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What's Going on at the FBI?

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Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#91

Post by reverius42 »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #67
notepad0x90 wrote: post #43

I think a lot of people just want to give the current administration a chance. Half the country wanted him, and if it wasn't this, it would be an actual civil war eventually. However, isn't it a bit naive to presume the current administration would relinquish power and allow for a peaceful transfer of government in the end? I hope I'm wrong but all the evidence and data is pointing to a decline of America and the Ame…

Half the country did not. 1/3 of eligible voters. Which doesn't even count people under 18. And to say that everyone who voted for him "wanted him" is a stretch.

If the 1/3 of eligible voters who stayed home thought they were opposing Trump, uh, I have some news.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#92

Post by fransje »

dariosalvi78 wrote: post #79
thih9 wrote: post #20

I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice before any long term plans that involve the US. The comparison to the Wordpress drama works surprisingly well for me, complete with vendettas and an overzealous leader, just on an even larger scale and affecting more people.

maybe the people from US will learn that presidentialism is not a good idea?

They seem to be heading towards dictatorship, so it looks like the presidentialism issue will solve itself..

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#93

Post by kragen »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #32
kragen wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's anywhere near that simple. Organizations are ongoing processes, constantly in flux, not structures erected in the past. Like a river, you can never step in the same organization twice. Like ghosts and money, they only exist in people's minds; they consist of belief in them, hyperstitiously. The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it. What is left for it to protect? The laws handed d…

> You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy. Except the only thing that what makes them different from organized crime is also the shared belief in laws that form and direct them. > will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws? If they don't, i.e. if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not, the whole thing will unrave…

I think you misinterpreted something in my note. Continuing to enforce yesterday's laws after Congress repeals them would not seem to me to be the opposite of "openly picking and choosing which laws are valid"; rather, it would be an even more extreme form of it, because you're no longer even just picking from the laws currently on the books!

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#94

Post by Juliate »

Juliate wrote: post #39
thih9 wrote: post #20

I’m not from the US and news like this change my perception of that country - it seems unstable; just like I’m not considering a Wordpress blog, I’d think twice before any long term plans that involve the US. The comparison to the Wordpress drama works surprisingly well for me, complete with vendettas and an overzealous leader, just on an even larger scale and affecting more people.

That. The impact on commercial, technical, cultural influence of the USA is incredible. How could we have any insurance that these (personal and professional) US-based infra/tools companies (even AWS, Microsoft, Apple) could be even operating as expected, and in good faith, now that some petulant, inconsequential mixed-business-political leader is able to trigger that level of damage on a whim?

It just hit me, in the same spirit, aside political affiliation concerns, who would still now drive a Tesla and feel "safe"?

Just for the exercise, imagine Musk taking over Google or Apple: would you then still trust your computer/phone at the same extent as you do today?

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#95

Post by kragen »

moogly wrote: post #71
arunabha wrote: post #8

It's wild to think I'd ever say this, but the next four years will be the stress test of the strength of US institutions against an authoritarian president. If they survive the next four years, they will likely survive pretty much anything.

It's already over. You'll have to rely on Canadians burning down the White House. I'm afraid there's no democratic solution to what you're enduring now.

The US didn't have nukes when the Canadians did that. They can't win another war with the US. Even the UK only has US nukes and presumably can't fire them at the US. And Putin or Xi turning Washington into glass wouldn't bring it any closer to being the democracy that was finally lost nine years ago.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#96

Post by mdhb »

emptysongglass wrote: post #89
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal. when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful…

Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it. I live in Europe, I am European: we've outsourced our own defense for far too long. It is absurd that a country presenting an existential threat to us has been met with more supplied resistance from a country across the earth than Europe. It's long past time for Europe to w…

Agreed on this. It’s the other two parts that go with it that are the problem:

1. You have to allocate that budget towards buying from the US defence industry. You are not going to be allowed to spend that internally. Which arguments aside of if that actually makes sense is at least a conflict of interest.

