people talk about separation of church and state, but i’m pretty sure america has missed the even more important separation of government and state
the way it should work and how i think it works in most places these days; is that the parliament is the main thing that keeps things running and is made up of hundreds of people from different parties, and then on top of that you have the government which is a subset of those people who make larger decisions. And if for some reason the government ceases being able to function (e.g. because enough parliamentarians oppose the current government) then it mostly just means that the big decisions have to be delayed until government can be restored, and aside from that no one notices much of anything.
Built-in inertia in the institutions of the state should ideally keep the state and it’s institutions from collapsing even in the absence of the government. Absence of governance should only mean that new acts aren’t passed until a government resumes, it shouldn’t mean that existing laws and acts become unenforced and existing systems (like civil servant roles) cease to function or be funded.
This inertia really helps when prime minister’s and governments are regularly deleted, as we had in Australia some years back, and as the UK had with Lettuce Truss et. al.
people talk about separation of church and state, but i’m pretty sure america has missed the even more important separation of government and state
the way it should work and how i think it works in most places these days; is that the parliament is the main thing that keeps things running and is made up of hundreds of people from different parties, and then on top of that you have the government which is a subset of those people who make larger decisions. And if for some reason the government ceases being able to function (e.g. because enough parliamentarians oppose the current government) then it mostly just means that the big decisions have to be delayed until government can be restored, and aside from that no one notices much of anything.
Built-in inertia in the institutions of the state should ideally keep the state and it’s institutions from collapsing even in the absence of the government. Absence of governance should only mean that new acts aren’t passed until a government resumes, it shouldn’t mean that existing laws and acts become unenforced and existing systems (like civil servant roles) cease to function or be funded.
This inertia really helps when prime minister’s and governments are regularly deleted, as we had in Australia some years back, and as the UK had with Lettuce Truss et. al.