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0 pointsHaZeust3y ago0 comments

I firmly believe it'll be a catalyst that reminds "The People" that they were MEANT to be the fourth check and balance, and that the check and balance system was NOT abstracted for just political institutions to provide leverage against each other's tension.

The founder of the idea of "checks and balances" themselves (Montesquieu, Secondat) said it, the Founding Fathers who were influenced by the two (Madison) wanted to charter it (Federalist n. 10), and Hobbes argued for it in Leviathan. The writing has been on the wall for CENTURIES to include The People as its own entity within the ontological power-struggle of American politics - we were just led to forget our own history.

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paganel3y ago

As a big fan of Jean-Jacques myself I also dig the volonté générale/will of the People, the trouble is that it's quite difficult to say what that "will" really is, first, and second, and just as important, who the People actually is.

To be honest I don't think that in these past ~250 years we've made that big of a progress in answering those two fundamental questions. I mean, the US Constitution starts with the very rousseau-ist "We the People of the United States", but a major part of the population living in said United States wasn't considered (fully) part of said People until the mid-19th century, some say that even now that process is an ongoing project.

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paganel3y ago

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