05-04-2022, 12:10 AM
I'd guess that one of the clearest signs of a dying empire is that the leaders get away with horrible things. OK, the United State was far from its final hase of decadence as the system imposed the Trail of Tears upon First Peoples, some of them exquisitely civilized. Yes, Andrew Jackson and associates got away with that, and with the removal of First Peoples from the American Southeast he made possible the expansion of slavery in the southeastern quadrant of the USA. America would pay a dear price for the expansion of slavery.
More recently, President Trump suggested that protesters near the White house be beaten -- and one story now has it that he suggested shooting people in the legs. (Well, once people fall from gunshots to their5 legs, gunshots intended for people's legs might hit people already on the ground in parts of their anatomy that bring about a quick kill.
Consider that the official line of the USA on some regimes on the verge of collapse is that shooting peaceful protesters will end all support for the regime.
It is far better, of course, that government seeks solutions to matters that lead to peaceful protests. Maybe we are wiser to seek ways in which to get cops to see African-Americans and Latinos as less menacing than they think. Maybe community policing, including a return to the old 'beat' system in which cops get to know a troubled neighborhood and who the good guys and bad guys are within that neighborhood are. So the cop knows which Cadillac (a/k/a "Pimpmobile" in some settings) belongs to a physician and which one belongs to a pimp. Both the physician and the pimp are black, so some other distinction must be made. When stopped, a pimp is unlikely to have a card of the American Medical Association behind his driver's license.
Oh, it's the ghetto of Hartford Connecticut and you see cars with white people in them but Vermont license plates on the bumpers. Such people aren't in Hartford to sell maple syrup, you know. If simply lost... well, give them directions to I-91 back to Vermont. If they are there to score some heroin, then bust 'em, impound the car, and tell their parents that their Vermont cars are in Hartford... and, no, they are not applying for work with an insurance company.
Trump's stunt in which he went to a church after protesters were attacked and held up a Bible as an ostentatious display of piety had terrible optics. People seem on the brink of arrests for that.
OK, when the leaders don't get away with really-bad behavior, maybe things aren't so bad after all. I look forward to seeing Obama as the model of how to behave as President even for those who disagree with his ideas. That can buy our Republic much time. It could be that the COVID-19 plague and the Capitol Putsch were the foci of this Crisis Era. I have every reason to believe that the next Big Dangers will result from global warming. We are in the frog-in-the-warm-bath stage for now.
More recently, President Trump suggested that protesters near the White house be beaten -- and one story now has it that he suggested shooting people in the legs. (Well, once people fall from gunshots to their5 legs, gunshots intended for people's legs might hit people already on the ground in parts of their anatomy that bring about a quick kill.
Consider that the official line of the USA on some regimes on the verge of collapse is that shooting peaceful protesters will end all support for the regime.
It is far better, of course, that government seeks solutions to matters that lead to peaceful protests. Maybe we are wiser to seek ways in which to get cops to see African-Americans and Latinos as less menacing than they think. Maybe community policing, including a return to the old 'beat' system in which cops get to know a troubled neighborhood and who the good guys and bad guys are within that neighborhood are. So the cop knows which Cadillac (a/k/a "Pimpmobile" in some settings) belongs to a physician and which one belongs to a pimp. Both the physician and the pimp are black, so some other distinction must be made. When stopped, a pimp is unlikely to have a card of the American Medical Association behind his driver's license.
Oh, it's the ghetto of Hartford Connecticut and you see cars with white people in them but Vermont license plates on the bumpers. Such people aren't in Hartford to sell maple syrup, you know. If simply lost... well, give them directions to I-91 back to Vermont. If they are there to score some heroin, then bust 'em, impound the car, and tell their parents that their Vermont cars are in Hartford... and, no, they are not applying for work with an insurance company.
Trump's stunt in which he went to a church after protesters were attacked and held up a Bible as an ostentatious display of piety had terrible optics. People seem on the brink of arrests for that.
OK, when the leaders don't get away with really-bad behavior, maybe things aren't so bad after all. I look forward to seeing Obama as the model of how to behave as President even for those who disagree with his ideas. That can buy our Republic much time. It could be that the COVID-19 plague and the Capitol Putsch were the foci of this Crisis Era. I have every reason to believe that the next Big Dangers will result from global warming. We are in the frog-in-the-warm-bath stage for now.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.