It really feels like the US is a failed state at this point, but it just hasn’t had full impact yet. Not really sure how all this destruction (in only half a year!) can be reversed in any meaningful timeframe in the future.

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netsharc 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As Sarah Chayes said about the "failed state" of Afghanistan:

> Afghanistan is often described as a “failed state,” but, in light of the outright thievery on display, Chayes began to reassess the problem. This wasn’t a situation in which the Afghan government was earnestly trying, but failing, to serve its people. The government was actually succeeding, albeit at “another objective altogether”—the enrichment of its own members.

From https://archive.is/CBQFY .

Was it here or in the reviewed book about corruption where it's mentioned, how corruption endangers security, because guess what the civilians who are mad about the blatant corruption will do when they see an insurgent plant a roadside bomb targeting the corrupt government?

As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said (and Timothy McVeigh quoted):

> In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.

	▲	pjc50 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The government was actually succeeding, albeit at “another objective altogether”—the enrichment of its own members. Indeed. And as soon as the flow of foreign money propping the whole thing up was cut off, they vanished like melting snow across the border. Corruption endangers security in all sorts of ways. This came up at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, when it became apparent that maintenance money (and in some cases entire pieces of equipment) had been diverted, resulting in operational failure. The US Navy had a corruption scandal a while ago too ("Fat Leonard"). > to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal Not even conviction, just straight up execution. The lesson of the BLM backlash was that, no, really the US public demanded that the police had the right to execute citizens in the street without accountability.

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jdross 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I’m not trying to challenge how you feel, but I’ll note that in my social groups people don’t feel this way, life is good, and they also feel confident that they’re well informed.

So I’m open to the possibility that lot of these types of feeling, in both directions depending on the political era, is more dictated by environment and media consumption choices and their versions of doom and gloom than reality

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tsimionescu 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Feeling well informed is not the same thing as being informed. Just because it's possible to live in the USA and follow some news without knowing how badly the democratic order is being eroded doesn't mean that all is actually well.

Do your friends know about the absolute immunity the Supreme Court invented for the president? Do they know about the illegal deportations that are accelerating? Do they know about the presidential order that aims to deport legal citizens of the USA (the end of birthright citizenship)? Do they know about the gutting of virtually all social programs?

If they don't, then they're ill informed, regardless of their feelings on the matter. If they do and still think all is well, then they are just as much a part of the problem as the ones doing this all.

	▲	throwaway173738 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Just to spell it out it will become necessary in the future to prove that your parents were citizens, so make sure you save your birth certificates and other documents for any children you may have. They won’t automatically be citizens just because they were born here. And they may get rounded up and deported before they can find those documents or have a trial to establish their citizenship.

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pjc50 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Plenty of people feel that way when they're in Dubai or Qatar. Lovely place, just don't look at the army of migrant workers with no rights who keep it all running.

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JKCalhoun 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's also possible we're living in the Roaring Twenties. (Checks calendar. Actually kind of appropriate.)

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JKCalhoun 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Sadly, I expect it has to founder on the rocks before things will turn for the better. I'm channelling Great Depression —> FDR here. Hopefully a world war is not required.

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clauderoux 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Well. There is measles epidemic right now...