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Go to the blue section below for 'theory and reality of the state-church separation issue' + evolution v creation (link).
 
Go to the green section below for "Democratic Suicide."

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Introduction

The US is a federal republic of 50 states. The framers of the Constitution, drafted in 1787, wanted to block any individual or group from gaining too much control, so they established a government of separate institutions that share powers. Authority is divided into three tiers of national, state and local government, with the American people electing officials to serve in each tier. At the national level the government is split into three autonomous branches - legislative, executive and judicial. Each has its own distinct responsibilities, but they can also partially limit the authority of the others through a complex system of checks and balances. (Follow red arrows for checks and balances.)

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Legislative

The legislative branch of government, established in Article I of the Constitution, makes new national laws and modifies existing ones. Under the Constitution this duty is carried out by the Congress, a bicameral body divided into the Senate and House of Representatives. Members of both chambers are directly elected by the people of the state they represent. The House of Representatives has 435 members, with the number representing each state decided according to population size, elected every two years. The Senate is based on equal representation, with each state supplying two of the 100 members, and each has a six-year term.

The founding fathers wanted to check the power of the majority by giving smaller states extra representation, and gave Senators a longer term in office so that they would be less subject to popular pressures.

Congress

Congress has wide-ranging powers including control over federal taxing and spending and the right to coin money or declare war on other countries. Its primary duty is to write, debate and pass bills before they are sent to the president. Money bills can only originate in the House, but both houses need to approve a bill before it can be passed.

Another key task is overseeing the executive branch of government. Congressional committees are tasked with ensuring the government is being run competently and without corruption. To assist in this they can summon senior officials for questioning and demand audits of executive agencies. Congress can also hold hearings on matters of general public concern.

How the president can check the legislature:

  • Can veto a bill Congress has passed
  • Can call special sessions and force an adjournment when both Houses cannot agree on adjournment
  • Can temporarily appoint senior officials without Senate approval when it is in recess
  • Congress cannot reduce the president's salary while he or she is in office.

How the judiciary can check the legislature:

  • Has the power to declare laws unconstitutional
  • Congress cannot reduce a judge's salary while he or she is in office
  • Chief justice presides over impeachment trials.

Congressional Agencies

As congressional work has grown and become more complex, Congress has come to rely on the advice and assistance of a large number of auxiliary agencies and a large congressional staff. One of the most important agencies is the Congressional Budget Office, a group of experts in economics and statistics, who aid legislators by providing independent, impartial advice on the president's budget proposals. Another is the Library of Congress, which serves Congress as a research facility, and is also the US national library and home to some of its most precious texts, including copies of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Judicial

It is the job of the judicial branch of the government to interpret the laws passed by Congress. It consists of the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. In interpreting the law the courts may find that a law - including those passed by individual states - violates the Constitution. By declaring a law unconstitutional the courts play an important role in determining the law of the land.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court is the highest court in the US. Its decisions cannot be appealed and can only be changed by another Supreme Court decision or a constitutional amendment. The number of justices serving on the court is determined by Congress rather than the Constitution, but since 1869 it has always consisted of one chief justice and eight associate justices. They are nominated by the president and approved by the Senate, and have their jobs for life, unless they resign, retire, or are removed from office. The key responsibilities of the Supreme Court is to examine laws and government actions to ensure they do not violate the principles laid down in the Constitution. This practice, known as judicial review, allows the court to strike down laws that do not conform to the Constitution.

How the president can check the judiciary:

  • Appoints judges
  • Has power to pardon convicted criminals

How the legislature can check the judiciary:

  • Approves federal judges
  • Has power to impeach and remove judges
  • Can initiate constitutional amendments and can alter the size and structure of courts
  • Sets court budgets

Lower courts

Along with the establishment of a supreme court, Article III of the US Constitution calls for Congress to create any other federal courts necessary to interpret and apply the federal laws of the land. In response Congress has created a number of district courts, appeal courts and several specialised courts such as the Tax Court, which hears cases regarding federal taxes. There are 94 district courts spread throughout the US and its overseas territories. They are the trial courts of the federal judicial system and have jurisdiction in federal criminal cases and civil cases. There are 13 courts of appeals - one for each of the 11 geographical regions, called circuits, one for the District of Columbia, and one hearing cases from specialised lower courts. These 13 courts hear cases on appeal from the federal district courts and other lower courts.

