Word: crossman
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...judicial check on power Crossman would approve, but never a legislative one. Here his case for the separation of powers stops short, for a legislature gets in the way. Washington political life would be "absolutely unbearable" for Crossman-too much fragmented power. The weakness of the two-party system suggests also a larger futility to American politics. "The one advantage of British politics." he argued, "is the ideological flavor to party divisions. That ideological dimension is missing here, and I wouldn't be in politics without...
According to Crossman, the basic decisions of British government occur in party conclaves. Congress makes policy, but Parliament simply registers the program of the party in power. "Some people still regard the House of Commons as if it could do things." he said. "But the Commons is merely the place where things happen. Nothing we do there alters the program. Good, bad, or indifferent, the whole mandate is carried out line by line...
THIS FUSION of powers-the "efficient secret" which Crossman finds so admirable-leaves the British people defenseless before the government. No Supreme Court, no legislature. The voter must count upon the ideology of the governing party. The heavy programmatic content of British politics, said Crossman, rescues the ministry from the amoral exercise of power. The Godkin Lectures keyed on personal and party power: the ideological restrictions on its use seemed almost an after-thought. But in The New Fabiun Essays, Crossman analyzed the pitfalls of pragmatism. It is direction-less-ideology begins where pragmatism fails. He could say, therefore, without...
...feeble check on government, even to Marxists, and scarcely explains why the ruled defer to their rulers. Ceremony does explain. Legend, myth, and self-deception-the pomp of government-"siphon off dangerous emotions" and screen politics from public view. Cabinets, parliaments, and monarchy lacked the substance of power. Crossman wished to strip government of the Noble Lie and confront his audience with the garish clanking of the party machine. He may even have wished to demonstrate the drawbacks of the British system to Anglophile political scientists. But, as the Godkin series proceeded, he showed much affection for that "efficient secret...
...efficient secret" Crossman meant that the real struggle for power must usually be hidden. This phenomenon has no analogy in the American government. The U. S. Constitution sets out to sabotage the "efficient secret": the purpose of that document is to bring the struggle for power out into the open. Parties and party conventions flourish here, of course, but the basic decisions of government do not occur in them. They result from the all-too-public, often stalemated dialogue between the President and the Congress...