From someone who's curious, why would the concept of "checks and balances" appear juvenile? Do you find it represents an ideal without possible application in the real world? Genuinely interested in hearing the why behind your statement.
This is at best naive.
People in power, when not already aligned into some faction or cartel tend to be adversarial with each other. People in power like keeping theirs, but also taking others'. Thus, they are also on guard about others taking their power.
When the checks and balances fail, it's usually because someone screwed up and tinkered with things they did not really understand, undermining these mechanisms. The 17th amendment comes to mind.
Even if you were right, the answer to insufficient safeguards isn't "fewer safeguards".
> Like when you see the police do something absolutely brutally and clear as day a breach of duty and violating someone's rights that should have them not only fired and barred from ever again serving in law enforcement but also put in jail; yet are 'cleared of all wrong-doing' by the police system of checks and balances.
Two things come to mind. First, nothing you've described herewithin is even remotely a "checks and balances" system. Second, the problem with the police is that everyone erroneously believes that they want to keep the police only that the police should do what they do to some other group than that they're currently abusing.
The police do not actually accomplish any objectives that anyone (non-homicidal-psychopaths) want. If your bike or car is stolen, they don't retrieve your property... they tell you to fuck off and go have insurance handle it. If you're mugged or raped or killed, they don't catch your assailant except by accident (and likely will bungle that prosecution anyway). If you're still being attacked, they're unlikely to rescue you, don't even have a duty to do so. And god help anyone who comes to their attention when they're in a bad mood.
You already live in a world where the police that you want to exist in your idealistic daydreams do not exist. Neither in whole nor in part. And you survive (more or less) just fine. We could get rid of the abusive police (that's all of them), and nothing would get worse for you.
Most people don't want that though. They imagine doomsday scenarios where chaos would instantly erupt.
How do you suppose that rule of law will continue to exist without some mechanism against the rule- and law-breakers? Do any historical examples exist of this working sustainably over the long run?
Because there's no mechanism that does that now. I'm not saying I like the current outcome exactly... but if that's the floor you're willing to accept for these, we could get exactly the same thing without the current police departments and nothing to replace them.
Imagine any hypothetical scenario you like where you might (unfortunately) have to interact with them. Some sensational crime occurs, and you're unlucky enough to be front and center. How does that play out? How does it play out if you stop using television shows to guide the narrative... how does it play out if you start using the anecdotes journalism you read?
I've yet to come up with a single one of those where things are improved for me, or any of the other non-criminals by the police showing up.
Hence the whole idea behind checks and balances, i.e. "ambition must be made to counteract ambition". The founders were well aware that any system of government that depends on an unbroken chain of decent people is bound to fail, and fail much sooner rather than later.
By decentralizing power and slicing and dicing it into many layers and segments (local vs. state vs. federal, executive vs. judicial vs. legislative), the damage done by collusion, careerism, bribery, etc. will be more limited and easier to be balanced out by the other forces in government.
Systems must be designed so that individuals trending towards fulfilling their own incentives nevertheless generate positive outcomes for the system as a whole. American government does a pretty good job at that. So does capitalism as a whole; as Adam Smith put it, "it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest".