[malandrew]

TBF, I'm not against wealth transfers and infrastructure investments. I just think they should be handled as close to the local level as possible.

Wealth transfers for example worked better when Churches and other local community institutions were involved. They'd collect directly from their parishioners and provide support directly to those that need help. This is a system that is highly accountable to the people providing help and keeps those receiving help accountable for "helping themselves" and not just mooching.

Same with infrastructures. With infrastructure, there are times, that some big may have value, but very rarely does it require the scale of the state or the federal government. The biggest of infrastructure projects are rarely larger than an economic region (e.g. SF Bay Area. Seattle Metro area. etc.).

The interstate highway system is like the only infrastructure project that benefits from Federal involvement.

Right now, doing through the Federal government provides far too little accountability for results and spending money wisely.

[eszed]

Beyond elements of nuance and emphasis I don't disagree with anything you've said. For instance, I completely agree with the philosophy of localism and federalism and "de-powering the sails" that you lay out. (And yes, the House of Representatives should be scaled!) At the present moment I just... Prioritize de-powering corporations over government, because if we do it the other way around there will be nothing restraining the further concentration of power in, and the further corruption of government / society at, their hands.

Where I think we part company is in our assessments of the current American "left" and "right" parties. I see more energy towards de-centralization (both corporate and governmental) in some younger politicians within the Democratic party, and a firm intent to increase corporate power within the GOP.

But, it gives me hope to see so much substantive agreement with someone who's chosen to vote the other way, and I genuinely hope that I've misjudged the incoming administration. If it all works out as you believe it will, then I'll be happy to have been wrong. Thanks again.

[malandrew]

The way I see it, the overly powerful government and corporate institutions are two sides of the same coin. There's been so much revolving door activity and corporate capture of government, that depowering either in either order yields a weakening of the other.

One person that I can't recommend enough is Mike Benz, if you've never checked out his videos. He's an absolute fountain of knowledge, it's just that there is such a vast spiderweb of "<foo> industrial complexes" out there (finance, military, media, tech, censorship, etc.) that it's impossible to convey in short media clips.

Best place to start is his pinned video: https://x.com/MikeBenzCyber/status/1838448979799085456

Shellenberger is another one to check out.

Once, you've seen enough of the links between government and corporations pointed out by him and others that are watchdogging, you start seeing it everywhere. You literally can't turn on a single MSM news show today and not see "expert" after "expert" that if you dig in are just cutouts for the vast web of "<foo> industrial complexes" out there and how there are so many innocuously named institutions, think tanks and NGOs that are quietly guiding so much of what is happening from behind the scenes and manufacturing narratives.

What I see in the new administration has less to do with policies and more to do with folks that are increasingly hard to manipulate and blackmail. Thiscertainly doesn't apply to Trump's first administration, which was a disaster, but it was a disaster because he really didn't expect to win, and completely underestimated the swamp. As a result, he hastily put together a first administration of folks that had ulterior motives or was compromised.

At this point, Trump is probably the most vetted president in modern times. They have literally done everything possible to try and take him down. Yes, he's had his fair share of indiscretions and he absolutely is a flawed human, but none of his legitimate indiscretions were enough to take him out that there have now been many unhinged efforts to manufacture scandal to take him out because he represents such a threat to the deep state.

One reason Trump has largely been able to avoid this stuff is because he learned first hand how the coercion and blackmail machine functioned very early in his career with his exposure to Roy Cohn and the Blue Suite scandal at the Plaza Hotel. His behavior certainly hasn't been beyond reproach (far from it), but at this point, it's safe to say that he's not nearly as compromised as the Clinton's, the Bush's and the Biden's have proven to be.

While I'm not keen on many of his cabinet picks, there are quite a few folks in there that have already had their dirty laundry aired, and while it wasn't always pretty, it also wasn't career ending. What you're left with are folks that have seen how the coercion and blackmail and scandal operating machine works and are on a mission to destroy it. This time around, more of the cabinet picks appear to be far less compromised than previous administrations including Trump's first administration.

Basically, my take is that this is the first administration in my lifetime that has some leeway to break from from the orbit of blackmail and coercion that has shaped policy since Kennedy was assassinated.

[raincom]

This is how collusion happens between the government (regulators, prosecutors, politicians, etc) and the corporate (media personalities, super wealthy, powerful attorneys, think tanks, etc). Revolving door, conflicts of interest, etc--these can't be solved in the modern form of government.

[malandrew]

I'm not sure there is a modern form of government that can solve the problem we have. If a non-trivial quantity of your leaders (elected or appointed) are being coerced and blackmailed, there's not really a solution. Maybe in the past, a monarch could have their blackmailer and associates put to death, but there's not really a solution for a nation under blackmail. You certainly won't be able to have a form of government with a functional justice system with concepts like innocent until proven guilty and due process. I can't think of a way for a leader to remain beholden to the will of the people, if there is no mechanism to swiftly deal with blackmail, when the price is to go against the will of the people. Such a mechanism would be incompatible with the modern tenets of justice.

"Because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion, Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." — John Adams, October 11, 1798.

I don't remember the interview, but there was an interview in the second have of 2024 with Peter Thiel where he basically alludes to the fact that we're largely operating with institutions today that are basically a club where admittance is granted on the basis of being compromised. Basically, this reeks of the adage attributed to Lenin "Trust is good. Control is better".

As greed and avarice and numerous vices become more common, the pool of blackmailable people to sponsor to a position of power only grows. There was a reason, institutions like the FBI and CIA used to strongly prefer hiring Mormons, who did not drink and were very unlikely to partake in adultery or other frowned up sexual proclivities.

For the most part, I would not be surprised if getting the financial support to run for office in many parts of the country are largely predicated on the whether or not the financial backers underwriting your campaign feel confident they can control you. It's probably not enough to trust a politician for many financiers of politicians. They need to know they can control before they write a check.

This is why we have so few politicians of any integrity like Thomas Massie. Even he has a massive target on his back, with lots of money pouring in to support his opponents. I can imagine that someone like Thomas Massie could only ever win in a state that is still largely constituted of the types of people of which John Adams wrote. A politician with any integrity would be very unlikely to ever win in states like California, New York or Illinois.

The fact that the only people arrested in the Epstein scandal have been Epstein and Maxwell, pretty much speaks volumes about how out how our government is being run. There is little to no accountability (for government officials or executives in corporations) apart from a token person going to jail now and again. We have a system of government and institutions actively protecting criminals.