You’re right, it’s so well-implemented in the rest of the world, such as in my home country of Spain where the supreme court is trying to enjail Catalonian politicians against international law. Surely the idea that law should be ultimately judged by a group of old people who select each other is the best way possible for law to work!
…Then it’s also shittily implemented in Spain. Separation of powers doesn’t mean you can’t have a better system than nomination in the adjudicative branch, and it doesn’t mean you can’t have assholes at the head of branches. It means you don’t grant all branches of power to the same assholes. Which would be worse in any case.
Bottom line: It’s a great and essential principle to maintain democratic institutions, but of course not enough by itself.
If democracy patently doesn’t work under the separation of powers, what compells you to believe it’s an essential principle to maintain democratic institutions?
He didn’t say that separation by itself is sufficient. So naturally just having separation is not enough.
However, it’s a fact that a dictator needs, by definition, to break the separation of power in order to truly become the authoritarian leader with control over the country.
So NOT having separation of power is actually necessary to destroy a democracy.
I feel that trying to defend those things that someone would need to break in order to remove democracy is not a bad idea if we want to maintain democracy.
There are also a lot of other things that are necessary for a dictatorship… such as the dictator not being held accountable (meaning… transparency and mechanisms for accountability would be another principle to maintain democracy), or the dictator suppressing political opposition or dissent (so protecting opposition, whistleblowers and dissent, instead of prosecuting it would be another one). And I’m sure there are many others.
I mean… sure, you can, in theory, have a democracy without those things… but the more safeguards you remove the more and more you are allowing traits of dictatorship to creep in…
The thing is, how much of a hurdle has the separation of powers been for fascists? I’d say not a whole lot. In my opinion, it’s been much more of a hurdle to pass progressive policy instead, e.g. the rather recent case of the Berlin rent cap repeal. The democratic will of the people of Berlin, via direct referendum, was repealed because a group of old men in a tribunal said that it’s illegal. American politics, as an outsider, are essentially like that: democrats making progressive promises in campaign, and then “we didn’t get to do it because we didn’t have a supermajority :(”, whereas characters like Trump will just get there and say “yeah, no, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want”.
It’s so much of a hurdle that all fascist regimes have been forced to weaken the division and ultimatelly break it completelly in order to build a fascist regime.
A “progressive law” is easy for a fascist in power to overthrow if they actually are able to weaken the division of power.
Why do you think Trump has been able to do a lot more in this term than in the previous one? Because he has been able to weaken that division, the judicial system is on his side, and he has a lot more connections with people inside the state now.
Ok,. so lets imagine your example from Berlin: would the situation have been better if there was no division of power and the same group of old men in a tribunal were the ones deciding the referendum should be made, deciding what laws should be passed, how should they be written and in which manner should they be executed, with which level of strength?
Division of power also means that if a group of old men in the legislative dictates a horrible anti constitutional law, there’s a chance the law can be repelled due to the judiciary being compelled to do so.
Now let’s imagine the opposite in Berlin: what if, instead of a group of old men wearing weird wigs, it was actual representatives of the people chosen through democratic centralism? It’s not like there’s no way to know what people wanted, there was literally a referendum. Why would I want separation of power if all power in my country should be democratic? Separation of powers is a tacit admission that the powers aren’t democratic, hence needing different people to create “checks and balances”.
A fascist usually rises to the head of the executive or the military, not the legislative.
Then again, it is not only the separation of powers that prevent fascism, but it definitely has helped slow down and stop the rise of fascism, especially in the 30s. Didn’t always work, obviously, but it is certainly better than no separation at all (I’m still waiting for you to answer my question, by the way: How would no separation of power be more effective?).
And no, I’m not about to waste my time giving you a history lesson about how the separation of powers helps fight fascism. And I’ll remind you that it is a commonly accepted fact, and that if you wish to claim otherwise, the burden of proof is on you.
China? Really? Yes, they have a fascist problem as they fit a lot of the traits that define fascism, and no, they have no separation of power. Is that what this is about? You’d like to see the CCP model all over the world?
Sure buddy, China has a lot of fascist traits, such as being extremely sensitive towards different ethnical groups in the country (go to a history museum in China and you’ll see that they have specific signs discussing the different ethnicities at the period), lifting a billion people from poverty, land redistribution, quality social services and no use of militarism for the past half century. But I guess that, for you, not getting to vote once every 4 years for the lesser evil who will regardless defund the social services and pursue austerity policy is the highest expression of anti-fascism.
My point wasn’t that separation of powers is the cause of undemocratic institutions, my point is that it’s a terrible tool for that purpose.
No, it’s great. It’s just shittily implemented in the US.
You’re right, it’s so well-implemented in the rest of the world, such as in my home country of Spain where the supreme court is trying to enjail Catalonian politicians against international law. Surely the idea that law should be ultimately judged by a group of old people who select each other is the best way possible for law to work!
