The Constitution Needs to Be Amended To Add a Fourth Branch

[redstate_democrat]

Article One is for the Executive
Article Two is for Congress
Article Three is for the Judiciary

We need a fourth branch just for enforcing the law.

It appears that NO ONE in this country is willing to enforce the law. Congress cannot even get the DOJ to friggin turn over documents because it has become so politicized. As long as the Executive controls the law enforcement sector, he can evade the law, making the 2nd and 3rd branches IRRELEVANT at his will.

I say take away the DOJ, FBI, US MARSHALLS, SECRET SERVICE, DEA, and all other federal law enforcement agencies from under the executive branch and have it as a separate branch of its own.

Have the jobs be NON POLITICAL, having each house of congress and the executive have equal voting power for appointees and equal nomination power. Currently, executive law enforcement officials serve at the will of the president. Scrap that idea. Just like the judiciary isn't answerable or subject to politicization (supposedly), have the law enforcement branch the same way, only impeachable or subject to removal for dereliction of duty, corruption, etc. Have a series of checks and balances within the branch and assign oversight to Congress.

This is the only way we can assure that this crap doesn't happen again. Seeing that Congress is subject to political considerations (reelection) if they actually enforce the law and investigate the corruption, they may not do it. Therefore, create an unelected branch subject to oversight whose ONLY mission is to uphold the law without political considerations.

[LakeSamish706]

1. Isn't it Ironic how Bush keeps using that phrase... " We are a Nation of Laws"? n/

[redstate_democrat]

3. He meant for you guys, not him. He is above the Nation, the law, the world, etc.

He's the "Decider".

[LakeSamish706]

4. That pretty much sums it up.... How did this asswipe get to be so arrogant...

on our dollar anyway?

[redstate_democrat]

6. Because our representatives allowed him to bully them and beat them over the head with the

patriotic bat into they were nothing but dust. No courage. No sense of duty. No sense of what America stands for. Just a bunch of incompetent professional politicians who have no clue why they do what they do.

[JeffR]

2. Didn't Cheney declare he was the Fourth Branch?

Dick's way ahead of that curve.

[redstate_democrat]

5. That asshole is acting like a separate government all into himself.

He's the exec, law maker, and judge. He is "The United Corporations of Dick Cheney".

[JeffR]

8. And I understand that it's worked out well for him.

He's a classic example of one man's ceiling being another man's floor. In his case, it's the whole damn country's ceiling that he walks on.

[Fovea]

7. I think the problem starts with

Marbury v. Madison.

SCOTUS walked away from enforcement of Justice in the very beginning
in order to become more august.

Time has shown one or two weaknesses with that idea, IMO.

[redstate_democrat]

10. How did we survive all of these years?

How did two men come in and trash the entire government in such a manner? We've gone through a Civil War, a Cold War, two World Wars, Vietnam, the Korean War, several other wars, Presidential Impeachment, Assassinations, Jim Crow, Reconstruction, Pearl Harbor, the Great Depression, the 60s, Watergate, etc. We were always very fucked up in one way or another, but at least everything wasn't in the crapper. Now, it seems like we have been hijacked by Beavis and Butthead.

I think the difference between our earlier leaders like John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Rooselvelt, FDR is that they honestly loved this country and were trying to improve it.

The people we have now can't possibly love this country. They're not trying to improve it. They want the status quo. They want to reverse the clock. These people are traitors.

[Fovea]

18. Previous crises

Some notables were

Union Order 10 and 11.
Palmer raids
Japanese American detention.

Wars allowed our system to stray from constitutional govt.
The difference is, before we managed to get it back.

[enlightenment]

17. It is not the job of the Judiciary to enforce the law.

It is the job of the Executive.

The legislature makes law
The executive enforces law
The judiciary interprets law

The problem is that the executive is not doing it's job. We don't need a new branch of government, we need the three we have to do their jobs.

[Bobcat]

9. Re: Constitution

Actually Article One is for the Legislative Branch - Article Two for the Executive. Minor point..... I agree comnpletely with your basic premise. The FACT is we are no longer a nation of LAWS - we have become a nation of "men". Hencs, the LAW has become meaningless. This is a HUGE deviation from our national heritage. It is a violation of all oaths of office - executive and legislative. It is treasonous and UNPATRIOTIC!!! They are attempting to transform the United States - small steps at a time, so small as not to arouse any questions, aided and abetted by a compliant and willing mainstream media - into a totalitarian regime. It is a national disgrace! And I do not see the institution of Congress stepping up to assert its Constitutional authority. They are beginning to look like the Reichstag of the mid-1930's. A rubber stamp - plain and simple!