However, most legal cases in the US - including nearly all criminal cases - are tried by state courts, using state laws, which can vary greatly between states (for example, in the use of the death penalty).

Executive

The executive branch of government is responsible for enforcing the laws of the land. It is made up of the president, the vice-president, the Cabinet and a number of what are known as independent agencies. At the head of the executive branch is the US president, who must "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" and "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution. In order to carry out this duty, he or she presides over a vast organisation of federal departments and agencies, which has grown over the course of history and now employs about four million people.

President

In addition to leading the executive branch, the president is the head of state and commander in chief of the military. The president's duties include negotiating international treaties, signing or vetoing bills, appointing members of the Cabinet, judiciary and ambassadors and issuing pardons for federal offences. Thanks to its superpower status the US president is often cited as the most powerful person on Earth. But while the office does have significant authority it is limited by the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution. However the power of the press and the importance of foreign policy has enormously boosted the authority of the president in recent times.

How the legislature can check the president:

  • Can refuse to pass a bill the president wants or to approve presidential appointments
  • Must approve budget, declarations of war and treaties
  • Can override presidential vetoes and use impeachment powers to remove the president from office
  • Chooses the winner of a presidential or vice-presidential election when no candidate has a majority of electoral college votes
  • President must periodically report to Congress by delivering a State of the Union address

How the judiciary can check the president:

  • Can declare executive orders unconstitutional
  • Chief justice sits as president of the Senate during presidential impeachment trials

Vice-President

The vice-president is the second-highest executive officer and assumes the top role if the president cannot continue in office. He or she serves as president of the Senate, overseeing procedural matters, and has the ability to cast a deciding vote in the event of a tie. The vice-president also presides over a joint session of Congress when it formally counts electoral votes for presidential elections. The role grew in strength in the 20th Century when it became customary to invite vice-presidents to Cabinet meetings and when, in 1949, Congress made the vice-president one of four statutory members of the National Security Council.

Executive office of the president

The staff of the executive office serves the president directly and when he or she is replaced the office may be completely reorganised. The bodies which make up the executive office advise the president and carry out the detailed work of implementing presidential policies and programmes. Playing leading roles in the executive office are the National Security Council (NSC) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The NSC advises and assists the president on national security and foreign policy matters. It is chaired by the president and includes the vice-president, national security adviser and secretaries of state, defence and the treasury. The OMB assists the president in overseeing the preparation of the federal budget and formulating the president's spending plans.

Cabinet

The Cabinet is traditionally made up of the vice-president and the heads of the 15 executive departments - agriculture, commerce, defence, education, energy, health and human services, homeland security, housing and urban development, interior, labour, state, transportation, treasury, veterans' affairs, and the attorney general. These department heads are appointed by the president, and must be approved by a majority vote of the Senate. Other officials or agencies can be given Cabinet rank if the president chooses.

Cabinet members must work closely with the congressional committees who control their budgets and write the laws they have to implement. While some cabinet members are key advisors to the president, others may essentially serve in a more adminstrative capacity.

Independent agencies

There are several administrative divisions of the executive branch whose roles have been separated from formal control of the president and are considered independent extensions of the government. These agencies and commissions are established by Congress to help execute policy or provide special services. They are diverse in make-up and responsibilities and include the Central Intelligence Agency, the Post Office, and the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Theory:

 

The separation of church and state is one of the key constitutional principles in American history.

 

What is the separation of church and state?

 

There is, after all, no single “church.” There are many religious organizations in the United States taking different names — church, synagogue, temple, Kingdom Hall and more. There are also many corporate bodies that do not adopt such religious titles but which are nevertheless controlled by religious organizations — for example, Catholic hospitals.

Also, there is no single “state.” Instead, there are multiple levels of government at the federal, state, regional and local level. There is also a great variety of government organizations — commissions, departments, agencies and more. These can all have different levels of involvement and different relationships with the aforementioned religious organizations.

 

Thus, a more accurate phrase than “separation of church and state” might be something like “separation of organized religion and civil authority,” because religious and civil authorities are not and should not be invested in the same people or organizations. In practice, this means that civil authority cannot dictate to or control organized religious bodies. The state cannot tell religious bodies what to preach, how to preach or when to preach. Civil authority must exercise a “hands off” approach, neither helping nor hindering religion.

