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When Alexander Hamilton wrote his classic analysis of the presidency in The Federalist Papers (No. 70), he minced no words: “Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.” The executive branch has to act and act decisively. The legislative process is not designed for speed, nor is adjudication in the courts. The presidency is—and needs to be. As commander in chief, the president has to be ready to address whatever crisis the nation faces.
The alternative to an energetic executive, Hamilton explained, is a “feeble” executive. A feeble executive will act feebly. And “feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution: And a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be in practice a bad government.”
The designers of the Constitution could not, of course, know who would occupy the office in the future. What they could do was design the Constitution so as to give future presidents the ability to act decisively and energetically.
That is why, Hamilton explained, there is one president, not two and not a council. When multiple people have to agree on any particular action, there’s always the possibility for delay or even gridlock. Checks and balances are, indeed, important in the right context. But checks and balances on military strategy when the battle is underway can be fatal. So “[t]he executive power”—not some, but the entirety—is “vested” in the president by Article II of the Constitution.
As Hamilton explained, decisiveness and promptness “will generally characterise the proceedings of one man, in a much more eminent degree, than the proceedings of any greater number.” So having a single, unitary executive who has the final decision-making power is a key feature of the Constitution’s design for the presidency. President Harry Truman captured the point succinctly with the sign he placed on his desk: “The buck stops here.”
-- Lael Weinberger
Rod Dreher asks, "I don’t understand why the government doesn’t deploy the army and shoot rioters until they stop. Philippe Lemoine, a Frenchman, says it’s not that simple."
Excerpt:
"We have let things rot for so long that, at this point, relying primarily on force to restore order would require a degree of violence far greater than what people realize and what is politically feasible.
It's possible to contain a riot using only moderate force when the number of police officers is high relative to the number of rioters, but when riots are so widespread and involve so many people because you have allowed this kind of things to happen for so long, that's just not possible and you have to use extreme violence to make up for the lack of manpower.
I know people on the Internet will say that it doesn't matter and that we should just do it, but the reality is that most of the people in charge are not prepared to use that kind of force and neither would most ordinary people if they saw ...
Even Marine Le Pen’s recent statements track this line: personal Islamic practice is compatible with the Republic; replacing French law with Sharia is not. French Muslims who are simply citizens practicing their "religious faith" “have no reason to worry” about a Le Pen election victory.
But can one be a practicing Muslim without demanding and practicing Sharia?
