Clay
2670
Well, there’s no longer a rule of law.
If he handed them over, wouldn’t Trump fire him instantly?
Banzai
2672
I’d like that headline more if it said that Mnuchin refuses to turn over Trump’s tax documents to the House of Representatives. This isn’t a football game, it’s a constitutional crisis.
KevinC
2673
Yep. And I see one more article about how we may be headed towards a constitutional crisis, my head is going to explode. We’re already there, and have been for a while… which is why it disturbs me that we’re doing fuck-all about it.
I’ve been changing my mind on impeachment. I’m starting to come around to the opinion that the House has to do it, in order to fulfill its constitutional duty. This is an executive that has run amok. It is ignoring the entire legislative branch of government. Even if the Republicans end up shooting it down by refusing to convict in the Senate, I just feel like we have to take a stand and not let it slide.
Unless we stand up, this is going to be a dictatorship by the time 2020 rolls around. Today it’s Mnuchin and Barr refusing the authority of the House. In 2020 it may just as well be refusing to acknowledge election results (or just fabricating their own and running with that).
So what does the little guy do, apart from the low hanging fruit (write your member of Congress, tweet angrily)? I mean, if people can’t be arsed to gather at the Mall by the millions, why should anyone care? This seems, in terms of spectacle if nothing else, small beans next to 'Nam, or Civil Rights, or other random things in our history (Bonus Army?).
I am not gathering at the Mall myself, because I have stuff to do. Herein lies the deep and horrible paradox of citizenship. Also, nobody did it for Watergate, that I am aware of, not at much scale anyway. Maybe they were tired out from all those Vietnam protests.
Timex
2675
Buy guns.
That’s gonna be the real irony… Because an authoritarian is absolutely going to take guns away from folks.
So you arrest his fucking ass. Let him sit in prison. This is black and white.
That article is a little misleading. The head line says “Trump has been told by his lawyers he can’t block the Mueller testimony” but the actual article says a former white house attorney under Obama says Trumps lawyers have probably told him he can’t block the testimony.
Canuck
2679
So Trump isn’t actually panicky? That makes me sad.
What the fuck is that going to accomplish?
Yeah, heavily armed, paranoid, and perhaps somewhat trained police force, I have a 9mm under my pillow! Don’t tread on me!
If the rule of law has deteriorated such that we fear for our personal safety against the state, individual armament ain’t gonna do shit. Much as the Rambo fantasies of the American mythos shrivel at the thought, as if dunked in a Pennsylvanian lake in May.
vyshka
2681
Hey in Civ 4 a spear can defeat a tank!
Timex
2682
What do you think is gonna do shit?
magnet
2683
Let’s take a deep breath, everyone. While the law here seems pretty black and white, “rule of law” does not actually mean “Do whatever your opponent demands, if they have solid legal backing”. Instead, it typically means “Avoid doing what your opponent demands, even if the issue is black and white and your argument is hopelessly contorted, until you have exhausted all your options in court.” That’s been the process since time immemorial, and it’s what we are watching now.
Unfortunately, this takes patience. But until Trump & Co actually disobey a judge, there is hope for the rule of law.
Getting the heavily armed organizations on the side of the people instead of the elites.
How many coups or revolutions or any such thing in history have ever worked without the support of the (contextual) army? Fuck all, that’s how many.
And the situation today, in America, is so massively tilted toward the heavily armed organizations that it’s not worth even hallucinating about a possible maybe hypothetical. I mean, come the fuck on.
Timex
2685
When you say heavily armed organizations, you mean the military?
And the police. But mostly the military, sure. Please, dive down this rabbit hole.
Wolverines!
Timex
2687
To be clear, I don’t believe that the rule of law has collapsed, and I’m not advocating some kind of armed insurgency. I’m pretty sure our government is still holding it together.
But, in the case of an actual authoritarian regime taking hold? You don’t actually need to directly engage their conventional forces head on to have a successful insurgency. Certainly, you can’t actually ever win without converting the military to your side, but that’s usually the final step in a revolution, not the first one.
In that kind of environment where you are living in an authoritarian state, I think it’s a lot easier for that authoritarian regime to keep control over an unarmed population… that’s certainly what they think, which is why they tend to disarm their populations.
On some level, you even see this in our own country, with things like those nuts out west who took over that federal park or whatever it was. A major reason why those guys didn’t have the cops just come in and roll them, was most definitely the fact that they were armed, and that kind of action would have likely gotten really damn messy.
In that way, the guns kind of make the situation harder to control… It’s harder to control the population, because it’s more likely that some miscalculation leads to a blowup of violence, where a bunch of people get killed.
And while that kind of thing isn’t on its own desirable, it IS the kind of thing that ultimately gets groups like the military and police to abandon the leadership.
ShivaX
2688
Honestly, it would be more for taking out political leaders than anything.
You’re not going to fight the Army (assuming they are against you), but picking off some Congresscritter, Cabinet member or the like is fairly realistic. We’ve seen as much with stuff like Gifford and Scalise and those were lone gunmen with mental issues. If the GOP went full Enemy of the People, resistance would likely be a lot more organized.
These aren’t brave people generally speaking. I honestly think if someone took a shot at Trump he’d try to ban all guns. It was basically his political position before he decided to try being a Republican after all.
But like I said on Twitter. I’m getting too old to fight an insurgency, so how about we try using the Constitution instead before giving up?