2. We are also threatening to annex territory and rip up the only meaningful alliance that keeps you safe in practice at the same time.

This is all to say nothing about trade wars also happening in the background or that literally the only time Article 5 of the same NATO treaty was invoked it was done by the US and paid for with European lives.

I’m generally pro US alliance but it’s also entirely incompatible with a fascist takeover of their government and they absolutely cannot be trusted again until there is serious reform that honestly doesn’t look particularly realistic any time soon.

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#98

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

SlightlyLeftPad wrote: post #55
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal. when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful…

I think when you look holistically at the promises that China has made, and broken, it still doesn’t make sense to align with China. That could change in the future but the time isn’t now. An example; look at what they’ve been doing in the South China Sea, Hong Kong or Xinjiang. Some instability in the U.S. is definitely uncomfortable but the alternative is not better.

touché

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#99

Post by DyslexicAtheist »

emptysongglass wrote: post #89
DyslexicAtheist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imagine being energy dependent on a regime that bullies you from Washington, and being asked to increase security spending to 5% of GDP by purchasing US weapons systems. while being told by the same regime they might take over Greenland or the Panama canal. when putting US foreign policy into perspective over the past 30 (or more depending where you are) years, then aligning with China suddenly looks a lot less awful…

Other NATO partners being asked to increase defense spending to 5 percent is entirely reasonable. And that's with or without Trump asking for it. I live in Europe, I am European: we've outsourced our own defense for far too long. It is absurd that a country presenting an existential threat to us has been met with more supplied resistance from a country across the earth than Europe. It's long past time for Europe to w…

fully with you, but we should get our defense kit not entirely from the country that uses these 5% claims as a negotiation tactic for unrelated topics. It's going to be a very long process of "awakening".

Re: What's Going on at the FBI?

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

kragen wrote: post #93
TeMPOraL wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can count on the FBI to protect itself, but never believe that what it is protecting is democracy. Except the only thing that what makes them different from organized crime is also the shared belief in laws that form and direct them. > will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws? If they don't, i.e. if they start to openly pick and choose which laws are valid and which are not, the whole thing will unrave…

I think you misinterpreted something in my note. Continuing to enforce yesterday's laws after Congress repeals them would not seem to me to be the opposite of "openly picking and choosing which laws are valid"; rather, it would be an even more extreme form of it, because you're no longer even just picking from the laws currently on the books!

It would seem so, and I apologize. I think that this bit:

> The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it. What is left for it to protect? The laws handed down from an older, wiser time? Perhaps the time of Senator McCarthy? Or Jim Crow?

specifically mentions of McCarthy and Jim Crow, made me misunderstand this bit:

> What if today's president pardons common criminals and today's Congress legalizes their crimes—will the FBI continue to enforce yesterday's laws?

That is, the first part made me think of Bad Laws created by Bad People, and this made me parse the final question as: "What if today's president and Congress turn into Bad People and make Bad Laws, should the FBI enforce such Bad Laws, even when they're obviously just like Bad Laws from Bad People of the dark chapter of our past?".

The point I'm making is, yes, the FBI has to enforce law, good or bad, because that's the reason it exists. If it starts getting picky, it invalidates its own mandate.

Also, FBI as an organization is not an independent entity that sworn fealty to the government - it is a construct of the government. Therefore, if "The democracy the FBI is sworn to protect has turned on it", what the FBI should do, as an organization, is to lie down and take the beating, and allow itself to be disbanded. The FBI was created to protect democracy (in specific ways), has sworn to do it, so if the democracy decides it no longer needs the FBI, then the sworn duty of the FBI is to stop existing. For the FBI to do otherwise is to break the oath and invalidate its own existence.

(Now this applies to the organization. As for the people in it, they're also citizens with conscience, and they're free to work within the process to right what they see as morally wrong, and/or quit.)

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