Separation of church and state is a two-way street. It isn’t just about restricting what the government can do with religion, but also what religious bodies can do with the government. Religious groups cannot dictate to or control the government. They cannot cause the government to adopt their particular doctrines as policy for everyone, they cannot cause the government to restrict other groups, etc.

The separation of church and state is a key constitutional liberty which protects the American public from tyranny. It protects all people from the religious tyranny of any one religious group or tradition and it protects all people from a government intent on tyrannizing some or any religious groups.

 

The Reality:

 

Bad Religion, Bad Politics
This column was written by Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation

April 26, 2005

 

I'm writing this on the eve of  "Justice Sunday" -- a telecast being promoted by evangelical Christian conservatives who charge that Democrats opposing President Bush's judicial nominees are acting "against people of faith."
The Senate Republican's Defender of the Faith,
Bill Frist
, who supports a "culture of life" but not lively debate, is scheduled to join in this televised show -- designed to smear those who have honest differences over policy issues as religious bigots. As the Boston Globe asked in a tough editorial attacking Frist's intolerance: "Will every political difference now open opponents to such accusations? And whose definition of 'faith' is in use here?"
These are scary times. The nation is in the control of extremists who want to merge church and state. A line is crossed when religion demonizes politicians of certain religion -- or no religion -- and when the church-state separation is breached by people believing that their God is better than another God.
Extremists are attacking an independent judiciary and checks and balances, both fundamental elements of a democracy. Earlier this month, as Max Blumenthal
reported for The Nation online, conservative activists and top GOP staffers are likening judges to communists, terrorists, and murderers. One so-called scholar invoked one of Stalin's favorite sayings, "No person, no problem," suggesting this was the preferred way of dealing with out-of-control courts. (By the way, according to the Alliance for Justice, 55 percent of the Circuit Court judges are GOP appointees. Republicans advocating killing Republicans?)

Will we allow Republican mullahs to create a country where religion dictates policy in a democratic country? As Sidney Blumenthal recently wrote in Salon, "The election of 2004 marks the rise of a quasi-clerical party for the first time in the U.S. ....Ecclesiastical organizations have become transformed into the sinew and muscle of the Republican party."
With debates raging about issues that mix religion and politics, it's worth paying heed to the words of a scholar who has written eloquently on the relationship between Americans' religious beliefs and political actions.
Princeton Professor of Religion Jeffrey Stout, in "Democracy and Tradition," has some sharp observations about a public political discourse that embraces rather than stigmatizes a variety of religious viewpoints.
In an
interview
last year, Stout argued that "political officials should refrain from presuming to speak for the whole nation on religious questions. Kings and queens used to make a mockery of religion by presuming to be its caretakers. What most of them really wanted was a kind of religion that would justify their rule while pacifying the populace. Our elected representatives are prone to the same temptations. The religion that our politicians practice in public often smells of sanctimony, manipulation and self-idolatry. Its symbolic gestures make for bad religion and bad politics... Neither will it help to scapegoat secularists, nor to imply that atheists and agnostics, let alone Muslims, are something less than full-fledged citizens.
A country that has preachers, prophets, poets, houses of worship and open air does not need politicians expressing its piety collectively in public places. Individual citizens can be trusted to find their own appropriate ways to express their own religious convictions and train the young in virtue. What the people need from political leaders are the virtues of truthfulness, justice, practical wisdom, courage, vision and a kind of compassion whose effects can actually be discerned in the lives of the poor and the elderly."
Think of these words as Frist and other Republican extremists join evangelical leaders to smear people of good faith. And stand with people of good faith who believe that we need to save our democracy.

 

Evolution v Creation

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0503/p01s04-legn.html

Democratic Suicide
National Review Online
May 6, 2005

 

This column was written by Victor Davis Hanson, who is a military historian and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His website is  victorhanson.com.

 

When will the Dems start winning again? When they start living and speaking like normal folks.

 

We are in unsure times amid a controversial war. Yet the American people are not swayed by the universities, the major networks, the New York Times, Hollywood, the major foundations, and NPR. All these bastions of doctrinaire liberal thinking have done their best to convince America that George W. Bush, captive to right-wing nuts and Christian fanatics, is leading the country into an abyss. In fact, a close look at a map of red/blue counties nationwide suggests that the Democrats are in deepening trouble.

Why? In a word, Democratic ideology and rhetoric have not evolved from the 1960s, although the vast majority of Americans has -- and an astute Republican leadership knows it.

