> >Government can change what those privileges are at any moment, for any reason—or no reason at all.
> No, this isn't the way government works anywhere outside of a dictatorship.
It really is. The executive branch is the most constrained in practice, but the legislative branch is relatively free to do whatever they want (spend money, create or abolish departments, set the rules, change the rules, allocate money to enforce the rules, etc. Even revise their own deliberative procedures), and the judiciary is even less constrained except that it is the other two branches that control who gets appointed as judges.
There are checks and balances, but those are pretty much always another part of government, so ultimately, anything the three branches agree on gets done. Anything.
There might be consequences including failing to get reelected for the executive and legislature, but that doesn't necessarily undo what's already been done.
> No, this isn't the way government works anywhere outside of a dictatorship.
It really is. The executive branch is the most constrained in practice, but the legislative branch is relatively free to do whatever they want (spend money, create or abolish departments, set the rules, change the rules, allocate money to enforce the rules, etc. Even revise their own deliberative procedures), and the judiciary is even less constrained except that it is the other two branches that control who gets appointed as judges.
There are checks and balances, but those are pretty much always another part of government, so ultimately, anything the three branches agree on gets done. Anything.
There might be consequences including failing to get reelected for the executive and legislature, but that doesn't necessarily undo what's already been done.
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