Philth · 46-50, M
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
@Philth I'm reading that book now. Peter Thiel wrote the foreword
Philth · 46-50, M
@Burnley123 I've not read the book, only read *about* it.
Scary sounding stuff.
Scary sounding stuff.
SomeMichGuy · M
The current Republicans have taken up the flag of "smaller government" and, being unable to win for decades, are forcibly taking it with DJT & the Deplorables.
The Heritage Foundation and other contributors to/co-authors of the "Project 2025" open plan to destroy our democracy was a way of a group of conservative "think tanks" to finally shed any last semblance of that tag and "come out" in as the truly vicious, anti-American traitors which they have always been, in their hearts, minds, and souls, and behind closed doors.
They have always lusted after grabbing the power to force the clock back to the 1950s with respect to women, the 1850s with respect to blacks, and reset the government by destroying regulations meant to keep us safe (see the Preamble to the Constitution, and the exposition about the importance of life as a fundamental freedom in the Declaration), and try to destroy those and other impediments to their unchecked, free hand to exercise all power and indulge every appetite without answering to any authority on Earth.
The Reagan presidency was the beginning of the rich coming out from the smoke-filled back rooms and openly stacking the deck. It was the beginning of more and more blatant moves until getting a far-right Supreme Court which would rewrite the Constitution to their liking, always (of course) under the guise of "originalism", which it is decidedly NOT.
The Citizens United case was a watershed moment in the death of our American experiment, as it suddenly created a new party to the Constitution--not only the people, the States, and the Federal government which the last two created, but, now, businesses...and it enshrined "money is speech" in a new aura, making vast monetary contributions to political campaigns a right just like speech.
From there, the lack of guidance or oversight of the Supreme Court, the willingness of Republican leaders like McConnell and Graham to do ANYthing to finally wrest power from the people because of the demographic doom of the Republican party.
We got here via
• A lack of rational controls over money in politics--this made politicians beholden to big donors (possibly not even in their district) not their actual, in-district constituents. Unlimited amounts mean that the rich are given hugely amplified voices in politics as well as everywhere else.
• A lack of rational controls over political advertising--much of it is not true unless you ignore the actual truth and go with a very minority view.
• A failure to have any duty to the truth as part of the requirements placed on politicians, lawyers, and "news" outlets/channels--this has helped in the Fascist-based takeover of my country through provable lies pouring out of every corner of these.
• Allowing each house of Congress to make its own rules--this has allowed
■ the Senate to approve marginal candidates for every office. Forcing a 2/3 to 3/4 majority would help eliminate the eminently unqualified, which is exactly the pool from which DJT has drawn many of his sad appointees.
■ the tyranny of each chamber's leader (Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader) with respect to the calendar, bills reaching the floor, etc. Any bill receiving support of 10% of the legislature should have its day on the floor, with reading and discussion/debate before being subject to being delayed or killed.
■ the Senate Majority Leader denying action on Presidential appointments and other anti-democratic rules.
■ Ethics per other entries here.
• Lack of comprehensive guidance for and oversight of the Supreme Court--including
■ automatic recusals
■ required reporting of info which would directly affect the required recusals
■ the scope of the Court's power: discovering new parties or reshaping the power structure not within the Court's power
■ Court's duty to the truth
■ other well-defined ethics requirements in a common framework for public service
• Lack of common-sense controls on Presidential power--
■ the abuse of the pardon to the detriment of the rule of law and to spring henchmen/co-conspirators has to stop.
■ attempting to appoint eminently-unqualified persons or even anti-appointees (those sworn to destroy that which they are supposed to run)
■ reporting requirements as part of ethics
■ clear guidelines regarding process of declassification
■ remove power of President to give clearance to security risks
■ scrutiny of nepotism
■ remove Presidential ability to summarily create new departments, etc.
• Lack of a full definition of treason and heavy penalties
• Lack of automatic impeachment of high offices in every branch when certain thresholds are met
The Heritage Foundation and other contributors to/co-authors of the "Project 2025" open plan to destroy our democracy was a way of a group of conservative "think tanks" to finally shed any last semblance of that tag and "come out" in as the truly vicious, anti-American traitors which they have always been, in their hearts, minds, and souls, and behind closed doors.
They have always lusted after grabbing the power to force the clock back to the 1950s with respect to women, the 1850s with respect to blacks, and reset the government by destroying regulations meant to keep us safe (see the Preamble to the Constitution, and the exposition about the importance of life as a fundamental freedom in the Declaration), and try to destroy those and other impediments to their unchecked, free hand to exercise all power and indulge every appetite without answering to any authority on Earth.
