Yunshan Li [Week 9]: Checks and Balances of Power
Week 9: Checks and Balances of Power – 1/19 - [6:36PM].
Power can be a scary thing when it exists disproportionately. When people have too much power and authority, they often become corrupted by greed and abuse their power for personal gains. However, having too little power is just as harmful and leads to oppression and endless suffering. It is important to realize that the surplus and deficiency of power exist hand in hand; if one group has more power, there must also be a group with less power. There is always a dominant and subjugated dynamic.
The framers of the Constitution were clearly aware of the danger of having a government with a disproportional balance of power. They witnessed the pain of being part of a colony controlled by Britain. They experienced their hard-earned money being unjustly taken away and the king ignoring their complaints. They also saw the consequences of having a weak government under the Articles of Confederation that ended devastatingly with the Shays Rebellion when the government was so powerless that a group of farmers were able to easily take over. Therefore, when constructing the Constitution, our Founding Fathers put in place a system of checks and balances and power separation to prevent history from repeating itself.
The US government consists of three branches. They are the executive branch(the president), the judicial branch(the Court), and the legislative branch(the Congress). Each branch has its own separate job; the executive branch works to execute and implement the laws, the legislative branch is tasked to create the laws, and the judicial branch is in charge of examining what laws mean. There are checks and balances implemented into our government to keep all these branches in check and make sure no branch gets too much power over the others. For example, the legislative branch possesses power over the executive branch to impeach and take the president out of office. The legislative branch also has the power to impeach and kick out judges in the judicial branch. Likewise, the other two branches have similar powers over each of the other branches. This complicated system ensures that no branch in the US government will become too powerful and dominate the other branches.
Hey Yunshan, our government’s establishment of checks and balances is amazingly one prime example of a near-perfect structure of fairly equated power. When you consider the powers of a government, its reaches are almost limitless. They are capable of forcibly controlling their citizens, of establishing unfair legislation, of shedding human blood, all through a simple command. Because of this, the Founding Fathers had to ensure that upon the creation of the Constitution, they would form a government that would not allow one specific group of individuals to gain so much power as to unjustly enforce such tasks. This, they did significantly well on and thus formed a nation successfully built on the cornerstones of freedom and equality, as can be proven by the history of our nation since this Constitution. The Founding Fathers accomplishing the task of dividing such paramount power in a way that would also maintain its cornerstones within the nation is truly a splendid achievement.
ReplyDeleteHey Yunshan! History is a huge indicator and map of all of humanity's mistakes and successes. The balance of power has definitely been one of them. Too much power has led to outrageous acts of genocide and too little power has led to chaos and disorganization in society (the Great Depression). It's vital that our government maintains and updates its checks and balances as new developments are made to ensure that the balance of power is not tipped. Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteHey Yunshan! The relationship between power and the checks and balances are interesting since it begs the question why those in power would put checks on themselves. This delves more into the opinions that people have of power and how everyone recognizes that power corrupts, but only a few people act in order to stop this corruption. The US government is a good example of that, although not so much anymore seeing that the executive branch of the government has been getting stronger over time. In fact right now, the president could press a button on the nuclear football and start a war on his own without any approval if he really wanted, which is a really scary thought when you consider the people who have been in office these past few years.
ReplyDeleteHi Yunshan, the system of checks and balances is an ideal system to prevent the misuse of power; however, a problem is that if both the houses of Congress and the Supreme Court have members mainly in the same party, and the president is too, then there would obviously be some bias towards approving what each branch does. Rather than focusing on checking each other’s powers, different parts of the government care more about the short term benefits that come from helping one another, forgetting about the long term consequences in doing so.
ReplyDeleteHi Yunshan! The checks and balances system does really seem like an ideal way to keep the power balanced among the branches. If our government was too strong, this could have devastating consequences and undermine our democracy. However, a completely laissez-faire approach would not work either, as history shows us many examples in which it failed. It is definitely important to find a right balance to ensure that the government has enough power to help us, but not too much so that it could hurt us. While the people in our government undeniably have more influence and power than we do, it does give us some reassurance to think that they are not completely unrestricted.
ReplyDeleteOur checks and balances system is one of the best parts of our political system and our Constitution. It is absolutely incredible that with their historical knowledge they were able to have the foresight of how a democratic system could be corrupted and swayed. I am a huge nerd for our legal system and am entirely in awe of how much yet how little is written about each branch and how that legislature has created the government.
ReplyDeleteYunshan, this blog post was a nice refresher on the American political system. I remember learning in my last year in AP Euro class about the importance of check and balances. Many of the European powers and empires in fear of not having the balance of power ignited war with other countries. Checks and balances is what holds our members in office accountable for their actions and makes sure they do not misuse the power that is given to them; however, throughout the years members of other branches have taken this system and influenced their power over it. Hopefully the government will remember the importance and power of the checks and balances system and return it to its original order and way of operation.
ReplyDeleteHi Yushan, the process of how our government practices a balance of power and keeps each branch in check truly fascinates me. Even though our government is not entirely perfect because it is in favor of richer individuals in our society, it is still successful in preventing tyranny or corruption for the most part. It also allows each branch to share their opinions freely without being in fear of their safety. Hopefully in the future, the government will not be biased towards electing older, wealthy people in office.
ReplyDeleteHi Sophia, checks and balances in power are super important in a functioning government. If an individual or a group of people can stay in power for an extended period without any other body to limit their power, it could easily lead to domination and oppression. Our system of the three branches is nowhere near perfect and still leaves a lot of room for corruption and control, but it is a lot better than if one person or group of people had entire control over our nation.
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