CLASS
The old class warfare was effective for two reasons: Americans did not have unemployment insurance, disability protection, minimum wages, social security, or health coverage. Much less were they awash in cheap material goods from China that offer the less well off the semblance of consumer parity with those far wealthier. Second, the advocates of such rights looked authentic, like they came off the docks, the union hall, the farm, or the shop, primed to battle those in pin-stripes and coiffed hair.

Today entitlement is far more complicated. Poverty is not so much absolute as relative: "I have a nice Kia, but he has a Mercedes," or "I have a student loan to go to Stanislaus State, but her parents sent her to Yale." Unfortunately for the Democrats, Kias and going to Stanislaus State aren't too bad, especially compared to the alternatives in the 1950s.

A Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, George Soros, or Al Gore looks -- no, acts -- like he either came out of a hairstylist's salon or got off a Gulfstream. Those who show up at a Moveon.org rally and belong to ANSWER don't seem to have spent much time in Bakersfield or Logan, but lots in Seattle and Westwood. When most Americans have the semblance of wealth -- televisions, cell phones, cars, laptops, and iPods as well as benefits on the job -- it is hard to keep saying that "children are starving." Obesity not emaciation is the great plague of the poorer.

 

So the Democrats need a little more humility, a notion that the country is not so much an us/them dichotomy, but rather all of us together under siege to maintain our privileges in a tough global world -- and at least one spokesman who either didn't go to prep school or isn't a lawyer.

RACE
The Democrats, at least in the north, were right on the great civil-rights debate of 1960s. Yet ever since, they have lost credibility as they turned to the harder task of trying to legislate an equality of result -- something that transcends government prejudice and guarantying a fair playing field, and hinges on contemporary culture, behavior, values, and disciple.

The country is also no longer white and black, but brown, yellow, black, white, and mixed. When a liberal UC Berkeley chancellor remonstrates about "diversity" and "multiculturalism," lamenting that his merit-based entrance requirements have sadly resulted in too few "Hispanics" and "African-Americans" (he ignores that whites at Berkeley also enroll in numbers less than their percentages in the state population), what he really means -- but won't say -- is that there are apparently too many Asians, about 45 percent enrolled in Berkeley versus about 12 percent in the state population.

What will he do? Praise a hard-working minority that overcame historic prejudice against them? Hardly. We suspect instead the typical liberal solution is on the horizon: some clever, but secretive administrative fix that contravenes Proposition 209, and then denies that compensatory action is aimed against the Asians it is aimed at.

In short, race-based thinking beyond protection of equal opportunity is fraught with public suspicion, especially when so many loud spokesmen for minorities -- Jesse Jackson or Kweisi Mfume -- either are elites themselves or do not practice the morality they preach. An Alberto Gonzales or Condoleezza Rice comes across as proud, competent, and an expert rather than a tribalist, while those in the Black Caucus or La Raza industry appear often the opposite. Would you want a sober Colin Powell or an often unhinged Harry Belafonte and surly Julian Bond in your party? Did Condoleezza Rice, answering acerbic senators without notes, or Barbara Boxer, droning off a prepared script, appear the more impressive in recent confirmation hearings? A Democratic "minority" appointment to a cabinet post at education or housing is one thing; a Republican belief that the best candidates for secretary of state, national security advisor, and attorney general are incidentally minorities is quite another.

 

AGE
The Democrats won on the Social Security issue years ago. Annual cost-of-living increases and vast expansions to the program helped to ensure that we no longer witness -- as I did in rural California in the early 1960s -- elderly with outhouses and without teeth and proper glasses. In fact, despite the rhetoric of Washington lobbying groups, those over 65 are now the most affluent and secure in our society, and are on the verge of appearing grasping rather than indigent. They bought homes before the great leap in prices; they went to college when it was cheap; and they often have generous pensions in addition to fat social security checks. So ossified rhetoric about the "aged" in the social security debate -- increasingly now not so much the Greatest Generation of WWII and the Depression as the first cohort of the self-absorbed baby boomers -- is self-defeating.

George Bush is appealing to a new group that really is threatened -- the under-35's who cannot afford a house, have student loans, high car and health insurance, and are concerned that their poor therapeutic education will leave them impoverished as China and the rest of Asia race ahead.

