93henfan wrote:
Oh, now it finally matters to you? After 500+ Obama drones and over 3,500 (300+ innocent civilians) killed by them?
Note that I did not criticize the recent raid that killed Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. What I'm talking about is the argument that's been manifested over the past few days about whether or not the Congress can make the rules for when the President can use military action, require the President to get Congressional approval, etc.
As I said in the opening post,
when this Trump thing is over so that it's not about a particular personality but instead about a principle, this country needs to do something to get rid of this Imperial Presidency thing.
I have not even criticized the strike on Suleimani. I HAVE expressed doubts about whether it was a smart thing to do because previous Presidents of both parties could have knocked the guy off and opted not to; judging that it would cause more problems than it would solve.
My view of the Constitution in terms of what it actually says is that there is a separation of powers between the three branches but not a balance of powers. The three branches are not co-equal. Congress is the most powerful branch, the Executive is next, and the Judiciary is weakest. At least that is the design (as we know, the Judiciary has become extremely powerful).
My belief that we have allowed too much power to both the Executive Branch and the Judiciary is decades old and I have written posts consistent with that outlook many times. Also my belief that we treat the person in the Presidency as more important than they actually are. We act like the President is royalty when I think the person in that position should be viewed as somebody who has the job of being the chief executive of the execuitve branch who has no more rights or privledges than anybody else.
Like the thing about not being able to criminally pursue a President while they are in office is complete crap. That's a horrible outlook. If Joe Smoe will be prosecuted if he is caught breaking a law the President should be procecuted if they are caught breaking the same law. We shouldn't have this situation where this ONE person gets exempted because they happen to have that job.