Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Is our system of government actually properly designed to prevent tyranny? If so, how? If not, why not?

This is, of course, a matter of personal opinion.  My own view is that our government is set up to prevent tyranny as well as any system of government can be.  However, there is no way to set up a system of government that can absolutely prevent tyranny if enough of the people want tyranny and if they continue to want it for a long-enough period of time.


Our system of government makes it very hard to institute a tyranny.  The main way in which it does this is through separation of powers.  Even if a president wanted to establish a tyranny (like many conservatives think President Obama does/did) it would be practically impossible to do so unless Congress consented.  Because of our system of separation of powers and checks and balances, the president cannot simply make laws by issuing decrees.  We can see how hard it is to tyrannize Americans when the supposedly tyrannical President Obama cannot even enact minor gun control measures because Congress opposes him so strongly.


While our government is set up in a way that makes tyranny difficult, it does not and cannot prevent it completely.  Imagine that Donald Trump gets elected with strong support from the people.  If the people continue to support him two years later, they could pack Congress with his supporters.  At that point, Trump could, if he wanted to, get Congress to start passing laws that are meant to give him more power.  If we, the people, do not disagree with these laws, we will not protest and we will not vote the pro-Trump people out of office.  Over time, they will get stronger and stronger and could (if we continue to support them) take so much power that President Trump could become a tyrant.  (This is, of course, very speculative as I have no real evidence that Trump really wants to become a tyrant or that the American people would let him.  Instead, I am trying to point out that our system of government cannot prevent tyranny if the people support the tyranny strongly enough.

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