The Reagan presidency was the beginning of the rich coming out from the smoke-filled back rooms and openly stacking the deck. It was the beginning of more and more blatant moves until getting a far-right Supreme Court which would rewrite the Constitution to their liking, always (of course) under the guise of "originalism", which it is decidedly NOT.
The Citizens United case was a watershed moment in the death of our American experiment, as it suddenly created a new party to the Constitution--not only the people, the States, and the Federal government which the last two created, but, now, businesses...and it enshrined "money is speech" in a new aura, making vast monetary contributions to political campaigns a right just like speech.
From there, the lack of guidance or oversight of the Supreme Court, the willingness of Republican leaders like McConnell and Graham to do ANYthing to finally wrest power from the people because of the demographic doom of the Republican party.
We got here via
• A lack of rational controls over money in politics--this made politicians beholden to big donors (possibly not even in their district) not their actual, in-district constituents. Unlimited amounts mean that the rich are given hugely amplified voices in politics as well as everywhere else.
• A lack of rational controls over political advertising--much of it is not true unless you ignore the actual truth and go with a very minority view.
• A failure to have any duty to the truth as part of the requirements placed on politicians, lawyers, and "news" outlets/channels--this has helped in the Fascist-based takeover of my country through provable lies pouring out of every corner of these.
• Allowing each house of Congress to make its own rules--this has allowed
■ the Senate to approve marginal candidates for every office. Forcing a 2/3 to 3/4 majority would help eliminate the eminently unqualified, which is exactly the pool from which DJT has drawn many of his sad appointees.
■ the tyranny of each chamber's leader (Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader) with respect to the calendar, bills reaching the floor, etc. Any bill receiving support of 10% of the legislature should have its day on the floor, with reading and discussion/debate before being subject to being delayed or killed.
■ the Senate Majority Leader denying action on Presidential appointments and other anti-democratic rules.
■ Ethics per other entries here.
• Lack of comprehensive guidance for and oversight of the Supreme Court--including
■ automatic recusals
■ required reporting of info which would directly affect the required recusals
■ the scope of the Court's power: discovering new parties or reshaping the power structure not within the Court's power
■ Court's duty to the truth
■ other well-defined ethics requirements in a common framework for public service
• Lack of common-sense controls on Presidential power--
■ the abuse of the pardon to the detriment of the rule of law and to spring henchmen/co-conspirators has to stop.
■ attempting to appoint eminently-unqualified persons or even anti-appointees (those sworn to destroy that which they are supposed to run)
■ reporting requirements as part of ethics
■ clear guidelines regarding process of declassification
■ remove power of President to give clearance to security risks
■ scrutiny of nepotism
■ remove Presidential ability to summarily create new departments, etc.
• Lack of a full definition of treason and heavy penalties
• Lack of automatic impeachment of high offices in every branch when certain thresholds are met
CountScrofula · 41-45, M
Musk has been advertising "live through some hard times" for a while now.
Granted, part of Trump's problem is he's starting to show he doesn't have the spine to commit to what he promised because he's already waffling hard.
But this is ABSOLUTELY about making America a much poorer nation, yet one where he the oligarchs directly run everything. Abandoning all the soft power around the planet in order to concentrate hard power in a few select areas will do the same thing.
I bet in their mind it's like turning America from a public to a private company.
Granted, part of Trump's problem is he's starting to show he doesn't have the spine to commit to what he promised because he's already waffling hard.
But this is ABSOLUTELY about making America a much poorer nation, yet one where he the oligarchs directly run everything. Abandoning all the soft power around the planet in order to concentrate hard power in a few select areas will do the same thing.
I bet in their mind it's like turning America from a public to a private company.
Elessar · 26-30, M
It's both. The entire premise that you can earn from a crash is founded on the idea that the system you crashed will eventually recover. If the US crashes following their recent abrupt international realignment it'll never get to the point it was until 2024, no dissimilarly than how the Russian Federation never went back to being the USSR. The entire country is built around bring the world's top notch defense partner, nobody sane of mind on this world trusts them to have that role ever again. All those fat military contracts? Bases all over the world? Eurodollar? Those are gone
All the billionaires that back this would arn more by maintaining the status quo, than ruling over the ashes. But as we're seeing, a lot of these folks are going full "Leopards ate MY face!!" as we speak (e.g. the Jack Daniel's CEO now whining because Canada banned his products, after he endorsed Trump lol), so I'm 100% convinced it's not some elaborate 5D chess strategy, just people who have more money than brain cells who can't see past the trimester.
All the billionaires that back this would arn more by maintaining the status quo, than ruling over the ashes. But as we're seeing, a lot of these folks are going full "Leopards ate MY face!!" as we speak (e.g. the Jack Daniel's CEO now whining because Canada banned his products, after he endorsed Trump lol), so I'm 100% convinced it's not some elaborate 5D chess strategy, just people who have more money than brain cells who can't see past the trimester.
