[dforrestwilson1]

http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/12/general-mattis-crosses-pot...

Former Marine here. I thought this article was funny when it recirculated just prior to the recent election. But I also sort of thought to myself "Yeah I would vote for him over HRC or Trump."

Now I worry. A few thoughts:

1. If the military remains the most-trusted branch of government that's a bad thing. We need to take steps to reduce its power now.

2. If the Freedom Caucus is really committed to reducing the powers (and spending) of government they should be fervently resisting budget plans to expand the armed forces and pull us back from pointless non-productive conflict in the Middle East.

3. It is critical that Congress finds ways to reverse the rise in income disparity or we're going to have an even more dissatisfied and formerly middle-class voter base next cycle.

4. If Congress remains gridlocked by partisanship we are surely heading down the Road to Serfdom, and voters will either cede more power to Trump, or perhaps worse, be dissatisfied and demand an even stronger strong man.

[remarkEon]

Gonna throw some nuance out there on this.

I think it's much more complicated than resisting expansion of the Armed Forces. The last ~16 years of war has fundamentally changed the way the military operates, both in terms of how we build our strategies and how we operationally conduct these wars. Instead of a full-force commitment (units deploy and don't come home until the job is done), we've instead fought this thing in spastic increments, with a kind of warped "turn-based" leadership model ("Whose turn is it to be a Combatant Commander?"). This is why from the invasion through 2014 we had 16 different ISAF commanders. No wonder we've struggled to develop a coherent strategy.

I point that out because I agree that we need to back off from pointless Middle East entanglements immediately, because the Long War has altered how we (I mean soldiers and their leaders, both GOs and Civilians) view preparation for war. There is no way the model used in Afghanistan and Iraq (I understand the difference between the two, I'm talking about sustainment differences here), full of mega-FOBs for the sustainers and (mostly) consistent resupply for the war-fighters, is something we should be expecting in the future - be it a conflict with Russia, China, those pesky Donovians.

There's reasons to be optimistic, and Mattis is one of them. General Milley also seems to "get it", that we've gotten pretty lost in our understanding of what "readiness" and "sustainment" really means.[1]

Disclaimer: Former Infantry Officer, though I do spend a lot of time thinking and writing with friends both in and out about this stuff.

[1]http://breakingdefense.com/2016/10/miserable-disobedient-vic...

[Jtsummers]

Part of that deployment strategy shift began in the 90s during operations Northern and Southern Watch. Along with a set of shorter conflicts (with NATO and others) under Clinton. There was a political need/desire to shift the way we acted, and it persisted even during the '00s and '10s period of sustained, long-term military conflict.

EDIT: My experience was with the USAF side, other forces still had longer deployment periods at that time, and it wasn't uniform across USAF.

[remarkEon]

Yes that's totally true, though I'll submit that the "deployment cycle" mindset was certainly solidified in the last decade as "the way we do things" - at least on my side in the Army (Obviously I don't speak for everyone, and I know I'm not the only one who had problems with the "cycle" mindset). The politics are also a reason we moved toward that strategy. I just don't think it's a wise one. It probably wasn't wise back then, and I definitely don't think it's wise for the future.

Edit: One of the stories (Myths?) you hear about McChrystal is that he'd ask Company Commanders downrange this question: "What would you do different if you couldn't come home until we'd won?" Granted, that presupposes we actually had a true picture of what it would look like when we'd "won" but it shows how easy it can be to become...disconnected when you know that you're outta there before next fighting season.

[smacktoward]

> If the military remains the most-trusted branch of government that's a bad thing.

Agreed, but I think the thing driving it isn't really the size of the defense budget. I think it's the All-Volunteer Force.

During the Vietnam era, U.S. military spending was much higher as a percentage of total GDP than it is today -- around 10%, compared to ~4.5% today (see http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2020...). But the military's reputation for competence was much lower then. Why?

Because back then lots of Americans had first-hand experience with the military, or knew someone within one degree of separation who did. So they knew that people in the military were just like people anywhere else -- that generals could be principled or venal, officers clever or clueless, soldiers motivated or lazy. They knew it because they'd lived alongside all these people in the ranks, and personal experience doesn't leave a lot of room for mystique.

We're now more than four decades in to an all-volunteer force, though, which means that the days when a broad slice of the population had seen the realities of the military up close are slipping out of living memory. Today's average American knows the military only at a distant remove, heavily mediated by hoorah propaganda (just watch an NFL game) that emphasizes the idea that Soldiers -- who we are supposed to refer to with a capital S now, just to drive home the point -- are a breed apart from ordinary workaday people.

