Right now you see it along with millions and millions of people, even in other countries, and it is dangerous because this is how uprisings take place, and when you look at other countries, they are shaking their heads. The Constitution is against any form of government that is not written down and signed in the Constitution. pray
In 1787, dozens of men, including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, gathered in Philadelphia to design a new system of government for the United States, then barely four years old with a weak central government that was struggling to respond to the nation’s problems. One question they faced was: how do you create a central government that possessed enough authority but could not abuse its power?
Their solution was splitting the power of the central government between three branches: the executive, legislative and judicial. Each branch has tools to preserve its own authority and limit the actions of the other two, known as the system of checks and balances.
In the 20th Century, the court also began to check the president. In 1952, the Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for President Harry Truman to seize private steel mills for the Korean War effort, and despite disagreeing with the decision, Truman obeyed the court. Decades later, the Supreme Court successfully ordered President Richard Nixon to hand over tapes of conversations with his associates, who were accused of being involved in the Watergate scandal.
But if the Supreme Court has no military or budget at its command, why do the other branches listen to it? Its authority comes from historical precedent, said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the School of Law at UC Berkeley.
“Throughout American history, presidents — Democrats and Republicans — adhered to court orders even when they disagreed with them,” Chemerinsky said.
But what can the courts do if the White House, which insists its authority is being unfairly limited, ultimately disobeys their rulings? Then, the courts could “hold the government officials who carry out the president’s policies in contempt of court,” Chemerinsky said, adding that it’s unlikely for a sitting president to be held in contempt.
There are two different types of punishments for disobeying a court: civil contempt and criminal contempt.
“In civil contempt, someone is fined or put in jail until they comply with the court order,” Chemerinsky said.
Criminal contempt, however, is a punishment that can also include either jail time or hefty fines.
The president can pardon someone who has been convicted of criminal contempt but not civil
