I would like to make a modest proposal. In fact, it's so modest that in a bygone era it might have been called common sense. Let's hold Congress and the President to practically all of the same standards that we hold engineers to. When an engineer makes a bridge, vehicle or program that kills people due to gross negligence, they can be sued and probably imprisoned in some jurisdictions. Since Congress has the nasty habit of passing, or trying to pass, laws which are highly destructive and negligent in their suppression of nasty side effects like otherwise law-abiding people going to prison, why not make Congress civilly and criminally liable for violating the Constitution?
Some may call it an attak on the Constitution, democracy, apple pie and everything else that this country stands (or stood) for. Non-sense. The only people who worry about these things today are political scientists who seem to be completely lacking any counter-proposals for how to fix the corruption mess in our elected government.
We haven't made America "safe for democracy" by taking away congressional accountability for its unconstitutional mistakes, we've given them a blank check to run amok. Judge declares a bad law unconstitutional and Congress repasses it anyway? Toss them in prison. What part of "Congress shall not..." did you not understand about the first amendment, the second or any other?
Despite what some people may tell you, the Constitution is not difficult to read. In fact, our founding fathers were extremely blunt, and Article II (which establishes Congress) reads more like a grocery list than a modern legal document. The fastest way to tell that someone has a bad political agenda is when suddenly they become legal gnostics, with the Supreme Court as the governing inner circle that knows all about the hidden truths buried deep within masonic invisible ink in the text.
"Why not make Congress civilly and criminally liable for violating the Constitution?"
Remember the Montana Freemen, Mike? That's what they actually set out to do (and, of course, were nearly executed for!)
Actually, it was TEACHING people how that REALLY caused the problem.
Turns out that, back when we were a Republic, public officials actually had to have a BOND to guarantee said lack of "violation" of their oaths. Now that it's a dead issue, none of 'em do.
The Freemen taught how to make valid claims for redress against such violations, get a judgement, and then lien the property of the deadbeats (who had no bonds).
It all just goes to show you that those who are willing to kill you (and, as Vin Suprynowicz likes to point out, your 80-yr-old granny to boot) for a few tax $$$ are just as willing to do it for REAL remedies to their crooked system as well.
I don't know much of anything about those guys, so I think I'll have to look that stuff up later.
This is one of many good reasons why I support disarming the police of any weapon that cannot be owned by a law-abiding citizen. I'd have no moral problems sending DC and NYC cops to their deaths if that is what it took to get some responsibility and firness restored.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the mainstream blogosphere has the same fact-checking prowess of the MSM. If you're interested, check this post of mine out. It's on the network neutrality and twice in it, and once today, I have caught PajamasMedia, arguably one of the biggest metablogs out there, uncritically linking and pushing a blogger who doesn't understand the issues at all.