As a civilian who grew up in a military family, I see this happening and it worries me profoundly. History has not been kind to democracies that turn their soldiers into a remote, unaccountable elite. They tend not to be democracies for too much longer.

[Jtsummers]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/the-tra...

Your third paragraph reminded me of this article.

[smacktoward]

Yep, James Fallows has been an articulate voice on this very subject for many years now.

[pm90]

That is a good point. How would you change that though? Mandatory service?

[killjoywashere]

Well, if one looks at the quality of civic discourse in say, Israel, where service is mandatory, maybe that's not such a bad idea. I'll bet a lot of people would be in better shape, have more nuanced positions, and think a lot harder before sending shooters downrange.

[ocschwar]

"2. If the Freedom Caucus is really committed to reducing the powers (and spending) of government they should be fervently resisting budget plans to expand the armed forces and pull us back from pointless non-productive conflict in the Middle East."

Unfortunately, there's the slight matter of the Carter Doctrine, the idea that the US has a vital interest in the continued uninterrupted flow of oil from the Persian Gulf.

The US can't just withdraw from the Middle East until Middle America withdraws.

There's a large portion of our population that has arranged their lives in such a way that they literally cannot leave their homes and return with a jug of milk, without getting in their cars and driving a long drive.

And so if the flow of oil from the Gulf is interrupted, the ramifications stateside would have them screaming bloody murder.

Ironically, these people are unable to see that it's their choices that lead to this: you choose where you live, you choose where you work, and you choose how you get there.

And until there's a sober discussion of the problem, there will be a US presence in the Middle East.

[imglorp]

I'm always surprised when remote work doesn't get discussed more as an economic factor.

Cube farm offices are very expensive to society. They consume scores of resources themselves to construct, to blacktop and power to run, then every worker drives to them, often long distances, using disposable vehicles on more blacktop and burning more fuel.

[killjoywashere]

Conversely, "living where you work" is traditionally associated with human trafficking (what we call it now that it involves Asian and South American victims. In West Virginia we just call it "company towns") for brutally good reasons.

Yet, remote work is not a panacea. I work intensely locally (in a hospital) and also very remotely (in a research collaborative) and the remote work has real challenges.

[Clubber]

Nothing is a panacea, but what if just 10% of people remoted instead of driving to work and back, lunch and back 5 days a week?

[Shivetya]

Sorry but i cannot let this silliness be repeated. The primary supplier of US imported oil is Canada. Canada alone nearly equals all OPEC suppliers of which some but not most are from the Middle East.

We already have a get out of the Middle East solution, more oil from Canada and pipelines to get it. Even oil from other parts of the US. Yet this is always opposed by the same side which also opposes Middle East adventurism, something that did not decrease at all in the last eight years but got even worse in some cases; bringing us into conflict with Russia over Syria.

People should not have to live in cities and be allowed to live where they want. That is a fundamental feature of governments which respect both personal and property rights. Considering the health of our cities, lead issues in many, higher crime and gang activity, and sheer expense in rents, why would we expect people to choose such?

No, the real issue here is simple. America needs to redirect the monies used to support a ten carrier fleet which can serve no purpose with regards to China or Russia. We do not need bases all over the world to the extent we have them. We certainly don't need to involved in the Middle East except at the request of nations there to defeat non nation based enemies.

Middle America and the suburban and country lifestyle isn't a threat or issue America has to correct. What needs to be corrected is a government that answers to political parties first and people somewhere down the list. We have too many Presidents of the Party in recent history, we still have far too many Congress people of the Party too.

[dredmorbius]

And what do you think the response of local oil prices would be if a significant fraction, or all, mid-East oil supplies were cut off?

Oil is a commodity which can move around the planet for 1-2% of its total energy content -- that is, a tanker burns the equivalent of about 1% of the load it's carrying, to carry that load. Which means that oil is a global market.

The price of oil in the US is absolutely dependent on the supply of oil coming from the Middle East, even if that oil flows to Europe, India, and China. Just as the price of oil in the Middle East is dependent on the amount of oil flowing from Canada, or Bakken Shale.

Which is why the Carter Doctrine stands. The United States has vital strategic and economic interests in the Middle East.

[krapp]

> America needs to redirect the monies used to support a ten carrier fleet which can serve no purpose with regards to China or Russia.

