Democracy in America

Recently I have been reading several chapters of Alexis de Toqueville's book, "Democracy in America". In chapters 5 and 6 of his book he makes some very interesting observations. First, in chapter 5, he notes a major difference between the administrative decentralization of America and the administrative centralization of Britain. He said: "What does it matter to me, after all, if there should be an authority always on its feet...flying ahead of my steps to turn away every danger... if this authority... is absolute master of my freedom and my life...?" He wisely noted that the more "convenient" an nation became, the more powerful and domineering the government would have to become. This was one of the reasons he much preferred the American system. Another one of the interesting things he noted was that one of the reasons that nations like ancient Egypt and others lasted so long, and why America was so successful, was not because the government held it's citizens in sway, but because the population of these nations was unified on the point of religion (not surprising). In chapter 6, Toqueville spoke about the judicial branch, where he gave another interesting thought. He gave three characteristics of a judicial power. The first, he said, was that a judge cannot make any decision unless there is a dispute. In other words, no case, no judge. He said: "When [a judge] pronounces on a law without starting from a case, he goes outside his sphere completely and enters that of the legislative power". Yet today, judges are allowed to pronounce laws constitutional or unconstitutional. This "legislation from the bench" allows judges to go outside their sphere of allowed power, and yet it is condoned in our nation. It seems that in this book, everything that Toqueville praises about our government has eroded in the last 150 years. Hmm...