[redstate_democrat]

12. Thanks for the correction. I haven't read the text of the Constitution in a while.

But I know what it stands for! :D I totally agree with you. These MEN and WOMEN are changing the Constitution without amendment. They have abrogated their Constitutionally mandated power to be a separate and coequal branch of government. THEY HAVE FAILED. This country is turning into a totalitarian regime. This is how it always happens! We need to stop this now. How can we expect "representatives" who care more for their political positions more than they care about the Constitution to do their job?! There can be no MEANINGFUL oversight. Just like our Supreme Court Justices can't be expected to uphold the law if they are subject to political considerations, we can't expect Congress to either! Forget this whole idea about The People holding them accountable. Not with the massive election fraud, lack of TRUE public financing, corporate and lobbyists interests paying for legislation, an dumbed down and uninformed electorate and general corruption!

[bemildred]

11. Whenever you have watchers, you wind up needing people to watch the watchers.

Whenever you set up a separation of powers, you find that the separate powers collude in their own interests. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for an informed, empowered, and engaged public. The pre-requisite for the current decadent mess was the trashing of the public education system and the end of the fairness doctrine. Let me rephrase: "We the People" are the 4th or last or whatever branch, and we have failed to do our jobs too, and unless that is addressed a new government org-chart will not accomplish much.

[redstate_democrat]

14. But the people are fucking stupid for the most part!

Half the country reelected Bush in 2004 when THEY KNEW he wasn't worth a damn. The People should be marching in the streets right now but where are they? They have been so bullied and dumbed down into submission, shocked and awed by economics and war, they can't even open up their eyes! Then there are SOME who WANT the federal government TOTALLY dismantled. Repuglicans HATE government. How can we expect them to run one with any competency?

[readmoreoften]

15. Yes, the only people who are going to watch the people's interest are the people.

The individuals in this "individualist" society better get used to working well with others and taking collective risks or we're all going to be individually sitting in our rooms watching the tanks roll past. Or, for those who are still working class: sitting in our individual rooms playing Nintendo and chatting in forums about "how it really hasn't gotten that bad" while the tanks roll through the poor neighborhoods two miles away.

It's funny. People today demand that "their" government "give" them freedom of the pursuit happiness. The idea of a government BY the people FOR the people requires sacrifices that most people aren't prepared to make. The pursuit of happiness and the demand of mindless non-stop pleasure are different animals.

[redstate_democrat]

16. How do we get The People to pull themselves away from the flatscreens

and Playstation games, Nascar, American Idol, Wal-Mart, and Disney World to get the TO WAKE UP before it's too late?

How do we get this depressed, slovenly, stupid mass of people to DO SOMETHING?

[readmoreoften]

19. First of all, we have to start putting the blame in the right place.

The suppression of the masses is by design. The most cursory glance at formerly classified CIA data from the mid-century will show this. The goal is to create sedated and happy masses in the U.S. to quell any sort of uprising. From the congressional investigation into MK Ultra experiments in 1974. One doctor's comments behalf of the experiments:

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated... The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective... Man does NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain."

Dr. Jose M.R. Delgado Director of Neuropsychiatry Yale University Medical School
Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974

Remember that only 18,000 militants took the whole of Russia during the 1905 uprising. I think the beginning is to accept that the elections are useless in this current system. We can vote for the lesser-of-twos, but we have to understand that nothing will change. The first thing we have to do is admit we have a problem.

The second thing we have to do is stop hating poor people. They have little access to good education--by design. They know something is wrong, but they are pummeled with amounts of disinformation heretofore unseen in human history. So they throw up their hands and play nintendo, just like the 'liberals' throw up their hands and watch movies like V for Vendetta and Good Night and Good Luck. The key will be organizing outside the system and taking risks to effect real change. A multiple day nationwide general strike would be the first good prospect if it looks like we're going to war with Iran--organized and in solidarity with musicians and actors who might perform at smaller gatherings across the nation. My guess is that people will risk losing their jobs if it means the opportunity to hang out with their heroes in person and hear their favorite musicians play live--especially if there is a spirit of the democratization of art. Turn the "gods" into humans in solidarity with the masses. Let the anti-war rich donate food and clothing for strikers. But this of course is only a beginning spectacle. There would be endless hard work after that. But more people might be interested in hard work after inspiration. I think people are dying to be inspired by ANYTHING. I also think people want to know more but they are afraid of being put down by the same old academic elite who blames them for their own disenfranchisement.

First, let the blame go to the Right media networks, the kings, and corporate beneficiaries of war.
Second, let the blame go to the Churches who shill for them.
Third, let the blame go to all of us who haven't done enough and let's make it right.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

13. A watch dog branch