US axes website for reporting human rights abuses by US-armed foreign forces

Turns out that separation of powers was incorrect. Each branch needs its own enforcement arm and our plan of having the Executive carry out the law instead of just enforcing the law was a bad idea.

The limit to separation of powers is that many people will align themselves with the most powerful existing entity as the easiest path to self advancement, and this results in a natural consolidation of power even when that consolidation is outside the formal hierarchy. So once an entity or institution becomes too powerful, it tends to just reinforce itself.

No, because then you’re just centralizing power in the hands of a specific group of people—Ivy League law school graduates—that have distinctive cultural and class interests. Maybe you think that’s a good idea today. But in the mid-20th century these institutions were the bastion of WASPs, long after that group lost electoral control of the country due to immigration. (Watch the movie The Good Shepherd.) Your system would’ve given the FBI/CIA/DOJ powerful tools to destroy the presidencies of FDR and JFK. There’s a reason the conspiracy theory exists that the CIA assassinated the first catholic president.

The founders were right that nobody can be trusted to neutrally enforce “the law.” If you could trust Harvard graduates as a class to do that, there would be no reason for checks and balances or separation of powers.

> The founders were right that nobody can be trusted to neutrally enforce “the law.”

Well my point is two-fold. First, what you say here is my point, all branches need an _enforcement_ arm. Today Congress has the Sergeant at Arms and courts have bailiffs and may deputize members of the Executive Branch.

However that's clearly inadequate in the face of the Executive's current balance of power. A rebalancing is necessary imo.

Could that result in a Roman-esque problem of the three branches having "tug of wars" with each other's law enforcement arm, but I don't think so. We have this problem today with the dozens of law enforcement organizations within the Executive...which brings me to my second point!

My second point is that carrying out the law in the Executive was clearly the wrong choice. The Legislative branch should actually carry out the law, i.e. USPS should live under a committee in Congress, and mail fraud would continue to be prosecuted by the Executive.

I'll caveat that I'm had waiving a lot here, but I hope we can all agree at least on the problem statement; too much power has concentrated in the Executive and _drastic_ measures would be required to resolve that situation.