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by TomMckenny 2533 days ago
>Do you believe the ends justify the means?

In the colloquial sense of that phrase, certainly not. Any honest calculation about the ends includes _all_ events that cause it. That necessarily includes the costs of the means.

> If you do, we are not talking about anything other than straight civil war.

I don't believe that is possible under any circumstances. The pattern being followed in the US is not at all unique. It is essentially identical to several other nations which are going or have gone down this path. There was never more than a broken window and burning trash can or two. (which of course are always portrayed as world ending violence justifying yet more authoritarian behavior)

In the end, either the public notices the situation in time and somehow gets enough ballots counted that they return the country to sanity (enough ballots to overcome gerrymandering, the electoral college, the unbalanced senate, systematic disfranchisement and foreign interference)

Or the country follows the same path that Hungary and Poland are on now, towards a hyper nationalistic, xenophobic kleptocracy. Essentially the same choice soon to be faced by several other western countries (and India and Turkey btw).
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18pfsmt 2533 days ago
America is based on an idea, not historical aristocracy or genealogy (i.e. blood and soil). We were founded on freedom. The US, as the first start-up country is simply not comparable to other countries. This is why an American conservative is not comparable to a European conservative. Certain degenerates are attempting to import these European ideas into the US (e.g. Bannon), but I will not condone these illiberal policies that are contrary to the founding of America.
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TomMckenny 2532 days ago
Clearly Trump's party is crucially different than John McCain's. It's unimaginable that McCain would keep kids in cages, call the press "enemy of the people", lead chants to lock up political opponents, undermine NATO, or encourage hostile powers to assist his candidacy. I may not be a conservative, but whatever else may be said of the old McCain-Regan-Rockefeller party, they would certainly never, ever engage in any of these obscene activities.

And I entirely agree, the US does have some considerable advantages:

- the "blood and soil" ideology is very alien (though not unprecedented as seen by the first, more obvious, "America first" movement [1] and later by John Birch)

- it's had 240 years of voting and some notion of civil-personal rights

- there's nice separation of powers. (Although it's becoming apparent that a president with >33% of the Senate can exercise almost unlimited authority.)

But these advantages are not automated, people have to use and defend them. The judiciary is especially delicate, it's been the first thing targeted by the other neo-autocrats.

Also there is a possibility of over confidence in these institutions ("it can't happen here"). And there's an unfortunate dose of denial ("he did not mean that literally"). And inexperience (modern Germans know exactly what the AfD is and how dangerous it is)

But absolutely, the future is not written yet and certainly I too am never going to be shut up.

By the way, the Bannon influence is so obvious (and 1930's obsessed) that you see Trump threatening opponents with half understood ideas of a paramilitary somehow made out of "bikers and police"[2]

[1] https://vimeo.com/237489146 [2] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/434110-trump-sug...

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