If the American people wanted a responsible government that respected our rights they could actually vote it in!
The majority of the American people don't care about it though!
How could anyone think assasinating 100-150 people would do ANYTHING in a country that continues to actually vote for such loathsome people?
We still hold elections in this country. Why don't small gov and pro civil liberties people run the country? Because they are not popular!
As a
Republic, we're supposed to be insulated from the vagaries and flaws in
democracy.
The two biggest problems/failures as I see it are:
1. The 17th Amendment, removing the Senate from election by state legislatures.
2. The inability or lack of any "teeth" of the branches to actually enforce their constitutional powers over each other. Dates back to Jackson at least and "
Worcester v. Georgia" and the famous quote: "
John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!"
Without power to actually
enforce their decisions, or more appropriately, only the Executive branch having such powers, the Constitution has from day one had an expiration date in it, as it slowly becomes a paper tiger every time the people with the guns decide to be ballsy and not listen.
i.e. Here and now, Congress held Holder in Contempt, but unless Congress had some sort of actual troops or police in a chain of command that starts with the Speaker, through the Sargent at Arms and not POTUS, and they
went and got Holder, it's an empty gesture. Same for Lois Lerner.
Congress can retaliate through the budget process in theory, but what REALLY would happen if the POTUS or the Exec Branch at large ignored it and just spent whatever he wanted, wrote checks etc.?
Same for SCOTUS. If the Exec branch had people arrested, detained indefinitely without Habeas Corpus, and just ignored court rulings to free or give people trial, what's next? What does the court actually do about it?
Rule again?
Granted Habeas Corpus already has the exceptions for rebellion and war, so it's easier to manipulate, as it was in the Civil War and today in the much more nebulous AWOT, but I think you get the idea.
If the Founders had some additional prescience, they might have structured each branch with some troops, a militia, or some sort of service that was loyal to them and outside the chain-of-command of the CnC/POTUS. Might have been one hell of a mess, especially during the Civil War, or perhaps the Congress and SCOTUS might have let their forces whither to ceremonial roles anyway.
But it would have been a start.
