Yesterday, the Democrats caved again. I don’t need to specify which issue, since I’m sure that phrase will apply whenever you are reading this. I can’t even begin to explain how frustrating these last few years have been, and not just because of the predictable self serving Bush administration. This country was founded on the principal of checks and balances, and it hasn’t been just the White House that has screwed it up so badly.

The Founding Fathers of this country fully expected the president to try to seize all the power he can. After breaking away from a monarch with unlimited power, they set up a system that would prevent it from happening over here. The one weakness in their system is that it relies on the people to actually act in the best interest of the county. The congress is supposed to be the people’s house, and represent the best interest of the people, while in turn be held accountable by an educated and aware populace. That’s why every congressman is up for re-election every two years - it’s supposed to hold them accountable to their constituents. That system has been broken by a systematic, long term plan to lull the population into a stupor so deep that the majority is not even alarmed by the most heinous abuses of Executive power.

Politicians, in this system, only have the power that the people give them. Or, as we see now, politicians take the power that the people won’t deny them. Everything about our republic is set up to deny powers to the Executive Branch. Technically, the president is only allowed to execute the laws that congress passes, and Congress can only grant the Executive the power the constitution allows. The Supreme Court is there to limit the power of both, the congress and the Executive, by making sure their actions are within the bounds of the constitution. This is why only Congress can declare war.

Most presidents have tried to expand the power of the Executive by claiming powers or rights that were not theirs. They get these powers in a de facto manner if no one challenges them on it. We saw what happens when congress has the spine to act, as it did in the 70’s with Nixon. What Nixon did was not nearly as bad as the myriad of things the current administration is continually doing, but those were different times. The press actually did their jobs, and exposed the mess. The American people did their job and got outraged, and Congress did theirs and investigated. As a result, a power grab by the Executive was thwarted, and Nixon was tossed out on his lying ass; well, he left before he could be tossed out, but the effect was the same.

The Republicans learned many lessons from this incident - unfortunately, none of them included NOT breaking the law. They learned how to cover themselves and how to subvert the system so badly that, now, even when they get caught, no one dares to truly challenge them.
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First, they learned that they need to control the press. If the press is not free, then there will be no one reporting on their abuses. We see this today not only in the egregious ways Rupert Murdoch flouts his power over Fox News and all his papers, but also the way in which the supposedly more centrist news outlets like CNN decline to cover some of the worst instances of abuse, and instead focus on minor side notes or even worse, Paris Hilton.

Next, they learned to keep the masses dumb. One of the founding tenets of this country is that it requires an educated electorate to function properly. This is a very old principal, that goes back well before the southern landholders refused to educate their slaves to keep them powerless. People who aren’t informed and refuse to think for themselves, are no better than sheep. They will follow anyone who looks good on TV and manages to appeal to their testosterone driven egos. George W Bush’s appeal to the masses consists of 2 or 3 ego and fear based positions, such as “Let’s get them; brown people are coming to get your jobs; Democrats want us to surrender,” and few others. For an electorate not trained to deal with subtleties, it’s a lot easier to vote for someone who’s stated position is “kill them all before they kill us,” then it is to vote for one who encourages a more complex and refined approach that actually has a chance of making things better.