body direction. He is supposed to submit a budget for spending, and the congress is to diddle with the numbers and submit the final budget for his approval and signature. He is the face of the U.S. government to other nations. The current president has abdicated much of his duties to a gaggle of tzars who have no real authority to do what they do, but do it anyway. They are not elected, but appointed by the president, and have no accountability to the electorate. They allow the current president to have earned the title "Vacationer in Chief", and rightly so. He vacations while the tzars meddle in everything government, and screw it up. The reason he has appointed so many to these positions is because of the simple fact that he has zero ability to do the job for which he was elected. He is a figurehead, and not much else. An empty vessel.
The Judicial. The Supreme Court hasn't been very good since the Depression. They were whipped into line then, and have been largely subjugated by the other two branches of government. They rubber stamp things that would be shocking to their predecessors of a hundred years ago. They no longer 'interpret' the constitutionality of the cases before them; they make things up as constitutional out of whole cloth. They occasionally throw a bone to the Constitution, but it is less and less frequent.
"This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins." Ben Franklin
It is, and has been, the fault of We the People that we are in the position we are in. We blame the President and the Congress, but who elected them to office? Who reelects the clowns that incrementally subvert the Constitution? Who demands more and more goods and services from the government, and gives no thought to the problem from where the funds must come from while railing at the increased taxes from same to pay for the government largesse? The majority of the electorate is ignorant of the limits of the powers granted to the government by the Constitution, and has no inclination to become educated; they're too busy screaming for more 'stuff' from the government.
Go ahead and point the finger at the government. Just know the fact that when you do so, three fingers are pointing back at you. The government is the way it is because we have allowed it to be so.
― Douglas Adams
People vote for congress based on what they will do FOR them and people vote for president based on what they will do TO someone else.
So the national public conversation is always about screwing someone.
These senators and representatives also have a much bigger pool of peers that blame can be spread around to - "I tried but didn't have a majority"; "I was forced to compromise"; "Too much resistance from special interests". Obama only seems to have George Bush Jr., and he's played that song with every chord on the fretboard.
Stick a bunch of steel bars in an open field. The tallest one will keep getting hit by lighting. Simple as that.
"Nothing is safe from stupid." - Zee
I guess a lot of folks here don't realize that the President is a figurehead.
The Congress runs the country.
Surprise!!! That's the way the country was founded.
The Founding Fathers didn't want another King.
The chances of the Senate overturning the President's pick for the SCOTUS is slim. They've done it 3 times in my time that I can remember, the last being Robert Bork in 1987 under Ronald Reagan. GW Bush's pick, Harriet Miers withdrew, so she wasn't rejected. Then he picked one of the most conservative ones on the court, Sam Alito. That's what Obama will do in reverse if his pick is rejected. Even if he picks one that gets turned down, he gets another chance. And two in a row getting overruled is very unlikely, although it did happen under Nixon. And If Obama gets his pick turned down 5 times, he ain't picking a Sam Alito. This makes the office of president Critical to how the law is interpreted which is what we are living on with the second amendment.
At risk of repetition, if one of the more conservative justices gets sick or dies or just wants to retire, we're screwed if Obama is in office. It's possible we will be screwed with Romney, but we know what we'll get with Obama, we aren't sure with Romney. I'll take not sure over a sure thing anyday.
Son that's somebody with nothing to do with his time but keep me in trouble with mom.