[dctoedt]

> But the “living constitution” is nothing more than imposing one’s ideological priors onto the document.

That overlooks a key distinction: An "ideological prior" that's proved to be supported by real-world evidence (i.e., experience) is no longer an ideological prior.

Analogously: Special- and general relativity were just theories in 1905 and 1915 (their respective publication dates). Over decades, real-world evidence proved that they were, in the main, correct — but we still don't treat either as a sacred, immutable text.

The unitary-executive view is an untested theory, an ideological prior. In contrast, our existing administrative state is supported by close to a century of real-world experience.

That's not to say that modifications aren't needed in the modern state. We don't want to make a golden calf of the granular details of FDR's or the Warren Court's approaches, any more than we want to enshrine the unitary-executive model or the Alito-Thomas perspective.

But in a country with some 340 million people that's been the source of the reasonably-successful Pax Americana, it's incredibly risky to go unilaterally f*cking around — it's the equivalent of a teenaged driver insisting that he can refuel his car and change the oil while driving 75 mph on a crowded freeway.

[rayiner]

The administrative system never worked. For much of the 20th century we had prosperity deriving from the post-WWII boon and the tatters of the Old Republic protecting private industry. But since 1980, we have had 12 presidential administrations. Of those, 9 won elections by expressly promising to cut government, several by promising to drown it in a bathtub. The only reason the system still exists is because American democracy is like those crosswalk buttons that aren’t actually hooked up to anything.

Regardless, we find ourselves in a new time. If the Old Republic could be overthrown by “emanations from penumbras” we can just as easily wave away the current imperial interregnum in which we find ourselves.

[dctoedt]

> But anything that requires actual competent governance, from infrastructure to foreign policy, has been total shit my entire lifetime.

"Far from perfect, but reasonably serviceable" ≠ "total shit"