The current administration wants a twelve carrier fleet[0,1] and a significant buildup of American military capability, so I don't think that redirection is going to happen anytime soon.

[0]http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a25555/t...

[1]http://www.military.com/daily-news/2017/03/02/aboard-ford-tr...

[ocschwar]

> Sorry but i cannot let this silliness be repeated. The primary supplier of US imported oil is Canada. Canada alone nearly equals all OPEC suppliers of which some but not most are from the Middle East.

Then tell the President to withdraw the Carter Doctrine.

[openasocket]

I think you're over-estimating the impact of Middle East oil in the US. Only about 12% of US oil consumption is from oil from the Middle East, half of that from Saudi Arabia. Losing that would be damaging but wouldn't be as bad as the gas rationing under Carter. Middle Eastern policy now has a lot more to do with terrorism, with the exception of Saudi Arabia.

[Jtsummers]

The Middle East may only provide 12% of our (US) oil, but they have a massive role in global oil production and reserves. A strong, negative, impact to the region would have global effects on oil prices.

[remarkEon]

~19% of Saudi Oil exports go to the United States. So while I agree that the United States would turn out just fine, I'd submit that it would represent a significant power shift away from OPEC (fine by me). Perhaps that's a long term Strategic goal for the United States. Perhaps it's a wise one.

http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/visualize/tree_map/hs92/export...

[faceyspacey]

Yes it's all about oil price stabilization. It's also a plan put in motion almost 30 years ago when we first attacked Iraq. So yes as solar and other developments change the landscape we are still foolishly following an old plan to insure the Middle East are willing client states able to be controlled by the global monetary system rather than erratic despotic wrenches in the system.

Terrorism and 9/11 likely is a false flag for ulterior motives. The motives can't be made so clear or nobody would believe the false flags and the media. We aren't to know just how important oil price stabilization is to the ruling elite's master plan.

Do you really think all the lives and money lost in the past 16 years has been the appropriate cost for just 3000 dead? We need to speak up and completely pull out of the Middle East immediately. The plan might have overall been good for the world but they were wrong and their dishonesty has destroyed people's faith in government and has made an entire region far more "terrifying" than they ever were. We are following an outdated strategy by outdated people that don't know better. That is to say they were never evil, but just impatient operating on a small big picture. I'm referring to the Bush Family, members of the Bilderberg group, the Rockefeller's, what remains of Standard Oil in obscured new company names such as Exxon and Mobil, and the tip top banking institutions that have been so arrogantly proud of the fact that money can be used to control the world and maintain peace rather than war as in past generations--for if everything can be controlled by money rather than might, we have the makings of a more peaceful world. So they thought...

[flubert]

I wonder what the best plan is for getting people on board with breeder reactors.

[fdupoo]

Oil price stabilization? War in the area seems to have caused the opposite effect for the better part of the last 2 decades.

[jwatte]

There you go again, trying to apply facts to a global political power game much bigger than you'd ever be allowed to even know about.

[astrodust]

Never assume as a conspiracy an event that a lot of people were able to take advantage of.

Hurricane Katrina made a lot of people a lot of money but it'd be lunacy to suggest they caused the hurricane.

[faceyspacey]

I agree. The bush family (as representatives of the elite) had ten years to wait for an event to counter punch against. When ur the top dog in town u can mold any circumstance to ur aim. I don't maintain with all certainty that 911 was a false flag. I maintain that what was done and is continuing to be done was absolutely the wrong decision, capitalized on an event decision makers clearly found fortunate.

Right now we are supposed to believe we need to stay in Iraq and Afghanistan because we have to clean up the mess we made. I don't buy it. I think everyone there would prefer us gone. I think everyone here would prefer we left had we not been brow beaten by the threat of terrorism constantly. To me it's obvious that our actions are the biggest cause of terrorism. Those in power want to use the result of their actions to justify more of those actions. It's all pyscology and self development lessons applied at a larger group level--lessons the powers that be refuse to learn. We aren't going to get anything done in the Middle East just like we got nothing done in Vietnam. And if we did get anything done it's simply instill fear in other nations. Perhaps the master plan is no more than peace by strength. And that requires public displays from time to time. Think gang or prison behavior. There is a book though called The Dereliction of Duty:

https://www.amazon.com/Dereliction-Duty-Johnson-McNamara-Vie...

