The only real check was the idea that the military could overthrow them, often placing a new king on the throne.
They had the powers of executor, legislator, and judge. In most traditional governments, was impossible to separate the monarchs from any other branch. Looking at the oft repeated example of the French Revolution, the monarchy was against the old separation of powers, monarch, people, Army. However, all this is a step up/challenged by the old separation of powers. While within a nation there were monarchs, there was also the religious monarch of the papacy that ruled over most of Europe, and include Protestant nations the monarch was also often the religious head. Though much more complicated than I have time to get into here, though if you are Presbyterian you may recognize the structures within structures (this is not coincidental), this mirrors the complexities of social and religious governments in Europe. We even make it more complicated with our tiered federal system which we call federalism which gives power to the states and local governments individually. While we do have the executive (the president and cabinet), the Congress mirrors English Parliament by being bicameral with a House of Representatives and the Senate, and the federal court systems with the Supreme Court at the top. In our country we make them slightly more complicated, mirroring other facets of the world at the time. In his book the Spirit of Laws, Montesquieu divides up all political power into three parts executive, legislative, and judicial.
However, if you had a good political science teacher in high school, you probably know that the true separation of powers is listed in our Constitution comes from the French nobleman Montesquieu. Though there were many forms of mixed government going all the way back to Aristotle and even Polybius argued that Roman Republic was a mixed form of government, what we think of as multiple parts of government really is developed by first John Calvin, who develops the notion of a bipartite government between democracy and the aristocracy in the 16 th century and is ultimately mirrored in the British tradition. Recently, in constitutional/presidential debates, several things have come up that make me think of this political structure. One of the most important aspects of our Constitution is something that we all learned we were in elementary school, the separation of powers. Watch the video “Looney Toons – Duck Amuck” uploaded by JomJul on Dailymotion. In 1994, it was voted the second-best cartoon of all time by the Animation Guild of America and was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in the National Film Registry. While still funny, it’s amazing how meta the humor is and how well it portrays the art form. As a kid I love this cartoon, but as an adult I am amazed by it. With developing artists like Dali helping Alfred Hitchcock designed scenes, it seems that Looney Tunes may be the perfect venue to lampoon such things. In a moment of pure, absurdity and high-minded art Chuck Jones decided to take Daffy Duck into the realm of absurdism and Surrealism. However, in 1951, Chuck Jones took a step further.
#Fear and loathing in las vegas dailymotion movie#
Like many of you, I learned my classical music, movie tropes, and Opera from none other than Looney Tunes. After sharing a couple bleak and dark things over the last couple posts, I thought I’d share something genuinely funny and lighthearted.