How Military Funding Creates a Dictatorship

in #politics6 years ago (edited)


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The President of the United States acts as the Commander in Chief of the US Military. Of all privileges afforded to the executive branch this is ultimately the most impactful. When congress approves a greater military budget they are essentially allotting more power to the President. This may make sense based on your political views as well as the circumstances of the day, but ultimately the greater portion of military spending vs the spending on the rest of the government is what sets how much the country is a dictatorship.

Congress passes the budget and so acts as a tap on the flow of money, and as such power, between the different branches of government. An underfunded branch could disappear while an excessively funded branch could hold excessive control. If 100% of the funding goes to the executive branch, one person, you are at least a defacto dictatorship even if that branch has yet to do anything oppressive. Giving no funds to the executive branch, more likely manifesting in putting the military under another branch of government, you end up with a military that functions at a snails pace as every major decision must be debated and agreed upon. Again, depending on your political views this may not be a bad thing, but I wouldn't recommend it during times of active war.

In between there is a spectrum ultimately represented by the allocation of funds. In the end the military budget shows congress' trust in the current executive branch to handle it's power appropriately. I would argue no individual could be trusted with more power than a larger governing body, but that's up to the country to decide.

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How does this theory work when the judical branch has previously received a lot of funding and the judical branch is teetering on becoming tyrannical and as a precaution the military receives funding.

In that example would you still think that a dictatorship is being funded?

I focused on the executive branch here, but it doesn't negate the danger out any one branch monopolizing power. Ultimately the legislature, being made of the most people, is the least dangerous, but I don't think it's a good idea to tilt the balance of power in any direction. Personally I believe in balancing the funding between branches.

Though to more directly answer your question, possibly it could be. If the reaction to an overly funded judicial branch is to better fund the executive then you run the chance of going overboard and creating that dictatorial situation. If you're balancing things by funding an underfunded executive branch then you're sliding towards that "dictatorship" end of the spectrum, but ideally you stop somewhere in the center avoiding any risk of an actual dictatorship.

I would agree because 'power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely' and we allow goverment to become larger with tax payer money (which is kind of like poking a sleeping bear with a stick)

However we must deal with things the way that they are, and the way things have been 'manulipulated' is that some bad chacters are using corrupt judicial system employees as sheilds..so its sort of like trying to disarrm a timebomb. So I think in some cases giving 1 branch a large budget can help cancel out another out of control branch...but that is just my thoughts.

But I think that about 95% (maby 99%) of the time I would agree with the article that you first wrote

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