Ha! That reminded me of this:
Which reminded me of THIS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Shea#Controversies
co-starring Ozzie Keznovich
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozzie_Knezovich> who sounds like an echo
of Moty...
California county on track to be run by militia-aligned group
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/feb/03/california-county-controlled-by-militia-group
I don't feel too sorry for Moty because my character alert bells went
off a bit while reading his words ... like his objections are really
just acoustic emissions. (Get off my lawn!) But I say Good Riddance.
I'd be outta Shasta in a heartbeat.
On 2/4/22 09:02, Marcus Daniels wrote:
As Omicron was ramping up Joy Reid said something along the lines of
“Is there a way to cut out a safe place to live these days [free from
all the anti-vaxxer crazies]?”
That resonated with me. I think that’s a plausible way how life
could be in ten years. Some municipalities & companies, maybe some
states, will appeal to individuals that value, well, reason, and
others will not. Then the exercise becomes one of which brands are
in some sense profitable. This will of course deepen polarization,
but over the course of several generations the unprofitable
approaches will die a desperate and lonely and death. Some of the
woke brands won’t make it, but neither will some of the reactionary
brands. It is not clear what will happen to the federal government
during this time, perhaps the kind of oscillation the author
imagines. The trick will be to insulate oneself from it until the
political power of the crazies is ground down by repeated failure and
steadily decreasing economic power.
*From:* Friam <friam-boun...@redfish.com> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith
*Sent:* Friday, February 4, 2022 8:32 AM
*To:* friam@redfish.com
*Subject:* [FRIAM] Democracy in Name Only: endemic regime instability
Someone here is more likely than I to have actually read Ziblatt and
Levitsky's How Democracies Die
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Democracies_Die#:~:text=How%20Democracies%20Die%20is%20a,process%20to%20increase%20their%20power.>
A recent article (behind a subscribe-wall) included the following quote:
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2022-01-20/americas-coming-age-instability
<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2022-01-20/americas-coming-age-instability>
/America may no longer be safe for democracy, but it remains
inhospitable to autocracy./
/Rather than autocracy, the United States appears headed toward
endemic regime instability. /
/Such a scenario would be marked by frequent constitutional
crises, including contested or stolen elections and severe conflict
between presidents and Congress (such as impeachments and executive
efforts to bypass Congress), the judiciary (such as efforts to purge
or pack the courts), and state governments (such as intense battles
over voting rights and the administration of elections). The United
States would likely shift back and forth between periods of
dysfunctional democracy and periods of competitive authoritarian rule
during which incumbents abuse state power, tolerate or encourage
violent extremism, and tilt the electoral playing field against their
rivals./
I found this characterization of our plight very compelling, if also
very disturbing.
It seems as if we have "tumbled our gyros" but in a different mode
than the rhetoric about "Civil War" and "Descent into Autocracy" seem
to suggest. It also characterizes a lot of the aspiring/limping
democracies we know of in the world today up to and including extreme
examples such as Russia which fits the DINO (democracy in name only)
label pretty well.
This conception of the problem lead me to a very well written HS
student-essay by the same title: democracy-in-name-only
<https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/democracy-in-name-only-2020-01-02>.
Within this essay was a poignant quote:
In the words of Alexis de Tocqueville,
/“A new science of politics is needed for a new world. This,
however, is what we think of least; launched in the middle of a rapid
stream, we obstinately fix our eyes on the ruins which may still be
descried upon the shore we have left, while the current sweeps us
along, and drives us backward toward the gulf.”/
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