The Copulation of Powers:
So let's say, and why not, that you arrive at an orgy about two hours late. You've missed the drinks, the snacks, the drugs, the banal attempts at conversation about things other than fucking. Instead, you walk in and the orgy part of the orgy is in full swing - not the Bacchic part, but the straight out, gettin' down and dirty Dionysian part, when, in other words, everyone is already fucking. It's sad, really, standing there, quickly shrinking hard-on or drying juiciness, as you scan the room, looking for a spare orifice or unused penetrant and there's not a tongue to spare. Sure, you were even going to put aside your squeamishness about fucking someone of the same sex, but, alas, alas, there's nothing to be done - or, more approrpriately, no one. You thought the invitation said 2 a.m., but you guess it started at midnight. As you watch the myriad of anal dildo action, sixty-nines, straight cock on cunt fucking, rim jobs, multi-vibrator elastic butterflies, dongs of doom, and the high-level of difficulty trapezoidal foursome with bunny rabbit and fluffernutter, you think that you have three options: stand there in the midst of the groans, slurps, and hydraulic sounds and proudly jack off, hoping someone will notice; try to join into one of the groups in mid-fuck - maybe that couple in the corner where the guy is shoving a carrot up his ass while fucking the face of the other guy who is fondling his cock and stimulating his own sphincter with a cucumber (what's known colloquially as "really tossin' the salad") - and risk rejection or only grudging on-their-terms acceptance, always at a disadvantage, you know; or leave and take the long, teary ride home to the laptop lover. Either way, there's a whole lot of fuckin' goin' on tonight, and you're no longer invited.

The Republicans in power no longer believe in the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution. As far as they are concerned, the Judiciary and the Legislative branches exist to affirm the will of the Executive, and that to do otherwise is to betray the nation itself at a time of "war." For instance, when outgoing Attorney General John "My Asshole Is So Tight I Shit Kite String" Ashcroft attacked the federal judiciary, he put it in terms of, surprise, surprise, national security: "The danger I see here is that intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing of presidential determinations in these critical areas can put at risk the very security of our nation in a time of war." Ironically enough, one of the decisions that Ashcroft was so pissy about is the ruling by U.S. District Judge John Robertson that said the prisoners at Guantanamo might be able to be considered prisoners of war and therefore subject to the Geneva Convention, a status which still needed to be determined, said Robertson. So, following the bouncing ball of logic here, Ashcroft, a man to whom Cotton Mather would say, "Dude, lighten the fuck up," has his panties in a wad because at "a time of war," a judge has said that captured "fighters" might just be "prisoners of war." Or, put more simply, the judiciary should rubber stamp the policies of the President without any regard to existing law or its independent ability to rule. Or, even more simply, sit down and shut up, judgey.

Then there's the continued spanking of Arlen Specter, the "moderate" Republican who dared to suggest that Senate Judiciary Committee had a responsibility to consider the views of the judges sent for confirmation by the White House. Specter now faces the specter of losing out on the chair of that committee. When Bill Frist, noted cat eviscerator and Senate majority leader, said that Specter had to "prove" his loyalty to the President, Frist may as well have pulled a leash with Specter on the end of it and said, "Now, watch me smack these saggy liberal cheeks red. Say you like the spankin', Arlen. Say you like it, bitch." More frighteningly, Frist added that if he's chair, Specter "has a clear obligation … to take what the president nominates (and) get that nomination through committee." One might have thought that the job of the committee of the legislative branch is to give consideration to the nomination and decide whether or not the President's nominee is worthy of approval (or one might at least expect Frist to lie about the purpose of the committee). Instead, Frist has said that the job of the legislative branch is to offer its blanket approval to judges who will offer their blanket approval to the policies of the executive branch. Or that, now, the other two branches of government have no real role than ratification of the goodness and rightness of the executive. If you think otherwise, that the branches are supposed to, well, fuck, check and balance each other, then you are not living in a time of war. You have a September 10 mindset. (And, remember, we're not even talking about the Republicans' attitude towards even the chimera of an opposition party the Democrats are.)

Oh, sure, you could be a pussy and actually read the Constitution, which clearly delineates the independent and, implicitly, equal powers of the government. You could be someone who lives in the past and thinks that one reason why the separation of powers exists is because the Founders wanted to avoid the rise of an American despot with unchallenged authority (having, you know, fought a war over the right to self-rule). Hell, you might be some kind of history-educated poindexter who remembers that James Madison, back in 1789, wanted to add an amendment to the Constitution that explicitly laid out the separation of powers, "The powers delegated by this constitution, are appropriated to the departments to which they are respectively distributed: so that the legislative department shall never exercise the powers vested in the executive or judicial; nor the executive exercise the powers vested in the legislative or judicial; nor the judicial exercise the powers vested in the legislative or executive departments." You may know that the other Founders believed it was redundant: any idiot, they figured, would understand that that's what the Articles of the goddamn Constitution meant. See, if you know all this, then you know that right now the Republicans hate America - or, more precisely, they hate what America was founded upon.

The Republicans don't want a separation of powers any longer. They want a copulation of powers, one big orgy of the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the government. It's an orgy built around the worship of the great cock of the Executive. The Executive gets to fuck whatever the Executive wants - such is the privilege of being the President, "C'mere, Supreme Court, yer ass is lookin' so sweet today - pull up those robes and pull down those panties and let the President fuck that fine ass of yours. Hey, and while yer at it, eat out the cooz of the Congress so everyone's taken care of." As for the American public? You can either be part of the orgy or you can go fuck yourself.