535 irrelevant people

Quick trivia: which branch of government is mentioned first in the Constitution?

Congress, of course. The Founders intended a separation of powers among three branches, but made Congress first among equals, with the most initiative powers. The executive branch was designed to carry out the will of the electorate, as expressed through Congress, while the Supreme Court kept everyone within Constitutional bounds.

It was a shrewd dispersion of power. As Charlie Reese once put it, the balance ensured that in the natural order of things, as each jockeyed against the others to maintain their sphere, each would be kept in check, and liberty preserved.

But we long ago lost that balance. It's been 67 years since the last time Congress declared a state of war... but we've sent troops into combat in scores of locations around the world in that time. Rather than accept their sober responsibility for committing the nation to battle, the members of Congress abdicate their role to the President, giving him a power the Founders never intended any one man to have.

Nor is the serious business of warfare the only area in which the executive now acts without restraint by Congress. In today's Federal government it appears acceptable for the Treasury department to tell Congress to pound sand, rather than account for how it's disbursing money appropriated by the legislature. Oh, wait--that's not Treasury, it's the Fed... an extra-Constitutional body that has no business controlling the nation's finances in the first place.

And now, after Congress reluctantly acknowledged that bailing out the auto industry seemed contrary to what (non-UAW-affiliated) Americans want, the President rides to the rescue, repurposing money Congress originally appropriated to bail out banks.

So, to recap:
- The average American is being put on the hook by Congress for several trillion dollars to bail out the financial idiots who put the nation on the brink of ruin.
- Feeling the public backlash against that first round of goodies, Congress resists (barely) giving similar aid to Detroit
- So the President unilaterally decides to take money from an earlier appropriation and give it to Detroit. And Congress, so far, hasn't squawked a peep at this unvarnished power play.

Does ANY of this appear remotely close to the workings of a government that has any legitimacy left, whatsoever? Congress, given the predominant role in initiating public policy, merely goes along for the ride now whenever the president chooses a new front in the war-without-end. Now it also acquiesces to whatever domestic policies the president demands. Why? Is it because they're too busy lining their own pockets to give a flip? We've gone so far toward the cult of one-man rule it's no wonder people are hearing anecdotes like this.

I am not hopeful for this nation at all. Politically, economically, morally -- viewed through each lens it gives the same impression: that of a dead man walking. The wind has been sown, and the sound of the whirlwind grows ever louder.