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Elessar · 26-30, M
@Burnley123 (Forgive me in advance for the verbosity)
It's different in democracies, decline is tangible, even if not actively reported the information spreads and/or you get to see its impacts in the electoral process. In dictatorships, that information is actively suppressed and the political process won't deviate from fixed tracks. Look at your country: a relative majority of people got onboard with the idea of Brexit, which was sold to them as something that would've made the country more prosper; once that failed to materialize, Labour won with a landslide an election that was absolutely predicted. Nothing like that is remotely possible in places like Russia or China, if/when things get ugly it goes from the status quo to a bloody revolution without any intermediary steps. It's like a pressure cooker with no valves, it has only two possible states: integer, and fully blown out, nothing in between, and you don't have ways to know the exact moment when it happens. As you point out, the pressure cooker blowing up scenario is a recurrent pattern in their history.
There's no point in amassing large swaths of natural resources if they remain underutilized. Their economy was fully extractive, now it's no longer even that, but totally reliant on receiving lifelines from a handful of other semi/dictatorships and being at constant war. That's nowhere stable in my book.
Both Europe and China (and not necessarily together) can come out stronger from this.
It's different in democracies, decline is tangible, even if not actively reported the information spreads and/or you get to see its impacts in the electoral process. In dictatorships, that information is actively suppressed and the political process won't deviate from fixed tracks. Look at your country: a relative majority of people got onboard with the idea of Brexit, which was sold to them as something that would've made the country more prosper; once that failed to materialize, Labour won with a landslide an election that was absolutely predicted. Nothing like that is remotely possible in places like Russia or China, if/when things get ugly it goes from the status quo to a bloody revolution without any intermediary steps. It's like a pressure cooker with no valves, it has only two possible states: integer, and fully blown out, nothing in between, and you don't have ways to know the exact moment when it happens. As you point out, the pressure cooker blowing up scenario is a recurrent pattern in their history.
If it was on the verge of collapse, it would have collapsed
Not necessarily, merely three years of half àssed sanctions with evident bypasses isn't enough to collapse even North Korea; had we been more serious with those sanctions (i.e. secondary sanctions for third countries that helped them defy them), and/or had they been prolonged (i.e. after 10 years instead of 3) we could be looking at a very different painting. Keep in mind also that they've received multiple lifelines, before Trump there was India's, China's, Iran's and even NK (albeit with manpower). It's fully dependent on these states to survive, its economy is entirely focused on wartime production, if either they lose the external backing or stop being at war the entire thing likely implodes.Russian living standards and GDP per capita are the highest in eastern Europe and it still has vast mineral wealth
For a country of that size with that amount of resources it's a laughable GDP. Literally my country alone with no natural resources beyond u sole (☀), u mare (🌊) has a greater GDP than they had pre-sanctions. It could be easily the most prosperous country in the world if they had a functional government instead of this kleptocracy. There's no point in amassing large swaths of natural resources if they remain underutilized. Their economy was fully extractive, now it's no longer even that, but totally reliant on receiving lifelines from a handful of other semi/dictatorships and being at constant war. That's nowhere stable in my book.
America liberal democracy is under greater threat
Man, it was under a great threat before, now it's pretty much cooked. Also, the middle-term viability of the EU looks shaky
Agreed about this too, but whether it's under the EU or a different union/alliance/federation, I don't see the majority of European (incl. Brits and even Turks) wanting to go down with either of the two. Both Europe and China (and not necessarily together) can come out stronger from this.
Burnley123 · 41-45, M
@Elessar
Wall of text incoming; Everybody run for cover! 🤣
There are some, even in authoritarian regimes. Democracy/dictatorship is a spectrum, not a binary. For example, China is less democratic than Italy but more democratic than Hungary, which is more democratic than Russia.
Even dictatorships need some kind of tacit consent from the population. When a regime is about to fall, there are protests on the streets and/or attempted coups. There was a small peace movement early on in the war, but the leaders were all locked out. Prigozhin attempted a kind of coup (or at least went AWOL), but this got nowhere, and he is now dead.
There is no evidence that the Putin regime is close to collapse, and its economy is doing reasonably well. Living standards in western Russia are better than they have been in living memory and better than anywhere else in Eastern Europe. Whether or not Russians like Putin is impossible to tell for obvious reasons. However, there is no rebellion or anything close.
Yes, but my point is that this is the maximum that the West was able/willing to impose, and it had no impact. Even during a war and with some Western pressure, the regime survived and did not come close to toppling. Now that the war is ending with a resolution which benefits Russia, there will be even less pressure.
