I'm in academia, so NSF cuts are very misguided in my view, and hopefully will be reversed in the next administration. But the first two sentences of your post immediately contradict one another. You say America is in a state of lawlessness, and then immediately describe the American legal system. So that's exactly what following the law in America has always meant. America is a common law country, not a civil law country... Litigation and court precedent is how laws are tested and affirmed in common law countries, unlike civil law countries. So that legal system isn't lawlessness, its the way law works in common law countries, which America is one of the few not using the Napoleonic code.

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xethos an hour ago | parent [-]

War can only legally be declared by Congress. America is currently at war with Iran. Is the current war legal?

I would say no. That doesn't mean it's not happening, just that the law was ignored.

	▲	juniperus 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		well that specific scenario is its own mess of competing authorities. Theoretically, the president is commander in chief, so he controls the armed forces. But congress has the authority to make a declaration of war. But the president as commander in chief can direct troops for national security or other purposes. Military action can happen without a war being declared. It becomes a bit of a game of semantics because the argument is that war is different than military action, then the legal interpretations of words and whatnot becomes the focus. Courts tend to not really go too deep into this issue, I suppose. It's something of a gray area. So the counterpoint is that the law wasn't ignored, it was interpreted differently, because of this concept that military action isn't necessarily war. Courts usually will spell out these interpretations more clearly and refine the law, but when it comes to war, I think they don't want to litigate that too quickly.