Comment by acoustics | Hacker News Reader

Comment by acoustics | Hacker News Reader

Comparatively, how vulnerable is America to an executive gone wild compared to its peer countries?

The US has a three-tiered judiciary that moves slowly, Congress has a very high threshold for impeachment and removal (and a slow process), and the order of succession is basically locked in for four years. The people are not easily moved to action, and it's doubtful how much they could realistically accomplish.

Universal injunctions were a Band-Aid fix, one of the very few avenues our system permitted for there to be any rapid institutional response to illegal and immediately harmful policy. But that is no more.

As an exercise, what happens if a president issues a "throw enemies in the woodchipper" executive order? How many hours or days would it take the other branches of government to legally nullify the order? (What they can do in practice is another question.)

It's an extreme example, but a future admin could use the current admin's reasoning to unilaterally confiscate guns and force you to be a plaintiff in federal court to get relief.

>Comparatively, how vulnerable is America to an executive gone wild compared to its peer countries?

In the USA, some judges are elected, hearings can be televised, fragmented laws nationwide, court filings often public.

In UK the opening of the judicial year happens in a church service (i.e. biblical punishment is common), many judges are freemasons,court filings not public, courts control what gets to media, the court below supreme court can, and routinely do, block cases from getting to supreme court. And More. In short UK judiciary is institutionally corrupt with the elected and unelected the one and the same but press won't say it.

I feel your points are valid but don't really express enough detail. The supreme court in the UK though named the same doesn't really hold anywhere near as much power for the following reasons:

1) There is no written constitution, the supreme court in the UK is only there to interpret existing laws as written not to interpret differences between "tiers" of law

2) The UK has a system that can pass new laws, generally by simple majority so any decision rendered about existing law can be made obsolete generally fairly quickly (In contrast to the current intransigence of the current US system where it is hard to pass primary legislation and virtually impossible to modify the constitution)

3) the court was only established in 2009, and evidently we haven't done much to empower it

A better comparison country might be places like Canada or Australia who do have a written (and harder to modify) constitution.

The UK is all about 'appearencea' hence why they came up with 'justice must not just be done but be seen to be done'

With ref to your point 1 and 2 , they are not needed. HRA 1998 covers that.

Point 3 - the supreme court was previously within the House of Lords and the one day they got their own building.

The primary and secondary legislation, and leading case law is fine in the UK. Its just that the Judges know what are really there for and routinely falsify the outcomes.

No one sees the case files, no one sees the transcript, only the judges judgement is published and that we all have to pretend is never anything other than perfect...

>I feel your points are valid but don't really express enough detail.

I run a non profit trying to change this, can talk about it for hours. Volunteers welcome!

You have multiple international agencies thinking of exactly those questions. Here's just one who calls the US a flawed democracy:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/democracy...

> The people are not easily moved to action

They tried to steal an election four years ago by sabotaging the vote certification.

And an attempted, violent coup of legislator! How is this part so easily forgotten!?

The US constitution is outdated. There is a whole host of historical experience around totalitarian subversion of democratic constitutions of similar design to the US one. That experience has never been used to update the way the US works. In other words, the manual to overturn the system from the inside has been out there for a long time.

That ship sailed almost 100 years ago. If you really don't like it you should be campaigning for secession.

Remember: federal power is delegated from the states, not the other way around.

My understanding is that your characterization is true of the Articles of Confederation, but not true of the Constitution. The federal government's power is delegated from the people.

At the top of the Articles, it's pretty clear that the delegates of the states have come together to establish a league of states. At the top of the Constitution, it's explicitly stated that "We the People […] do ordain and establish."

Individuals can't (practically) secede. And it is done via the states, for example the state governments choose senators. Right now this is done via popularity contests in every state but there's nothing in the constitution or federal law requiring that.

> Individuals can't (practically) secede

Neither can states, either practically or legally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_v._White

Yeah that's completely meaningless as far as the possibility of secession is concerned. All it means is that if you secede and reenter then all the legislation you did as a separate state is void which is completely reasonable.

The three branch system allows any two to gang up on the third. Parliamentary systems don't have any checks like this and trend towards unitary authoritarians.

No. The three branch system allows any two to gang up legally against the third. But, as we are seeing, all the actual power relies with the executive. They can simply ignore the actions of the other two.

What actually happened is that all four branches were held by Republicans, so none of them is going to hold any of the others accountable.

If the collective elected government agrees on policy, is that not democracy working well?

Who cares about the constitution, he said he has a mandate!

Every country has a constitution, usually it's ignored. The value of a piece of paper is only as much as the people that comprise the system that upholds it. If you completely ignore the people and just whine at them about constitution this and that they're going to ignore it and rip it up. Society is also a compact and if the supermajority wants something they're going to get it.

The Republicans in the USA don't have the support required to count as a supermajority:

"""Amendments to the Constitution may be proposed in one of two ways: a two-thirds supermajority votes of each body of United States Congress or a convention called by Congress on application of two-thirds (currently 34) of the states. Once proposed, the amendment must be ratified by three-quarters (currently 38) of the states (either through the state legislatures, or ratification conventions, whichever "mode of ratification" Congress selects)."""

- the wikipedia page on Supermajority, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermajority#United_States

In modern parliamentary systems, political leaders are not in direct control of the executive branch. Politicians may issue priorities and guidance, but career civil servants run the show. Department heads serve fixed terms that are independent of the election cycle, and they cannot be removed without a criminal conviction. If politicians want major changes, they can change the law. And in many countries, the constitutionality of proposed legislation must be established in advance.

The descent to authoritarianism usually begins with a party gaining enough power that it can override the checks and balances. Which often involves rewriting the constitution.

An authoritarian unelected deep state is even worse.

True.

The US system has power more fragmented than most. In Europe, the Senate often doesn't wield any power (it rubber stamps anything the legislature approves). The executive is a part of the legislative.

In parliamentary system, individual MPs are "whipped" into voting with the party, and can basically be pushed out of power if they don't go along with it. If the party in power has a large majority, there is nothing but the courts to stop them from passing whatever they want.

Canada is a dictatorship though most don't realize it. MPs can't tweet anything unless it's approved by the PM. You have a hundred heads speaking with one voice.

It’s an interesting system looking from the outside in.

A party with a majority in power has little to stop any legislation the party decides to pass.

The senate is mostly a rubber stamp. The courts are independent but won’t nullify legislation unless it violates the charter.

MPs can’t not vote with the party unless they want to risk their political career (or it’s a free vote - but that’s reserved for unimportant legislation.

The ruling party can pass whatever the heck they want without much concern.

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