DEFENSE
The problem with Democrats is that Americans are not convinced that they will ever act in any consistent manner. We can argue about Afghanistan, but if one were to go back and read accounts in October 2001 about hitting back, the news reflected liberals' doubt about both the wisdom and efficacy of taking out the Taliban.

Would Al Gore have invaded Afghanistan less than a month after 9/11? If John Kerry were President and China invaded Taiwan, what would he do?

What would an administration advised by Madeline Albright, Barbara Boxer, Joe Biden, Jamie Rubin, Nancy Pelosi, or Jimmy Carter do if Iran sent a nuke into Israel, or North Korea fired a series of missiles over the top of Japan?

Or, if al Qaeda, operating from a sanctuary in Iran or Syria, took out the Sears Tower, how would a Kennedy, Kerry, or Gore respond?
Six cruise missiles? A police matter?
Proper work for the DA? Better "intelligence"? Let's work with our allies? Get the U.N. involved?

Whatever we think of George Bush, we know he would do something real -- and just what that something might be frightens into hesitation -- and yes, fear-- many of those who would otherwise like to try something pretty awful.

 

WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
Until Democrats promote someone who barks out something like, "We can and will win in Iraq," or, "Let the word go out: An attack on the United States originating from a rogue state is synonymous with its own destruction," or some such unguarded and perhaps slightly over-the-top statement, I don't think that the American people will entrust their safety to the party. John Kerry, to be frank, is no Harry Truman, and time is running out for Hillary Clinton to morph into Scoop Jackson.

Philosophically, two grand themes explain the Democratic dilemma. One, the United States does not suffer from the sort of oppression, poverty, or Vietnam nightmares of the 1950s and 1960s that created the present Democratic ideology. Thus calcified solutions of big government entitlements, race-based largess, and knee-jerk suspicion of U.S. power abroad come off as either impractical or hysterical.

Second, there is the widening gulf between word and deed -- and Americans hate hypocrites most of all. When you meet a guy from the Chamber of Commerce or insurance association, you pretty much know that what you see is what you get: comfort with American culture and values, an upscale lifestyle that reflects his ideology and work, and no apologies for success or excuses for lack of same.

But if you listen to Dr. Dean and his class venom, it hardly seems comparable with how he lives or how he was brought up. John Kerry's super power boat, Teresa Kerry's numerous mansions, Arianna Huffington's gated estate, George Soros's jet, Ted Turner's ranches, Sean Penn's digs -- all this and more, whether fairly or unfairly, suggest hypocrisy and insincerity: Something like, "High taxes, government regulation, racial quotas, and more entitlements won't hurt me since I have so much money at my own disposal anyway, but will at least make me feel good that we are transferring capital to the less fortunate."

 

Worse yet, such easy largess and the cost of caring often translate into contempt for the small businessman, entrepreneur, and salesperson who is supposedly illiberal because he worries that he has less disposable income and is less secure. And when you add in cracks about Wal-Mart, McDonald's, and the "Christian Right" -- all the things the more cultured avoid -- then the architects of a supposedly populist party seem to be ignorant of their own constituencies.

When will Democrats return to power? Three of the most influential legislators in the Democrat party-- Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi -- reside in and came out of the San Francisco Bay area, which for all its undeniable beauty has created a culture still at odds with most of America. John and Teresa Kerry would have been the nation's first billionaire presidential couple. The head of the Democratic party is a New England condescending liberal, with a vicious tongue, who ran and lost on a platform far to the left of an unsuccessful liberal.

In contrast the only two men elected president from the Democratic party in 30 years were southerners, hammed up their rural and common-man roots -- the son of a single mother in Arkansas and a peanut farmer in Plains, Georgia -- and were narrowly elected largely due to national scandals like Watergate or third-party conservative populists like Ross Perot. The aristocratic media -- CSB News, the New York Times, NPR -- is often liberal and yet talks of its degrees and pedigree; the firebrand populist bloggers, cable news pros, and talk-radio pundits are mostly conservative and survive on proven merit rather than image.

When we see Democrats speaking and living like normal folks -- expressing worry that the United States must return to basic education and values to ensure its shaky preeminence in a cutthroat world, talking of one multiracial society united by a rare exceptional culture of the West rather than a salad bowl of competing races and tribes, and apprising the world that we are principled abroad in our support of democratic nations and quite dangerous when attacked -- they will be competitive again.

Since they will not do that, they will keep losing -- no matter how much the economy worries, the war frightens, and the elite media scares the American people.

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