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Ol Janx Spirit

(898 posts)
7. Well that's part of the problem isn't it? The Supreme Court has no way to enforce...
Mon Feb 23, 2026, 12:43 AM
Monday

...a ruling in reality. The enforcement power really lies with the executive branch, and there's no way they are going to lock anyone in the executive branch up for disobeying an order they don't agree with.

Beyond that it really gets complicated, but in short the executive branch controls everyone that could really participate in enforcement:
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB11271#:~:text=The%20boundaries%20between%20civil%20and,are%20legally%20or%20factually%20unfounded.

Congress could step in and defund the government or certain parts of it to force compliance, but that's going to be difficult politically--and possibly in reality if the executive branch which controls the Treasury Department which handles all the money taken in by the government and distributed to government agencies decide they just aren't going to stop the flow of money.

What we really have is an executive branch with all of the real power having been delegated to it while the Congress and Judicial branches really just exist in our collective imaginations. As long as those with actual power go along with what they say--which has happened from 1789 until now--then the myth holds.

Why the Founders did not realize from the myriad examples that ancient Rome gave us that whomever has the power to tax citizens and control an army really holds all the power in a society is a mystery--but here we are.

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