Re: CHAT: Gale Norton (was Californian secessionists)

Quoting Cian Ross <cian@...>:

> On 10/6/01 at 2:11 PM Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> >
> >Quoting John Cowan <cowan@...>:
> >
> >> Thomas R. Wier scripsit:
> >>
> >> > One of the reasons that Texas's governor is one of the weakest
> >> > in the Southern governors are weak in general (the offices, I mean,
> >> > not the persons necessarily).
> >
> >That's true, but Texas takes it to extremes.
>
> Well, apparently, lots of us here still like it that way.  I'd much
> rather have a "weak" executive--given that the alternative (at least
> at the national level) seems to be getting closer and closer to outright
> autocracy.  If that's an "extreme" then call me an extremist. :)
Oh, well, I didn't mean to imply that that was necessary a *bad*
thing.  I feel personally somewhat ambivalent about the matter.  I
have genuine worry about a monarchical federal President or Imperial
Congress, and there's no question that sometimes those entities behave
that way. But I also see in a carefully formulated federalism a way to
prevent that from getting out of hand by distributing the powers
of government among many competing entities (the ol' notion of
checks and balances), namely the states and its own internal
power-struggles; that is, "states' rights" is a logical extension of
Checks and Balances. If you have a powerful, but not all-powerful,
State executive, then perhaps that executive could be a better
bulwark against abuses at the federal level?  It's an open question
in my mind.

==============================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...>

"If a man demands justice, not merely as an abstract concept,
but in setting up the life of a society, and if he holds, further,
that within that society (however defined) all men have equal rights,
then the odds are that his views, sooner rather than later, are going
to set something or someone on fire." Peter Green, in _From Alexander
to Actium_, on Spartan king Cleomenes III