[mike_hearn]

> I've said it in another post. Why are there so many people ready to line up to defend the powerful against the weak

Don't you see? They would give the exact same speech about the other side and absolutely believe it, and in fact so would many other people. You say one side is clearly right and the other clearly wrong - that's what the people at DOGE think, just the other way around from you.

That doesn't mean right and wrong don't exist. It does mean that interpreting real world events is often hard and people can come to opposing conclusions, either because they interpret shared facts differently, or because they're aware of things the other side isn't, or because they believe things that aren't actually true.

Right now the Republicans perceive themselves as the weak and oppressed (or did until five minutes ago), and they perceive the Democrats as the powerful oppressors. Putting aside the question of whether it's true or not, they believe that the Dems control every part of the Federal civil service and are willing to systematically lie and conspire in order to completely destroy the Republicans, up to and including imprisoning them on false claims, smearing them with coordinated fake news, and even directly putting their lives in danger by turning a blind eye to assassination attempts. They think the Dems are the side of the rich and powerful and they have solid reasons to believe that, e.g. they systematically out-fundraise the Republicans by a massive margin and right now Musk is busy uncovering the ways billions of dollars in federal funds are diverted into a 100% Democratic NGO ecosystem.

You might think all the above is obviously untrue, equivocation or whatever, but they think it's true. So be careful with rhetoric about resistance. That isn't how democracy is meant to work; such talk can be and is being turned around on you.

[throwaway_2494]

>Don't you see? They would give the exact same speech about the other side and absolutely believe it, and in fact so would many other people.

Of course I see, and like in a chess match I looked past it cos I thought it was too obvious.

But I say again your argument amounts to false equivalence.

They can believe crazy and false things as fervently as they like, it doesn't make those beliefs an equivalent mirror image to what liberals believe.

This whole thread started with a complaint from you about Schedule F being 'unfair.'

Apparently anything except the liberals handcuffing themselves and letting themselves be frogmarched out of their jobs is unacceptable.

Meanwhile the new 'unitary executive' is allowed to jump up and down like Donkey Kong on anything he feels like no matter what the rules norms, laws or the constitution says.

Did I capture the essence of it?

I am totally serious about the need for resistance. The new people in charge just walked up to an unguarded lemonade stand which runs on the honour system, drank all the lemonade, pissed in the jar stole the money and smashed everything.

And why can they do that? Because they don't go in for honour and decency, but they expect us to. Democracy provides the tools and the freedom for people to subvert democracy.

I don't expect the new regime to grant such generous 'equivalent' terms should it manage to consolidate it's position.

I don't mean violent resistance, but we do have to resist.

[mike_hearn]

I guess you have to decide what it is exactly you think your side stands for:

1. Norms, honour, decency etc. In that case, the democratic norm that's honourable and decent would be to gladly comply with both the spirit and word of whichever government is in power regardless of the individual's personal beliefs, up to and including calmly accepting redundancy. This is what the platonic ideal of a civil servant is meant to do. The Republicans believe, with good reason, that the US civil service hasn't been doing this (same issues exist in other countries).

2. Bold resistance, elections be damned. Do whatever it takes, violate every norm, exploit every procedure, regulation and rule to fuck the right as hard as possible. That they won a legitimate victory is of no importance in this worldview because they are Crazy and Wrong and Bad, and therefore it is right and true to subvert them as much as you can.

These two positions aren't compatible but you're talking as if they are. You can't both cheer on stuff like the attempts to subvert Schedule F and claim to be the side of generosity, honour and democratic norms. Either you're subversive rebels and must accept the outcome if Trump successfully crushes you beneath his bootheel, or you're genteel servants of the people in which case you have to help him achieve his goals within the bounds set by law and the courts.

Now we fully agree that world 1 is preferable, and in that world Trump/Musk would need to spend much more time waiting on Congress to pass laws before they can shut down orgs like USAID, and the intelligence community wouldn't have produced 50+ people willing to lie in order to manipulate a domestic election. But nobody believes we live in world 1. Even now you're trying to have it both ways, and arguing that you should be allowed to claim to represent world 1 whilst simultaneously calling a legitimately elected government a "regime".

[throwaway_2494]

> elections be damned.

Isn't the current administration more culpable on this point? (viz. the last time Trump lost an election)

And in terms of norms I mean that there isn't a strict law or constitutional clause written to proscribe each and every thing that the president can and cannot do. The system relies on the people acting in good faith, which is definitely not happening in this case. Instead they are cynically trying to exploit every loophole they can to smash a system they don't even understand.

> whilst simultaneously calling a legitimately elected government a "regime".

It _is_ a regime. Who elected Musk or his Doge minions?

Most dictatorships consolidated power legally. That it was legal doesn't mean I want to live in one.

ANd speaking of having it bot ways, you can easily infer what side I'm on, but I get the sense that you are trying to hide behind 'just so arguments'. Could it be that you support the new regime and are trying to avoid saying it out loud?

I wonder why someone would want to hide that...?