I haven't read it but the gist I get is that politicians like Lyndon B Johnson didn't wanna be the one to lose the war. And generals all the same selfishly killed millions to preserve theirs and america'a image of strength and winning. To top it off, it looks bad to do so if not in the name of the greater good. So we always manage to justify our small picture thinking as if it's for the greater good. Again, nobody is evil. Just selfish and an unevolved conception of human psychology.

...but ps. I don't rule out that there are top secret weather control projects with capabilities beyond what is publicly shared. The point--as the false news trend has pinpointed--is that very little is knowable beyond your own immediate perception AND more importantly top sources (not just buzz feed) aren't trustworthy. Heads of news companies go to the yearly Bilderberg meeting and promise to not share what they learn and rather operate as willing participants using their media empires to push the party line forward. Supposedly. I don't know that either. But all said, my hunch is top players do fashion themselves as chess players with this planet being the board. We all do the same every day with our friends and families to different degrees. It's very conceivable that those with billions of dollars or the same in influence are doing this at a greater scale. I basically know I would do it. And I think we all would do so with our greatest conception of the greater good. What I'm saying is those in charge are stupid and fuck them! Their plan sucks. It's a pre-internet plan made by stodgy people. I also think a lot more peace is possible now than decades ago. Less might is needed. In fact it's a very bad thing and could be what thwarts the global system they are after.

In addition because of the internet we are not dumb cattle anymore. You have to realize that in 2001 the internet barely existed to the old people who crafted the plan. It might have been around but back then u could get by without it being stuffed down ur thrown like now. So we have old Bush Senior who maybe never used a mouse not recognizing how the internet was gonna connect us all and educate us all. The stupider set of masses we were maybe did need more cattle prodding than now.

Now, we are on the verge of a small set of vocal conspiracy theorists (people more extreme than myself) tipping the world on its side--all because the powers that be thought they could manipulate us incessantly. Whether 911 was a false flag or not does not matter. What matters is the plain as day INTENTIONAL manipulation the media does to us every day. What matters is we have wasted so much taxpayer money on military and debt to pay for it. What matters is the millions the us government has killed. What matters is we continue every day! Let's just stop now. Clearly somebody doesn't want us to. U could say the people want us fighting Isis, but that's only because the media makes us fear them.

What matters is that America is the Roman Empire in a hyperspeed world about to have its great schism and eventual demise. All that matters then is whether it sends us all back to the dark ages or if somehow we manage to make it a positive evolution.

..But yea, momma said don't trust the government. Don't. Ur an absolute fool if ur one of those people who can't believe America would do any of these power plays to get what it wants. There's a lot of people like this. Im surprised how many on hacker news. To them here's what I have to say to u: I know a bunch of the people u label "conspiracy theorists" want u to believe 911 was a false flag attack by our own government--u don't have to agree with that to have a strong hunch that ruling elite are up to foul play. It could be an accident they played to their advantage, ie to do what they really wanted to do. Start with that and do your best to read between the lines from the perspective that their may be a hidden agenda. Do you think it's fair we have killed 100s of thousands in the Middle East since 911 where we lost just under 3000. It's not right. Why does our news constantly talk about terrorism? Is the terrorism really as bad as we are told it is? Or are we just being told that? What happened to the Taliban, Al Quaeda? Will Isis be another has-been group soon enough too? I know we surely aren't afraid the Taliban is going to destroy the world anymore. What's the likelihood that Isis is another supposed threat that peters out (when the news stops mentions their name). What does that say about the actual threat these groups pose anyway? ..How many of the newscasters have spent any time in he places they are reporting? Whose really scripting this stuff? They all seem like repeaters to me. And people with opinions have biases based on what's been repeated to them. And the cycle continues. As the game of telephone shows anyone, biases change what we report as fact, thereby giving the audience a different perception of fact than what they could perceive if they were there. I'd be willing to bet if the American public was able to take a virtual reality guided tour of the actual events being covered we would form a very different opinion. Basically we would see how we have dominated the Middle East through violence, scared the shit out of people, made them afraid to come out of their homes, murdered their friends and family, and then we would see how utterly helpless they feel that they are willing to kamakaze themselves to express their anger/hatred. We would see so called terrorists for what they really are: people drowning in despair because we killed their family. End of story. ..oh and you say: "they are religious fanatics!" No they are religious people to begin with that see everything through the lens of religion. Underneath that the core is that they hate us for what we did to them. Not what they did to us.

