How little soft power means to the people who benefitted from it. I gotta stop looking at my phone before bed, this is horrible news for all parties involved.
How little soft power means to the people who benefitted from it. I gotta stop looking at my phone before bed, this is horrible news for all parties involved.
Its pretty much the textbook example of "a stupid weak mans idea of an intelligent strong man". It seems like the people in power are not content with status and influence if it doesn't look and...
Its pretty much the textbook example of "a stupid weak mans idea of an intelligent strong man". It seems like the people in power are not content with status and influence if it doesn't look and feel like their ideals of status and influence. The schoolyard bully idea of power.
Oversight, controls and alliances are beneficial because it incentivizes everyone to play nice. And the US already carved out exceptions for themselves. Nations would willingly fall in line because doing so gave them access to NATO protection, UN networks, US products/western markets and the IMF.
Walking away from the table now leaves room for others to make new deals at your expense.
America was also able to keep conflict far away from their borders and shield the population from the realities of war. Now they threaten Mexico, Greenland and Canada because they can.
They don’t need soft power they’re trying to re-colonize south America, they’ll have hard power. They just don’t care that long term hard power burns out.
They don’t need soft power they’re trying to re-colonize south America, they’ll have hard power.
They just don’t care that long term hard power burns out.
More details here. Half the list are UN-organisations, like the International Law Commission, the Peacebuilding Commission, and the UN Democracy Fund. Edit: the Guardian now has a piece about it.
I couldn’t find any english-language sources discussing this. Half the list are UN-organisations, like the International Law Commission, the Peacebuilding Commission, and the UN Democracy Fund.
The U.S. Constitution survived for 237 years without significant stress testing. That’s pretty good. It was written with checks and balances to protect against 18th-century bad-faith despots....
The U.S. Constitution survived for 237 years without significant stress testing. That’s pretty good. It was written with checks and balances to protect against 18th-century bad-faith despots. Clearly those safeguards were inadequate to protect against this new breed of uniquely malevolent autocrats.
I think it’s time to start writing a new constitution informed by the lessons we’ve learned in recent years, which mitigates the risks of corrupt and/or ideological scorched-earth governance. I don’t think the current system can be fixed at this point.
The problem is going to be that any sort of new constitutional convention is going to be immediately co-opted by Musk, Ellison, Miller, Fuentes, Cruz, and the like. We know the players and their agendas. If they see a new deck of cards being shuffled, they’ll do anything in their power to stack it in their own favor.
It seems to me that any serious effort to draft a new constitution would require the absolute transparency and democratic collaboration that only an open-source wiki-like platform can provide. I think it’s totally possible in the internet age for a constitution to actually be written by “we the people” rather than a group of elite founding fathers in a way that could never have been dreamed of centuries ago. Of course, writing the doc is just one part of the reboot process. An important part, but figuring out the rest of the plan is the real sticky wicket.
I’d settle for congress doing literally anything at all with the power they still have. No constitution is going to account for an entire congress willingly giving up its power to a dictator. Even...
I’d settle for congress doing literally anything at all with the power they still have.
No constitution is going to account for an entire congress willingly giving up its power to a dictator. Even killing the dictator after the fact doesn’t work, tried that with Caesar.
Caesar fell only in the footsteps of the likes of Cinna and Sulla that already broke Roman tradition of not having troops near the city. Ignoring the rule of law to see what you can get away with...
Caesar fell only in the footsteps of the likes of Cinna and Sulla that already broke Roman tradition of not having troops near the city. Ignoring the rule of law to see what you can get away with is how it starts.
Add to that a heaping of political violence in the form of gangs roaming the streets of Rome and you have a situation no tradition or constitution will defend against if unenforced long enough.
Of course, the senate had difficulties with enforcing any law considering they had to contend with an army loyal to a general instead of the state. The US isn't yet at the point the army is at the whim of one sin...
Curious what would happen if Trump disagreed with Congress and, as Commander-in-Chief, ordered the military to take action. The military is awfully right-leaning, and Trump has immunity for...
Curious what would happen if Trump disagreed with Congress and, as Commander-in-Chief, ordered the military to take action. The military is awfully right-leaning, and Trump has immunity for literally anything he does using his Presidential role, however illegal. I strongly suspect that if Trump ordered the military to do even something totally awful, at least half would follow him into the dark.
Well they did just invade Venezuela so there's that for an answer. He'll just ignore congress, and the army, that has a right to deny illegitimate orders, happily obliged anyway.
