The Department of Justice has gone more than a bit freaky lately; see Wonkette’s PULL THE F*CKING FIRE ALARM and Bill Barr Breaks The Justice Department for some frankly revolting details.
Regulatory Capture.
That’s the concept in government that describes what happens when the subject of a regulation gets control of the government body that does the regulating.
Like when a bunch of financial industry folks get appointed to run an organization like the Securities and Exchange Commission.
You end up with a situation where the regulatory body is no longer acting on behalf of the public, but instead is acting to support their industry.
And bad things start happening.
So, what’s it mean when the DOJ is captured?
It means the criminals are running the police, basically.
And in the Age of Twitter, it means that we can watch it all happen from our phones.
This is bad.
Yup.
Very bad.
This is a deep, fundamental failure in the Constitution’s attempts to establish a “nation of laws”.
The oversight mechanisms in the Constitution that are supposed to prevent the Executive from running amok are grossly inadequate to the task, as I wrote in the second actual posting to this blog (Failed Constitution Check: Executive Oversight).
My suggestion there was to split the Executive into two parts, and I still think that’s the best idea.
Whether you agree with that specific suggestion or not, though, we need to come up with something that will work.
Because when the police become just another criminal gang, there is literally no reason at all to respect them. And at that point your country has already fallen.
