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[return to "DEA authorized to conduct surveillance on protestors"]
1. r00fus+N1[view] [source] 2020-06-02 23:57:41
>>codeze+(OP)
This is the thin edge to a national police action. Crazy how little oversight there is over the executive branch (and this administration in particular).
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2. paxys+Z1[view] [source] 2020-06-02 23:59:16
>>r00fus+N1
The entire "checks and balances" system breaks down when a handful of Republicans in the Senate are complicit in everything that is going on.
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3. Robeli+J2[view] [source] 2020-06-03 00:03:47
>>paxys+Z1
I think that’s a little unfair. The executive branch has always taken more and more power. Obama was guiltily of it. Bush was guilty of it. And nearly every president before them.

The expansion of executive powers us usually makes sense to the party in power, and doesn’t make sense to the minority party. But there was always an understanding that everyone was a rational actor with these powers. No one ever stopped and asked what would happen if someone a little more irrational now had these expanded powers.

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4. munifi+M3[view] [source] 2020-06-03 00:10:01
>>Robeli+J2
> The executive branch has always taken more and more power.

No, the judicial and legislative branches have ceded it. The whole point of checks and balances is the tacit understanding that each branch will naturally grow as much power as it can and it is the responsibility of the other branches to check it.

Blaming the executive branch for growing its power is like blaming the seller for high prices in a free market — the system is designed presuming competition and selfish behavior.

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5. mumble+Ib[view] [source] 2020-06-03 01:13:44
>>munifi+M3
It's just possible that the system of checks and balances that was designed by a bunch of people who were pretty much new to this, and who didn't anticipate the development of the two-party system, didn't actually turn out to be in a state of perfect equilibrium that would last for centuries upon centuries.

Frankly, I think we should be impressed. It's a borderline miracle that it's survived as well as it has.

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6. mehrda+2q[view] [source] 2020-06-03 03:51:07
>>mumble+Ib
> didn't anticipate the development of the two-party system

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23398788

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