America Is Now A Zombie State

Not sure why you are telling me this. As I said, I have not voted for Trump, nor am I a Republican.

If the best you got is Trump’s comments about we have to fight like hell, then I guess I probably should be joining him in jail. As an attorney, whenever I had to go to court for a client, I always fight like hell. Frankly, in any job you do, if you’re not fighting like hell, you probably don’t deserve that job.

trying to extrapolate inciting violence from the term “fight like hell” which was undeniably coupled with the word “peacefully” is akin to suggesting Kamala Harris is inciting watch makers by saying:

“it is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things in tools that are available to us too slow this thing down”

 

I really try to avoid references to autocrats and dictators because they are usually unfair. I suppose someone can support authoritarian forms of government yet despise how certain regimes used their power. So I don't mean this as as ad hominem against you. But these arguments about the dangers of democracy is what I recall Hitler arguing in Mein Kampf. It may also explain why some in the West seem so much more sympathetic to Russia than Ukraine and what they're really arguing in a lot of contexts that I can't figure out. It's fascinating to me as an American because I've always thought of autocrats (even with Fidel on the left) as at least trying to create the illusion of being supported by the people and by fair elections - as opposed to them simply taking the position that the people shouldn't have any say in how they're governed. Practically, I'm sure the latter is a much harder pitch and why it's not usually made more directly. But in a strange way, it's a bit refreshing to hear it stated so honestly.

 

Well, the entire spectrum/circle gets very confusing and convoluted pretty quickly, as least to me anyway. Here is what the Wikipedia article says about Hilter's anti-Democratic positions and explanation of some apparent contradictions.

Political views of Adolf Hitler - Wikipedia

Hitler blamed Germany's parliamentary government for many of the nation's ills. The Nazis and especially Hitler associated democracy with the failed Weimar government and the punitive Treaty of Versailles.[108][incomplete short citation] Hitler often denounced democracy, equating it with internationalism. Since democratic ideals espoused equality for all men, it represented to Hitler and his Nazi ideologues the notion of mob rule and the hatred of excellence.[109][incomplete short citation] Not only was democracy antithetical to their social-Darwinist abstractions, but its international-capitalist framework was considered an exclusively Jewish-derived conception.[110] Hitler also thought democracy was nothing more than a preliminary stage of Bolshevism.[111]

Hitler believed in the leader principle (hence his title, the Leader, der Führer) and considered it ludicrous that an idea of governance or morality could be held by the people above the power of the leader. Joachim Fest described a 1930 confrontation between Hitler and Otto Strasser as such: "Now Hitler took Strasser to task for placing 'the idea' above the Führer and wanting 'to give every party comrade the right to decide the nature of the idea, even to decide whether or not the Führer is true to the so-called idea.' That, he cried angrily, was the worst kind of democracy, for which there was no place in their movement. 'With us the Führer and the idea are one and the same, and every party comrade has to do what the Führer commands, for he embodies the idea and he alone knows its ultimate goal'".[112][l]

Although Hitler realized that his ascension to power required the use of the Weimar Republic's parliamentary system (founded on democratic principles), he never intended for the continuation of democratic governance once in control. Contrarily, Hitler proclaimed that he would "destroy democracy with the weapons of democracy".[114] The rapid transition made by the Nazis once they assumed control clearly reveals that Hitler succeeded in this regard. For the most part, democratic governance was never embraced by the German masses or by the elite.[115] The ill-fated Weimar democracy's inability to provide economic relief to the German people during the Great Depression further enhanced its image as an ineffectual system of government amid the masses.[115] Hitler offered people the prospect of a "new and better society".[116] He exploited the conditions in Germany in the ultimate expression of political opportunism when he brought his dictatorial and totalitarian government to power and thereafter attempting to impose himself and his system upon the world in the process.[115]

 

These words no doubt have some validity, but that’s the whole point of the system of checks and balances. From Madison’s federalist #10:

“Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”

And note that, even if we had a pure democracy that lacked the protections described above, a monarchy would just replace one tyrant (the majority) with another (a single individual). Of course “the people” are terrible rulers, but promoting a monarchy ignores that “the person” is even worse.

 

Poor guy, you are experiencing all this for the first time with him. At least you haven't gotten to the Holocaust revisionism/denialism yet. He hasnt learned anything new or changed his tune in over a decade, you are wasting your time. He's replaying his greatest hits because the virus stuff is stale now.

 

Ha, fair enough. If he actually believes this stuff, I guess I'm a little curious because I think many others do but pretend they don't. Also, I'm reading the Oppenheimer book right now the movie is based upon so communism and fascism are both on my mind.

 

Well if he doesnt he's been remarkably consistent with the trolling. The COVID stuff was a new wrinkle, but everyone is tired of talking about that, even the cranks.

 

Accepting that the people are tyrants and need to be held in check, we are faced with the critical question: “By whom?”

 

I am finding this book to be very engaging. So many of what we now consider to be titans of science (Neil’s Bohr, Linus Pauling, Einstein and a host of others) were colleagues, students, and acquaintances of Oppenheimer. What an intellectually awesome time and place for all of them.

 

I gave you what I believe to be best answer humanity has yet developed, which came precisely from a founding father:

“Extend the sphere, and you take in a greater variety of parties and interests; you make it less probable that a majority of the whole will have a common motive to invade the rights of other citizens; or if such a common motive exists, it will be more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength, and to act in unison with each other.”

Notice that in Madison’s vision, just as in the constitution which he largely penned, nowhere included is even a hint of a monarch, citing only “citizens”. In federalist 51, Madison further explains how checks and balances keep power from being concentrated into the hands of the few:

“But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others.”

So my question is, if Madison’s answer to our problem of tyranny is unsatisfactory, how can it be improved?