Comment by noir_lord
4 months ago
In the hands of a tyrant all laws can be arbitrary/ignored because that is a key part of what makes them a tyrant.
Almost every part of government is in isolation a single point of failure to someone with a tyrannical streak, it's why most democracies end up with multiple houses/bodies and courts - supposed to act as checks and balances.
So this law wouldn't alter the outcome in the slightest.
> In the hands of a tyrant all laws can be arbitrary/ignored because that is a key part of what makes them a tyrant.
But that is not how tyrants actually operate, at least most of the time.
The most tyrannical country possible would be a "free democratic union of independent people's republics". Democracy has been so successful that most tyrannies operate under its veneer. This is in stark contrast to how monarchies have operated historically.
The trick isn't to ignore laws, but to make them so broad, meaningless and impossible to follow that you have to commit crimes to survive. You can then be selective in which of these crimes you choose to prosecute.
You don't charge the human rights activist for the human rights activism. You charge them with engaging in illegal speculation for the food they bought on the black market, even though that was the only way to avoid starvation, and everybody else did it too. In the worst case scenario, you charge them with "endangering national peace", "spreading misinformation" or "delivering correspondence without possessing a government license to do so" (for giving out pamflets).
"must be limited to those demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest" is exactly the shenanigans tyrants love. You can get away with absolutely anything with a law like that.
> In the hands of a tyrant all laws can be arbitrary/ignored because that is a key part of what makes them a tyrant.
Sure, but legislators should generally avoid explicitly building the on-ramp to such behavior.
How has that been working in the US where both the legislation branch and judicial branch have willingly given their authority to the executive branch?
You would think the fact that I put "supposed to act as checks and balances." in my post would answer that but apparently not.
> So this law wouldn't alter the outcome in the slightest.
If an unchecked tyrant exists, do they really need the paper-thin facade provided by manhandling the English language to pretend that some law supports their actions?
Yes because tyrants still value the symbolism of pretext.
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It sounds like you completely agree with the comment you replied to?
in that case they can just vote in whatever law they want or they can hold starving kids hostage and forbid anybody from helping - I don't think this law in particular will make any of it worse.
give a man a shovel, and a treasure map, but dont tell him he is digging his own grave.
Yes. That has been a problem. Several states outright ignored the scotus Bruen decision.
Yea a Supreme Court ruling 110 years after a law passed only for them to reverse course 2 years later. Surely that’s based on the constitution and nothing else.
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How would you expect checks and balances to work when a single party controls all the branches? Is this a serious comment?
It seems strange (or maybe you are just young) that you think this. But both Democratic and Republican controlled Congresses have fought against excesses of their own President. The same is true for the Supreme Court in the past ruling against an administration of its own party.
There was an entire coalition of “Blue Dog Democrats” that came from red states as recently as 30 years ago.
Or did you really forget that even in Trumps first term that Republicans like McCain voted against Trump snd 10 voted to impeach him?
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