This dates back to Israel. Israel is a made up country (not unlike many of the other Arab countries since the Ottoman Empire fell in WWI) but one whose religious and ethnic population was not their before hand. Israel cunningly made that area their own in 1948, we sided with them; and the people we took it from and their friends now hate us. In past centuries, there was no internet. Now u have Muslims far far away like Afghanistan with a common enemy. The west and the Jewish people played the land grab move too late in history. If it was the 1800s with the native Americans we could get away with it and beat the victims into submission. Now we can't and we are paying the price for our arrogance. The best thing we could do is admit our wrongs and leave the Middle East. Disown Israel and let them fend for themselves. They are sinking ship we never should have attached to. They will be dealing with suicide bombers for a very long time.

We are on the verge of a great schism because now there are too many truthers able to connect and share their opinion and breed more, while there are still many stubborn essentially idiots that believe in their governments, in America, who will never be willing to concede that perhaps we have done some really bad things we need to atone for, and that their is a hidden agenda enacted daily to manipulate us. America has been real bad. Our day is coming. We still haven't appoligized for Vietnam. You still can walk around that country and be blown up by our land mines. Shame on us.

[astrodust]

No. Just no. If your comment is this long you're doing it wrong.

[Clubber]

The middle east also has a bunch of money to spend with US companies.

[flubert]

Here's a source that say's that 16% of U.S. oil imports come from the Middle East.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=727&t=6

[ocschwar]

Doesn't matter that much. A disruption of the Gulf's flow would still cause every single producer and importer out there to change where they route the product, and the price spike would affect affairs stateside.

That is why the Carter Doctrine has never been withdrawn.

[faceyspacey]

Oil also goes to our partners in Europe and around the world. The goal isn't just having oil for the United States, but a stable world economy. George HW Bush & Co didn't want be at the behest of one or a few despotic leaders that could disrupt the flow of both oil and the world economy. They/we need heads of state dependent on the global monetary system--so that the decisions they make can be controlled. That's the idea. And at what costs is our day's number one dilemma??

[closeparen]

Middle American suburbanites don't choose to restrict the supply of walkable urban housing, urbanites do. Middle American suburbanites can at best switch places with some people living in walkable areas by outbidding them. It can't reduce the total number of car-dependent people - that's up to the planning commissions inside the cities.

[ocschwar]

Middle American suburbanites can go to their suburb's zoning board and get the codes changed to allow infill.

That's how it starts.

[djrogers]

Re #4 - we saw this throughout the Obama tenure as well, more executive orders, more expectations of the President to create and change law rather than execute it, etc.

Point is, it's not just Trump - or Trump and Obama - it's been a slow but steady march toward treating the Office like a monarch...

[jkn]

we saw this throughout the Obama tenure as well, more executive orders...

Number of executive orders per president, per year in office[1]:

  Theodore Roosevelt    144.7
  William Howard Taft   181.0
  Woodrow Wilson        225.4
  Warren G. Harding     216.9
  Calvin Coolidge       215.2
  Herbert Hoover        242.0
  Franklin D. Roosevelt 307.8
  Harry S. Truman       116.7
  Dwight D. Eisenhower  60.5
  John F. Kennedy       75.4
  Lyndon B. Johnson     62.9
  Richard Nixon         62.3
  Gerald Ford           69.1
  Jimmy Carter          80.0
  Ronald Reagan         47.6
  George H. W. Bush     41.5
  Bill Clinton          45.5
  George W. Bush        36.4
  Barack Obama          34.6

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_federal_...

[jayess]

I think that if you looked at the scope of executive orders over time it would be instructive. Teddy Roosevelt executive orders were simple and limited.[1] Modern executive orders have very wide ranging consequences (such as allowing departments to share electronic surveillance without a warrant).

[1] https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Theodore_Roosevelt/Exe...

Examples include, "Authorizing Appointment of Translator in Bureau of Insular Affairs Without Examination," "Authorizing Reinstatement of Charles B. Terry as Clerk in Post Office Department Without Examination," "Amending Civil Service Rules to Except Commissioners of National Military Parks from Examination," etc.

[throwaway729]

> I think that if you looked at the scope of executive orders over time it would be instructive

Indeed, but instructive in an opposite direction IMO.

The sum of Obama's executive orders pale in comparison to the other Roosevelt's singular Executive Order 9066, for example. And that was hardly the only controversial FDR order.

Vietnam was really the first time that a war-time president didn't suspend the civil liberties of a crap-load of Americans.

[jayess]

Sure, but we've also been in a perpetual "state of emergency" since 1979: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/22/presi...