(Forgive me in advance for the verbosity)
Wall of text incoming; Everybody run for cover! 🤣
It's like a pressure cooker with no valves,
There are some, even in authoritarian regimes. Democracy/dictatorship is a spectrum, not a binary. For example, China is less democratic than Italy but more democratic than Hungary, which is more democratic than Russia.
Even dictatorships need some kind of tacit consent from the population. When a regime is about to fall, there are protests on the streets and/or attempted coups. There was a small peace movement early on in the war, but the leaders were all locked out. Prigozhin attempted a kind of coup (or at least went AWOL), but this got nowhere, and he is now dead.
There is no evidence that the Putin regime is close to collapse, and its economy is doing reasonably well. Living standards in western Russia are better than they have been in living memory and better than anywhere else in Eastern Europe. Whether or not Russians like Putin is impossible to tell for obvious reasons. However, there is no rebellion or anything close.
Not necessarily, merely three years of half-assed sanctions with evident bypasses isn't enough to collapse even North Korea
Yes, but my point is that this is the maximum that the West was able/willing to impose, and it had no impact. Even during a war and with some Western pressure, the regime survived and did not come close to toppling. Now that the war is ending with a resolution which benefits Russia, there will be even less pressure.
Elessar · 26-30, M
@Burnley123
Which is the same identical technique that the Dems used in America against Trump, only to lose catastrophically. It's not surprising if it turns out the plan was written by the same people lol
Wall of text incoming; Everybody run for cover! 🤣
😅😅There are some, even in authoritarian regimes. Democracy/dictatorship is a spectrum, not a binary. For example, China is less democratic than Italy but more democratic than Hungary, which is more democratic than Russia.
True, I generally agree with this, but I don't think elections alone define a democracy; a system that allows you to vote for a rigid vetted set of options and where information is actively suppressed (e.g. China) isn't any more democratic than one where information is (relatively) allowed to flow, but voting and activism are suppressed (Russia). Both of these forms of dictatorship imo are opaque.When a regime is about to fall, there are protests on the streets and/or attempted coups
Yeah but when you're at that point the collapse is very imminent. That's the metaphoric cap of the pressure cooker being yeeted out, milliseconds before the content is splashed all over the room. Clearly Russia isn't there yet, but I don't think anyone can say with precision how close it is.There was a small peace movement early on in the war, but the leaders were all locked out. Prigozhin attempted a kind of coup (or at least went AWOL), but this got nowhere, and he is now dead.
Exactly, protesting was violently suppressed, and Prigozin coup attempt didn't find much resistance and got *very* close to Moscow, the Kremlin was quite panicking (at least judging from their communication) while it was happening. That's not a sign that the population at large (and even the military) is any happy with the govt. and its economy is doing reasonably well
25% interest rates, main exports halted (yeah they're still selling gas through India, but that's nowhere as profitable as it was selling via pipeline without transportation, fees, regasifiers and intermediaries), most of the investors left the market (or didn't and got their assets seized), and it has already defaulted on the foreign debt. That's not a healthy economy under any realistic metric, that's an economy on life support.Whether or not Russians like Putin is impossible to tell for obvious reasons. However, there is no rebellion or anything close.
Well yeah that's my point as well. By the time we'll know it'll be when Putin is in the very process of getting ousted, not a minute before.Yes, but my point is that this is the maximum that the West was able/willing to impose, and it had no impact
Not even close to the maximum, the west could've gone with much harder sanctions, the reason it didn't happen is that we wanted to do the very bare minimum while hoping the problem would magically solve itself. Which is the same identical technique that the Dems used in America against Trump, only to lose catastrophically. It's not surprising if it turns out the plan was written by the same people lol
it had no impact
It definitely had an impact, see my list of points about their economy before. It didn't outright collapse them but it's tangible that their economy has been wretched (even though, I'd say a good 50% of it is their own work).Now that the war is ending with a resolution which benefits Russia, there will be even less pressure.
I don't think the war is ending anytime soon. On the contrary, Trump's just prolonged it, and potentially risk extending it to Moldova, and maybe even Baltic countries.
Bumbles · 51-55, M
The cutting is modeled on what Musk did at Twitter. To allow that in the federal government is not based on reason. So, what else could be the reason?
What is more based on “reason” than modern, liberal, western, political structures and systems. That is really Trump’s enemy, after all.
What is more based on “reason” than modern, liberal, western, political structures and systems. That is really Trump’s enemy, after all.
SatanBurger · 36-40, F
Moneyonmymind · 31-35, M
It certainly seems like it at times. Because of that I am now very careful with where I invest my money.
