Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanielBMarkham | Hacker News Reader

I love articles about the structure of systems of people. Tells me what might work in technology teams (or not). And I'm not afraid of controversial or political pieces, as long as the HN community can comet civilly on them.

But I had to flag this.

Why? Not because I disagree with the author, although I do. It's because the author has no understanding of how the American system of governance works or is so blinded by this latest manufactured political crisis that they're incapable of it.

Legislatures win out over executives, whether it's their special law or not. In the states we've had this discussion at the founding, and the reasoning then still holds. And laws passed by one Congress do not have to be funded or encouraged by another. If so, what would be the purpose of electing new people?

More to the point, it assumes that agreement is somehow more important than representation. That's a dark and dangerous alley to go down, one I hope to never visit in my lifetime.

Or, more correctly, you attribute to the author a lack of understanding of how the American system works, because you disagree with him. Meanwhile ignoring that the author, while writing this article for Al Jazeera, was a senior Washington correspondent for the Huffington Post and a White House Watch columnist for the Washington Post.

That's a fair comeback, and I believe I was honest enough to give full disclosure.

I think the real question is how would I feel if the roles had been reversed. I think exactly the same though one can never be sure.

Back in the 90s, I made the personal decision to hold the legislature, specifically the HOR, responsible fort he spending incurred to run this country. That's my understanding of the way the system was set up, and, more importantly, that's how it appears to operate in practice.

So I have online commentary going back over a decade holding this same opinion. That's about as much bona fides as a person can provide.

Congress is perfectly free to pass laws overturning previous laws, get them through the Senate and have the President sign them into law. That's how the system works.

Congress should not be free to demand arbitrary changes to laws as a condition of funding unrelated activities or as a condition of not blowing up the world's financial system (the debt ceiling, in two weeks).

Do you really see these two options as equivalent?

So your premise is that once a law becomes signed, all future Congresses either must support it financially or repeal it?

Do you have any idea how legislation is made and enforced? I'd argue north of 80% of laws currently int he books aren't being adequately applied or enforced, all because of political considerations, either by Congress or the President. That's the way it should be,at least with Congress, because you can't do everything. With the president, it's a different story, as his job is specifically to carry out the law, not interpret it. But even then, the legal system is such a clusterfuck that we've had to create these special "signing statements" where the executive tries his best to explain why he's constrained to do inertial things one way or the other.

We passed the point of expecting all laws to magically become reality a long time ago. Like over 200 years or more.

The author is an american journalist, reviously worked for Washington Post and currently writes for Huffington Post.

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