[bpodgursky]

The raw numbers are not really useful. There are a lot of EOs which do not push the bounds of presidential authority (awarding medals, ordering flags to half-mast, etc). They are not comparable to EOs which, for example, order the government to not enforce immigration law, or use torture.

[1_2__3]

Right, so we're just arbitrarily moving the goalposts now that the data doesn't back the claim. Got it.

[jMyles]

Not arbitrarily, but with good reason.

It sometimes makes sense to move the goalposts when they no longer work as a mechanism for measuring the metrics of the sport in question.

In this case, the total number of executive orders doesn't speak to the degree to which executive power is used to do things other than execute.

[killjoywashere]

> but with good reason.

No, a hypothesis was asserted, and quickly disproven by data. Without stronger data, the rest of these responses are called "backpedaling", no matter how positive your language might sound.

[WillyOnWheels]

You have a very cynical view of analysis of executive orders!

I think it's totally fine to classify EOs in one bucket for half mast flag memorials and EOs like Nixon's establishment of the EPA in another bucket.

[brazzledazzle]

The content of the orders are probably just as important as the number. If not more so. But it's hard to measure the relevant stats in an objective way that satisfies both sides.

[a_conservative]

Obama took unilateral action with Presidential Memoranda instead of Executive Orders.

"Like executive orders, presidential memoranda don't require action by Congress. They have the same force of law as executive orders and often have consequences just as far-reaching. And some of the most significant actions of the Obama presidency have come not by executive order but by presidential memoranda."

[0] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/16/obama...

[notadoc]

Is this some kind of fact based comment?

[pizzetta]

Some of those numbers seem to be affected by significant world events (world wars, economic depressions). I wonder if filtering out some of the EOs specific to those kinds of things might smooth things out a bit?

[dTal]

  Donald J. Trump       113

(extrapolated from 23 EOs in 74 days, as of this writing.)

[fosco]

more details on EO's per president

http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/data/orders.php

[kevin_thibedeau]

He only resorted to the EOs because of the obstructionism from Congress. What else is a president to do when faced with such petulance?

[bpodgursky]

Nothing. He should be able to do nothing.

That's the point of having three branches of government. A president has no god-given right to push through whatever policies they want; congress has no obligation to help.

[throwaway729]

> nothing

That's also a failure of checks and balances.

Of course the presidency can do all sorts of things without Congress! It's not and was never intended to be a ceremonial position. Or a position bound to the will of congress in all things! Hence "separation of powers", not "devolution of powers to Congress and the judiciary".

Indeed, kevin_thibedeau's observation is SPOT ON, and is exactly how things should and were explicitly designed to work!

The presidency has certain powers that are typically only exercised during a divided government. This has been true since the very beginning of the union. That shouldn't be surprising at all! It's intrinsic to an effective separation of powers. If the presidency proceeded in identical fashion regardless of who Controlled congress, then that would be a clear indication that the separation of powers has failed.

The presidency should do what he thinks he has the authority to do. Congress should pass explicit laws limiting that power if it feels the presidency has become too powerful, using the purse as leverage when necessary. The courts should mediate inevitable conflicts and check the abuses of a unified executive and legislature. That is separation of powers.

[ethbro]

> This has been true since the very beginning of the union.

Not entirely true. Executive orders (and similar powers of the executive), as far as I understand, have significantly evolved since the founding of the US.

The ability to use them is implied rather than explicitly granted by the US Constitution, and use in practice (and what constitutes overreach) has largely been defined through the US Supreme Court.

Side note: this right was not explicitly given to the Supreme Court either in our founding documents and was largely hammered out by sheer force of will by John Marshall in Marbury vs Madison (perhaps one of the greatest cases of all time, replete with some seriously shady last-days-in-office chicanery by John Adams) [1] [2]. I'd highly recommend listening to the podcast episode in the second link.

Based on Wikipedia's numbers [3] (which seem reasonable, given that they weren't called "executive orders" until ~1900 when they were retroactively numbered them back to Lincoln), Theodore Roosevelt could definitely be said to be the first major user.

By my count, the 25 presidents before Teddy Roosevelt signed 1,262 orders. Roosevelt signed 1,081 himself (in two terms).

Notably, if I'm reading the figures right, both of Roosevelt's terms were characterized by large majorities in the Senate and slim but still majorities in the House.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison

[2] http://www.wnyc.org/story/giggly-blue-robot/

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order_(United_Stat...