Well they did just invade Venezuela so there's that for an answer. He'll just ignore congress, and the army, that has a right to deny illegitimate orders, happily obliged anyway.
It's not much comfort, but here's something that might result in some restraint: there are stricter US laws governing what the military can do in the US than outside the US. Example: the drone...
It's not much comfort, but here's something that might result in some restraint: there are stricter US laws governing what the military can do in the US than outside the US. Example: the drone strikes during the Obama administration would be illegal domestically.
The Trump administration might ignore laws anyway (for example, killing people who have surrendered during the attacks against boats near Venezuela), but legally, it does unfortunately have more freedom of action outside the US.
Capturing Maduro sure seems like it ought to be illegal, but I couldn't really say what US laws it breaks. It would be good to see what lawyers have written about it.
I couldn't either. I'm not from the US so my knowledge around those laws is hearsay at best. To that point, I read something about it not needing congressional approval because it wasn't a...
I couldn't either. I'm not from the US so my knowledge around those laws is hearsay at best. To that point, I read something about it not needing congressional approval because it wasn't a military invasion longer than XYZ amount of hours but that could be complete bollocks that I haven't verified.
But, with not even a heads-up to congress for a foreign invasion and the increasing levels of federal policing through the national guard in dissident states, I worry what laws will be decidedly broken first. The domestic, or the foreign ones?
How do you ensure that the open-source wiki-like platform is truly representative of the citizens of the country and not whatever organizations have the most power and influence within the arena...
How do you ensure that the open-source wiki-like platform is truly representative of the citizens of the country and not whatever organizations have the most power and influence within the arena that platform exists within, i.e. the internet at large? It would have to be tied directly to each citizen's real identity, with all the problems that brings, and would still be administered by someone, who would be where the buck stops when it comes to determining a new constitution. If you think those people running the open source project are incorruptible, I admire your optimism, but I believe that they'd have millions or billions in dollars and threats against everything they loved thrown at them within minutes if it meant that there could be influence over the process.
Practically, there's still significant reasons to do these things in person. Broadcast it to the world, make it all visible, sure, but having it be in any significant way decided online would introduce incredible vulnerabilities. Or do we want Constitution McConstitutionface as our new guiding document?
Uh, I don't see how a wiki is going to help. The fundamental issue is that the entire voting populace of the US is going to have VERY different, irreconcilable, ideas for what they want this new...
It seems to me that any serious effort to draft a new constitution would require the absolute transparency and democratic collaboration that only an open-source wiki-like platform can provide. I think it’s totally possible in the internet age for a constitution to actually be written by “we the people” rather than a group of elite founding fathers in a way that could never have been dreamed of centuries ago.
Uh, I don't see how a wiki is going to help. The fundamental issue is that the entire voting populace of the US is going to have VERY different, irreconcilable, ideas for what they want this new constitution to have.
I don't think you could get the userbase of Tildes to agree on a constitution, let alone everyone in the US.
And, to add, Trump won the popular vote last election; a plurality of the voting populace thought Donald Trump 2 electric boogaloo was the best way forward for America. And this is the group that's going to write a new constitution?
How little soft power means to the people who benefitted from it. I gotta stop looking at my phone before bed, this is horrible news for all parties involved.
Its pretty much the textbook example of "a stupid weak mans idea of an intelligent strong man". It seems like the people in power are not content with status and influence if it doesn't look and feel like their ideals of status and influence. The schoolyard bully idea of power.
Oversight, controls and alliances are beneficial because it incentivizes everyone to play nice. And the US already carved out exceptions for themselves. Nations would willingly fall in line because doing so gave them access to NATO protection, UN networks, US products/western markets and the IMF.
Walking away from the table now leaves room for others to make new deals at your expense.
America was also able to keep conflict far away from their borders and shield the population from the realities of war. Now they threaten Mexico, Greenland and Canada because they can.
They don’t need soft power they’re trying to re-colonize south America, they’ll have hard power.
They just don’t care that long term hard power burns out.
More details here.
I couldn’t find any english-language sources discussing this.Half the list are UN-organisations, like the International Law Commission, the Peacebuilding Commission, and the UN Democracy Fund.Edit: the Guardian now has a piece about it.
The U.S. Constitution survived for 237 years without significant stress testing. That’s pretty good. It was written with checks and balances to protect against 18th-century bad-faith despots. Clearly those safeguards were inadequate to protect against this new breed of uniquely malevolent autocrats.
