Sunday, November 2, 2008

Our Leader


Sorry for the hold-up on this post, if there are any readers left here. My brain has been in all kinds of places lately, with the elections going on and all.
As promised, this is part two of my last post (last real post), concerning the leadership aspect of The Most Powerful Man in the World.
The U.S. has no leader.
At least, that is the way the Republic was originally designed. Today, it seems to be a vastly different story, mostly because the U.S. population seems to believe the President is a position of leadership.
It is not.
It is a position of an executive, with specific duties, limitations, and guidance.
The duties are as follows: Commander-in-Chief of the Army, Navy, and Militia (there still is no authority for command over the Air Force or Coast Guard, unknown to most people); making treaties (with Senate consent); picking federal judges, military officers, public ministers (religious ministry? I don't know. I hope not), public consuls, and ambassadors; granting reprieves and pardons; filling up vacancies within the Senate (to expire at the following term); provide to Congress a state of the union as well as recommendations; receive ambassadors and consuls from other places; convene both Houses in case of disagreement or adjourn them; and give final approval to any piece of legislation that is generated in Congress.
The limitations: Nothing except the above can be done (Amendment X).
The Guidance: The Constitution.
Therefore, the President is not the leader of America. America is suppose to be secured by three branches of government composed of many, many people, of which The People themselves elect some of.
Of course, this leaves open the question as to whether or not the government could be considered a "ruler" or "leader" still, regardless of the fact that it is comprised of many people. But, that is another topic.
My point here is that one person - the President - is not the leader of the U.S.
We in the U.S. have seemed to forgotten this, usually by assuming he or she will right all of our wrongs and fix all of our problems, particularly during election years.
The President cannot fix all of our woes. Yet, The People so desperately want a savior, instead of saving themselves, that we have effectively allowed the President much more power than what is allowed, such as unconstitutional wiretapping capabilities, unconstiutional manipulation of wars without congressional approval, attempts to create unconstitutional amendments to the Constitution, and the list goes on, despite the fact that the President has never been able to fix all of our woes even with increased power that the President should not have in the first place.
Our two most popular Presidential candidates for 2008 think they can even manipulate our economy and we'll probably be stupid enough to allow them to do it.
Even our own Vice President and one of the VP candidates claims he has/she should have the power to do as he/she pleases, even though the VP is actually regulated to one job and one job only, to be a tie-breaker for Congress.
It's only a free country if We The People remain neither leaders nor followers and expect the same of our federal government, which should be used as nothing more than a means to help us help ourselves.




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