[Sharlin]

I wonder if that's actually a net positive thing in practice. In parliamentary systems, found in many of the most objectively democratic countries in the world, the legislative and executive branches are more closely interlinked than in presidential systems. Because the party that gets the most seats in a parliamentary elections gets to form the executive (with other parties if necessary), and the executive parties typically control the majority of the seats, any legislation proposed by the executive usually passes.

[amyjess]

FYI, there's an article on Vox that argues that presidential systems are inherently prone to collapse and that it's a miracle America made it this far: http://www.vox.com/2015/3/2/8120063/american-democracy-doome...

One interesting point the article raises was that one of the few things saving the American political system from collapse was our ugly racial history.

[jMyles]

Parliamentary systems have other checks that the American Presidential system lacks (of course this varies somewhat widely by state, from Britain to Israel to Canada there is something of a spectrum).

[pvg]

Nothing. He should be able to do nothing. That's the point of having three branches of government

No it isn't. It's not a system in which one branch can fully incapacitate another. The goal is still governing, not doing nothing. Recall that this isn't the founders' first pass at organizing a government and in part a response to a previous one not being able to get much done.

[theseatoms]

Great comment. Relatedly, we might see a third party candidate on the debate stage in 2020, for the first time since Ross Perot. The FEC/CPD was successfully sued (after many attempts) regarding the polling threshold required to be invited to the debates.

Edit: Citation: http://reason.com/blog/2017/02/02/libertarian-party-gets-vic...

[gozur88]

>If the Freedom Caucus is really committed to reducing the powers (and spending) of government they should be fervently resisting budget plans to expand the armed forces and pull us back from pointless non-productive conflict in the Middle East.

The reduction in commitments has to come first, or at least coincidentally. I would like to see a reduction in military spending, but we shouldn't be making overseas commitments without allocating the resources necessary to carry them out.

I would like to see the US out of Europe in the near-to-medium term and a disentanglement from our commitments in the East long term. If we're not willing to do that, if we refuse to step down from the role of the Heavy who keeps the peace, then we need to maintain a military up to the task. And that requires increases in spending.

[youngtaff]

It's funny that you describe the US as "the Heavy who keeps the peace"

I suspect much of the rest of the world would describe the US as a warmonger and has been for decades

[gozur88]

"Much of the rest of the world" is wrong. Be as that may, if they think that it bolsters my argument. The US should pull out of Europe and the Far East. And if the Europeans or the Asians go at each other again? We should stay on our side of the pond.

[youngtaff]

Is "much of the rest of the world" really wrong?

The US is a country that spends more on the military than the next seven (?) combined and since World War II has been heavily intervening using (both explicitly and covertly) in countries all over the world

Korean / Cuba / Dominica / Vietnam / Grenada / Libya / Panama / Gulf War I / Somalia / Haiti / Afghanistan / Gulf War II

Plus all the 'secret wars' in Central America, Africa, other parts of the Middle East, Indochina etc.

[gozur88]

>Is "much of the rest of the world" really wrong?

Yes.

>The US is a country that spends more on the military than the next seven (?) combined...

That's orthogonal to the discussion. So what?

>...and since World War II has been heavily intervening using (both explicitly and covertly) in countries all over the world.

Yes. Thus my description of the US as "the heavy".

>Korean / Cuba / Dominica / Vietnam / Grenada / Libya / Panama / Gulf War I / Somalia / Haiti / Afghanistan / Gulf War II

Right. And in almost every case it was a question of trying to put out a small fire before it got too big. We haven't had a major war between first world powers since 1945, and that's no coincidence. The wars that didn't fall into that category were misguided attempts at some kind of humanitarian project.

I'm all for stopping both. If China and Japan go at it, or maybe Germany and France... it's not our problem.

[tonystubblebine]

As a military person, I'm curious how you feel about the US's role in curbing nuclear proliferation.

I agree that we seem to be in pointless wars, but I'd mostly forgotten about the dangers of nuclear proliferation until a Pentagon-working friend pointed it out to me.

Essentially the idea is that the US acts as both the carrot and the stick. We will protect countries that don't have nuclear weapons and threaten any that try.

I think that's the justification for having such a large military.

But it's also a justification that's largely not talked about. So I've been wanting to get alternative thoughtful viewpoints to go along with the one my friend has.