I think it’s time to start writing a new constitution informed by the lessons we’ve learned in recent years, which mitigates the risks of corrupt and/or ideological scorched-earth governance. I don’t think the current system can be fixed at this point.
The problem is going to be that any sort of new constitutional convention is going to be immediately co-opted by Musk, Ellison, Miller, Fuentes, Cruz, and the like. We know the players and their agendas. If they see a new deck of cards being shuffled, they’ll do anything in their power to stack it in their own favor.
It seems to me that any serious effort to draft a new constitution would require the absolute transparency and democratic collaboration that only an open-source wiki-like platform can provide. I think it’s totally possible in the internet age for a constitution to actually be written by “we the people” rather than a group of elite founding fathers in a way that could never have been dreamed of centuries ago. Of course, writing the doc is just one part of the reboot process. An important part, but figuring out the rest of the plan is the real sticky wicket.
I’d settle for congress doing literally anything at all with the power they still have.
No constitution is going to account for an entire congress willingly giving up its power to a dictator. Even killing the dictator after the fact doesn’t work, tried that with Caesar.
Caesar fell only in the footsteps of the likes of Cinna and Sulla that already broke Roman tradition of not having troops near the city. Ignoring the rule of law to see what you can get away with is how it starts.
Add to that a heaping of political violence in the form of gangs roaming the streets of Rome and you have a situation no tradition or constitution will defend against if unenforced long enough.
Of course, the senate had difficulties with enforcing any law considering they had to contend with an army loyal to a general instead of the state. The US isn't yet at the point the army is at the whim of one sin...
Curious what would happen if Trump disagreed with Congress and, as Commander-in-Chief, ordered the military to take action. The military is awfully right-leaning, and Trump has immunity for literally anything he does using his Presidential role, however illegal. I strongly suspect that if Trump ordered the military to do even something totally awful, at least half would follow him into the dark.
Well they did just invade Venezuela so there's that for an answer. He'll just ignore congress, and the army, that has a right to deny illegitimate orders, happily obliged anyway.
It's not much comfort, but here's something that might result in some restraint: there are stricter US laws governing what the military can do in the US than outside the US. Example: the drone strikes during the Obama administration would be illegal domestically.
The Trump administration might ignore laws anyway (for example, killing people who have surrendered during the attacks against boats near Venezuela), but legally, it does unfortunately have more freedom of action outside the US.
Capturing Maduro sure seems like it ought to be illegal, but I couldn't really say what US laws it breaks. It would be good to see what lawyers have written about it.
I couldn't either. I'm not from the US so my knowledge around those laws is hearsay at best. To that point, I read something about it not needing congressional approval because it wasn't a military invasion longer than XYZ amount of hours but that could be complete bollocks that I haven't verified.
But, with not even a heads-up to congress for a foreign invasion and the increasing levels of federal policing through the national guard in dissident states, I worry what laws will be decidedly broken first. The domestic, or the foreign ones?
Isnt it though? He did basically overthrow a dictator in another country via military action all by himself like last week.
Maybe I cut off that sardonic joke at the end a little too early. Because yeah that's worrisome in more ways than one.
How do you ensure that the open-source wiki-like platform is truly representative of the citizens of the country and not whatever organizations have the most power and influence within the arena that platform exists within, i.e. the internet at large? It would have to be tied directly to each citizen's real identity, with all the problems that brings, and would still be administered by someone, who would be where the buck stops when it comes to determining a new constitution. If you think those people running the open source project are incorruptible, I admire your optimism, but I believe that they'd have millions or billions in dollars and threats against everything they loved thrown at them within minutes if it meant that there could be influence over the process.
Practically, there's still significant reasons to do these things in person. Broadcast it to the world, make it all visible, sure, but having it be in any significant way decided online would introduce incredible vulnerabilities. Or do we want Constitution McConstitutionface as our new guiding document?
It seems like the Civil War was about as extreme as a stress test could get?
And as with the Civil War, there's still a very tricky unsolved problem in that a plurality of "we the people" are in favour of the oppression.
Uh, I don't see how a wiki is going to help. The fundamental issue is that the entire voting populace of the US is going to have VERY different, irreconcilable, ideas for what they want this new constitution to have.
I don't think you could get the userbase of Tildes to agree on a constitution, let alone everyone in the US.
And, to add, Trump won the popular vote last election; a plurality of the voting populace thought Donald Trump 2 electric boogaloo was the best way forward for America. And this is the group that's going to write a new constitution?
Christ, what an asshole.