…Then it’s also shittily implemented in Spain. Separation of powers doesn’t mean you can’t have a better system than nomination in the adjudicative branch, and it doesn’t mean you can’t have assholes at the head of branches. It means you don’t grant all branches of power to the same assholes. Which would be worse in any case.
Bottom line: It’s a great and essential principle to maintain democratic institutions, but of course not enough by itself.
If democracy patently doesn’t work under the separation of powers, what compells you to believe it’s an essential principle to maintain democratic institutions?
He didn’t say that separation by itself is sufficient. So naturally just having separation is not enough.
However, it’s a fact that a dictator needs, by definition, to break the separation of power in order to truly become the authoritarian leader with control over the country.
So NOT having separation of power is actually necessary to destroy a democracy.
I feel that trying to defend those things that someone would need to break in order to remove democracy is not a bad idea if we want to maintain democracy.
There are also a lot of other things that are necessary for a dictatorship… such as the dictator not being held accountable (meaning… transparency and mechanisms for accountability would be another principle to maintain democracy), or the dictator suppressing political opposition or dissent (so protecting opposition, whistleblowers and dissent, instead of prosecuting it would be another one). And I’m sure there are many others.
I mean… sure, you can, in theory, have a democracy without those things… but the more safeguards you remove the more and more you are allowing traits of dictatorship to creep in…
The thing is, how much of a hurdle has the separation of powers been for fascists? I’d say not a whole lot. In my opinion, it’s been much more of a hurdle to pass progressive policy instead, e.g. the rather recent case of the Berlin rent cap repeal. The democratic will of the people of Berlin, via direct referendum, was repealed because a group of old men in a tribunal said that it’s illegal. American politics, as an outsider, are essentially like that: democrats making progressive promises in campaign, and then “we didn’t get to do it because we didn’t have a supermajority :(”, whereas characters like Trump will just get there and say “yeah, no, I’ll do whatever the fuck I want”.
It’s so much of a hurdle that all fascist regimes have been forced to weaken the division and ultimatelly break it completelly in order to build a fascist regime.
A “progressive law” is easy for a fascist in power to overthrow if they actually are able to weaken the division of power.
Why do you think Trump has been able to do a lot more in this term than in the previous one? Because he has been able to weaken that division, the judicial system is on his side, and he has a lot more connections with people inside the state now.
Ok,. so lets imagine your example from Berlin: would the situation have been better if there was no division of power and the same group of old men in a tribunal were the ones deciding the referendum should be made, deciding what laws should be passed, how should they be written and in which manner should they be executed, with which level of strength?
Division of power also means that if a group of old men in the legislative dictates a horrible anti constitutional law, there’s a chance the law can be repelled due to the judiciary being compelled to do so.
Now let’s imagine the opposite in Berlin: what if, instead of a group of old men wearing weird wigs, it was actual representatives of the people chosen through democratic centralism? It’s not like there’s no way to know what people wanted, there was literally a referendum. Why would I want separation of power if all power in my country should be democratic? Separation of powers is a tacit admission that the powers aren’t democratic, hence needing different people to create “checks and balances”.
Because the alternative has already been tested thoroughly throughout history?
Because the alternative makes it that much easier for an aspiring fascist to take full control of every branch of power?
In what world do you think that not separating powers can have a more democratic outcome?
In which historical occasion has a fascist risen to legislative power, and the rest of powers were like “nah get outta here” and just kicked them out?
Would you agree that China doesn’t have a fascist problem? Would you agree that China has separation of powers?
A fascist usually rises to the head of the executive or the military, not the legislative.
Then again, it is not only the separation of powers that prevent fascism, but it definitely has helped slow down and stop the rise of fascism, especially in the 30s. Didn’t always work, obviously, but it is certainly better than no separation at all (I’m still waiting for you to answer my question, by the way: How would no separation of power be more effective?).
And no, I’m not about to waste my time giving you a history lesson about how the separation of powers helps fight fascism. And I’ll remind you that it is a commonly accepted fact, and that if you wish to claim otherwise, the burden of proof is on you.
China? Really? Yes, they have a fascist problem as they fit a lot of the traits that define fascism, and no, they have no separation of power. Is that what this is about? You’d like to see the CCP model all over the world?
Sure buddy, China has a lot of fascist traits, such as being extremely sensitive towards different ethnical groups in the country (go to a history museum in China and you’ll see that they have specific signs discussing the different ethnicities at the period), lifting a billion people from poverty, land redistribution, quality social services and no use of militarism for the past half century. But I guess that, for you, not getting to vote once every 4 years for the lesser evil who will regardless defund the social services and pursue austerity policy is the highest expression of anti-fascism.