[killjoywashere]

It's highly valid: you have to convince the Russian satellites (aka, Europe) and the Chinese satellites (Japan, Korea, Philippines) that you can present China and Russia with a credible threat of ground force. Which is nuts in a way, but that's where we're at. But we've staved off catastrophe for 70 years in large part by maintaining unparalleled economic strength (the world economy is measured in dollars after all). It's a self-reinforcing situation: as long as the Europeans and Asians believe in you, they trade with you, ally both politically and economically with you, and keep Russia and China in check.

Now, Trump is undoing that. The fourth leg of the nuclear triad is ground force. The fifth leg is economic power. He's kicking legs out as fast as he can.

[dforrestwilson1]

So I know a lot of intelligence folks who cover different "threat vectors". I have never met one who doesn't believe that their coverage universe is the most important one to focus on.

Fighting nuclear proliferation is important, but ultimately it is a losing battle. In 100 years will less countries have nuclear weapons or will more? Regimes will aggressively pursue it because they can see how things shook out for Qaddafi and Saddam vs Kim.

I think the reality is that MAD has kind of worked. As scary as it is, nobody (sane) wants to push the button because they understand that these are very different weapons, and it would mean the end of life as we know it. Pressing that button ever means total ostracism. So far anyway..

The other interesting question in my mind is does this lead to a lot of stratified borders/countries?

[hblanks]

If you haven't read it, you may find Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism a worthwhile read. She offers a lot of analysis on the rise of a classless society, paired with a deep sort of aimlessness in state leadership.

It doesn't end well.

[killjoywashere]

If you like Arendt, check out Snyder's On Tyranny and Mesquita's The Dictator's Handbook.

[dredmorbius]

Snyder's "Politics and Prose" talk is up on YouTube. Recommended.

[r00fus]

I read that and kept thinking "so when is Mattis going to cross the Rubicon"?

The Potomac is the new Rubicon, and the US is the new Rome. Where are we exactly in the imperial lifecycle? I wonder.

[cmurf]

1. All of these institutions should be trusted. The problem is there is not enough enhancement in other institutions to build trust.

There should be ever stronger ethics laws for elected officials: the perception of self-dealing is inherently damaging, and there is peripheral damage to completely unrelated parties when it happens.

There should be a constitutional amendment getting money out of politics. Most everyone now believes elections can be bought, however indirectly, they who have the most money, get the most advertising, the most media coverage, will win.

The military industrial complex is an oligopoly but it's not regulated like one; Eisenhower called the complex a grave threat to democratic government. We were warned, we continue to ignore the warning.

2. Out of the entire Congress there might be 10 members who are very aware of our interventionist foreign policy, for 70 years, in the middle east, and the role that's played in destabilizing the whole region. There's no possible way we stop stepping on our own d|cks if we don't understand the multitude of ways we've been doing it already for that long.

This is a good primer from post WWII to 1991, most people are familiar with our extracurricular activities in the middle east since then. https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/ancient-hi...

3. Baby boomers will have to start dying in appreciable numbers before this will be politically possible. The baby boomers have cornered both political parties. There is no possible way we get back to the near 40 years where the top tax bracket was above 75%, and for 10 years it was above 90%. The incentive is to try as hard as you can to spend the money on allowed deductible expenses like growing or starting a business. And for that 40 years, this country build massive private and public infrastructure as money was moving. Taxes went down, and building went away, but the stock and bond markets flourished which is where the baby boomers have their money, and expect to find it even after death. Meanwhile that generation has charged the country credit card $20 trillion and that's just so far. If they can find a way to cheat death, they will demand to be first in line.

4. Denigration of institutions needs to be resisted and admonished. Constructive criticism, based on facts, is necessary and appropriate, but this inane "so-called judges, activist judges" and the "do nothing Congress" and "liberal, fake news media" and "rigged elections" is a precision strategy to weaken checks and balances in a system, and favors a unitary executive. And that's a huge problem.

Democracies are not easy, and they're not on autopilot. The American Civil War was vicious. At the start, General Sherman made his men pay restitution for civilian property destroyed, and he was convinced the wonton destruction of private property was detrimental to the Union cause. Later in the war, he considered it an exigencies of the war to eviscerate Southern citizens themselves for aiding the Confederate Army. The photographs of what was done to the South are easy to confuse with Dresden and Berlin. It was wholesale obliteration. By any modern standard what was done was way beyond war crimes.

But today we have this batshit insane menace of unreality where large numbers of people are opting into alternate realities, and electing paranoid conspiracy theorist to run their countries.

Not even the free market with a minuscule government functions at all properly with a misinformed population.