| 1. What you're saying is true. But in the US, the term "Imperial Presidency" is used to describe the scenario when checks and balances fail between the three branches, thus the power primarily resides in the executive branch to make decisions, and with little oversight from the other branches. Once there is no more legislative or judicial oversight, and the president can choose to make every action classified, then it might as well be an authoritarian system. 2. > Who sees it as such? The US's political establishment and law enforcement agencies. Let's be clear about what I am for and what I am not. There's two types of property seizure in the US: A: Property seized directly as the result of a crime (cars used to transport drugs, houses used to store or manufacture drugs, bank accounts used to store proceed from drug transactions, etc.) B: Property seized merely as being suspect to being involved in a crime. So called civil forfeiture. These are the weird cases like "US vs. $5000". I'm all for A, but against B. And if you say you can no longer seize bank accounts or houses of convicted drug dealers, then that's a non-starter in the US. 3. The framers of the constitution never put an article describing the role of the free press. Nor was the free press an original guarantee of the constitution. That came later with the first amendment. It was the final check on government corruption and overreach. There's lots of national coverage on the Russia-Gate stories, but the local news doesn't have the resources to cover city-council coverup for a 1500 person town anymore. It's a shame, I agree because the people in the 1500 person town deserve just as strong a protection as those that live in NYC. But if you have a political party that attacks the media as being "partisan", people are going to stop subscribing to the local newspapers, because they're "partisan-by-default". |