I agree with you about the inherent weakness in the system, but I think you’re being too generic and at the same time too specific. First to the specific:

The courts are certainly to blame, but in this republic we have (supposedly) a balance of powers. All 3 branches have failed, all 3 have created the situation we now have, and the media was complicit every step of the way. As corrupt as the courts now are, don’t deflect blame from the rest. They deserve just as much, if not more.

As for the generic, it comes down to one thing: Human nature. The system was designed to mitigate the damage that always occurs when humans are in charge of a govt. But it was self-defeating to begin with. Humans were still in charge, what we’re seeing now (the corruption in all the branches and the media) was inevitable.

Is there a way to completely mitigate such damage? Can we create a system that respects freedom and limits the natural corruption all govts are prone to? Beats the hell outta me, but unfortunately this one isn’t it. It depended on the motivations of one branch being tempered by the others, but it didn’t consider the motivations of all 3 aligning in a way to limit the very freedoms they were supposed to protect.

C’mon, ya farkin’ trolls! I dare you.

Hee I izz.

Fuzhageddaboudit?

Hell with it. It’s above my pay-grade—of course.

profitsbeard on September 30, 2009 at 7:41 PM

Oh, you Vast Right Wing Conspiracy-lookin’ sonofa….Blibbityblibb yadda yadda…. Obams sure does have some pretty teeth, huh?

Now about that health insurance…

Or should that be:

President Spine-Like-Brie?

Quick, somebody get him a Saudi “royal” to bow to!

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has thanked Iran for providing the agency with information about the construction of its new pilot enrichment plant.

i’m familiar with this guilt trip routine and it seldom works. my comments will be intemperate sometimes but i see nothing wrong with that. kelly is an idiot blinded by partisan paranoia, and he should get due treatment.

sesquipedalian on September 30, 2009 at 3:12 PM

I don’t give a fiddler’s fxck if your comments are intemperate, indifferent, or incoherent. It’s all the same to me. But at least stick to some truthful basis for your cowpatties when you drop them, or prepare yourself for ridicule. Marginalise yourself if you want.

These are your words:

i can’t see sarkozy actually say these things anywhere.

A couple of clicks would have told you otherwise.

This is why the next time I respond to one of your posts, it will most likely be scornfully. If you don’t get that, then so be it. You choose your own path.

If you have guilty feelings, I can’t help you with that.

“incredibly naive and grossly egotistical,”

I see a bumper sticker in there somewhere…

Seven Percent Solution on September 30, 2009 at 4:37 PM

hmmm…all I see is an empty suit.

Well, if not, then, Democracy is a failure.

AnninCA on September 30, 2009 at 2:48 PM

Aside from the US being a federal republic you’re incredibly generic. Every system has a weakness, read Machiavelli to understand the ways that governing systems break down, and what the various types tend to become.

“incredibly naive and grossly egotistical,”

I see a bumper sticker in there somewhere…

Sad, really. We are experiencing a dearth of worthy opposition of late.

Too much Kool-Aid is bad for the health.

hillbillyjim on September 30, 2009 at 2:07 PM

Public schools (K-12) are now in session. Surely, some impact is being felt here.

It’s best to stick with our own assessments, which in this case, already fit perfectly with Sarkozy’s analysis before the French president ever met him.

I suggest that Sarkozy is an avid HA reader, if not a regular poster!

Well, if not, then, Democracy is a failure.

AnninCA on September 30, 2009 at 2:48 PM

Huh? First of all, we’re not a democracy. Second of all, every system has its breaking point. Democratic processes were never thought to be idiot-proof. In fact, one could only afford to have democratic processes if the underlying system was strong enough to withstand the idiots that democratic processes were sure to install. The Founders tried to accomplish this through the limiting of government and the separation of powers. But liberalism in society has been working to destroy that foundation (and they have been successful) and the public was stupid enough to vote for a bunch of left wing lunatics for Congress and an un-American moron as The Precedent, in some grand idiocy of an affirmative action experiment. The system may well have just met its match in this tsunami of anti-American idiocy that has been foisted on Washington, but any system is open to the same problem, just as any banking system (no matter how strong) is vulnerable to a run, which would kill it.

The true failure of our system, if you want to be detailed, lies in our courts and how they have allowed the laws to have all meaning sucked out of them and for the federal government to vastly overstep its bounds, opening us up to death by the exact sort of morons who are now in office.

hillbillyjim on September 30, 2009 at 2:07 PM

i’m familiar with this guilt trip routine and it seldom works. my comments will be intemperate sometimes but i see nothing wrong with that. kelly is an idiot blinded by partisan paranoia, and he should get due treatment.

“incredibly naive and grossly egotistical”

Ya DON’T SAY?!?