U.S. Politics

docsilence said:
The question is: what can we do to stop the executive branch from turning a non-partisan military into his personal gestapo on a whim?
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This is the part that worries me. If they were able to identify loyal marines, it's possible they could train only those guns on protesters. The heartening thing is, they don't have enough loyal soldiers to police every city in the country. They probably don't have enough to police LA.

I've heard it said that a person with 500 loyal Marines could take DC right now. I definitely believe it. Especially with Hegseth, a man totally disinterested in logistics, in charge of the opposition.

They're presenting strength, but they're so, so weak.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
I've heard it said that a person with 500 loyal Marines could take DC right now. I definitely believe it. Especially with Hegseth, a man totally disinterested in logistics, in charge of the opposition.
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Hegseth is such a moron that we should be able to take some heart from that. I think one of the things that keeps me up at night is - yeah, I bet a couple hundred Marines could take DC, but again that's asking the boots on the ground to make the biggest ethical decision of their lives and turn against some of their own brothers in arms. I can't believe we've got to that point as a country, but it feels like a very real possibility. (Speculative fiction ridiculousness note: if Washington could be taken by 500 loyal Marines, what could a couple hundred Spetsnaz do with Hegseth in charge of defense?)

A bright note though is seeing ANYTHING this administration has done... no matter how heavily armed they might be, they are not attracting the smartest or most skilled at anything. I suspect the first moment of brutality (beyond the petty brutality we're already seeing, I mean if we see shots fired against civilians) will come from incompetence and panic, not military precision. He's driven off the best and brightest in every aspect of the government.

I keep thinking about how this administration is so much worse than his first because back then some moderately intelligent people (Mattis, Kelly, some of the finance guys) stepped in thinking they could control him, and now all those guys know they can't stand in the way of a cult so he's only got the dumbest, meanest motherfuckers tor run things for him. The men and women who do not care.
 
Very, VERY much agreed about the rampant incompetence of MAGA. However, I’m not sure that makes me feel *better*. I suppose I’m more concerned with undisciplined emotional responses than calculated moves. Like, the entire MAGA movement, and certainly Trump and his henchmen, are all about undisciplined emotional responses. Their chaotic shoot-from-the-hip foolhardiness is exactly what I fear will be the cause of mass damage and casualties.
And I guess I just don’t have the faith that what service folks do show up for these immortal actions will be ruled by anything but undisciplined emotional responses. I don’t mean that to be a dig at the military in general, merely at the kind of soldier who would follow even one order from the current commander in chief.
I hate to be “that guy”, but I feel the only ethical/moral thing to do when asked to serve Trump in any capacity is to resign, quit, or whatever the particular action would be to separate entirely from any service beholden to his orders. I know that feels like a big ask, but it’s the only way that meets the challenge of the moment.

I think I still have a lot of empathy for service folks stuck under the thumb of this administration, but as long as they still serve the administration I cannot trust them. Not professionally, and definitely not personally.
 
AceofKnaves said:
I hate to be “that guy”, but I feel the only ethical/moral thing to do when asked to serve Trump in any capacity is to resign, quit, or whatever the particular action would be to separate entirely from any service beholden to his orders.
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I feel the opposite. If we're left with a barrel of bad apples, particularly in the military, we're in big trouble.

I have urged my friends in government to remain in their positions. Be sand in the gears. Resist every action from the inside.

To get real doomer, it's past time that blue states started assembling a group of loyal people with guns:

https://bsky.app/profile/mtsw.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3lh46h3avos23
https://bsky.app/profile/mtsw.bsky.social%2Fpost%2F3lh4ac4xdfk23
 
TheSameIdiot said:
Be sand in the gears. Resist every action from the inside.
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I totally get that, but I feel like we tried that last time and it failed spectacularly.
I guess the Part 2 of my assertion is that they not only must quit, but they must join active resistance AGANST MAGA. Not enough to refuse to serve, they must actively fight back. I believe that is true of all of us, but particularly so of those who swore an oath to protect this country from all enemies foreign and domestic.
Again: I realize it sounds like a big ask, but it is the only moral alternative. All else is being complicit.
 
TheSameIdiot said:
I have urged my friends in government to remain in their positions. Be sand in the gears. Resist every action from the inside.
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I was thinking the same thing. I am not super familiar with every resistance movement, but the one I know the most NEEDED people on the inside to gain any ground. I totally get people with integrity jumping ship on principle, but to suffer through the stupidity and ugliness maybe not even to have 'an adult in the room' but at least to get the word out etc and share intelligence... I know that's a big fat ask, but obviously history remembers such heroes.
 
Honestly, if we're going to get through this, it's a big ask of EVERYONE. Everyone needs to be sand in the gears otherwise it doesn't work.

I will say, I spent the first part of this year FURIOUS at anyone saying they were going to leave the country because it felt like they were abandoning those who couldn't afford to that. I've softened a bit - if you have a trans kid and want to fuck off to New Zealand and can afford it, fucking run, I get it. I'm old, white, male, with no kids, nothing to lose, and nothing to my name but a dog, two cats, a book series and an action figure collection. I can stay and be a bastard if I have to. But that's not everyone.
 
Honestly one of the main reasons I’m still here is that I won’t abandon my clients and my license. If I had no one or nothing to protect, I might just be gone. I don’t have loyalty to institutions, only to ideals, so I don’t have a stake in “America” beyond living here and knowing that freedom is the right of all sentient beings. I’ve never really “believed in America”, so for me at least patriotism is moot. And of course nationalism is evil 100% of the time, but that’s not the same as patriotism in my eyes, even though I believe in neither.

That’s my other thing: while I’m absolutely against the dumbass wrecking ball approach that MAGA has to everything (even leaving out the gutless-bully fascism), I’d be fine (in theory) if we trashed all our institutions and started “fresh”. So much of our so-called “democracy” is just peer-pressure from dead white slavery-enablers, and to be honest I simply don’t much care what some 18th century landowners had to say.
Like when they say “make America great again” I don’t think “America is already great, you jerks!”; rather, I think “heh, America was NEVER great, and the ‘greatness’ y’all want is America at its worst”.

I honestly don’t mean this as some snarling indictment of America. I just don’t “get” the need to “preserve”. Fuck Joe Biden very much, but I do plug into the idea of “building back better”. If a particular thing, up to and including the Constitution, doesn’t serve the freedom and dignity of all, then I say just burn it and write a new, better one. And of course I realize that’s not a simple ask, but I do think we need to start by smashing our reverence for the past and pushing all our supposed “heroes” off their pedestals.
We need to clear our minds of the nostalgia of an imaginary past.
 
I concur, particularly with your final statements.

I don't 'believe in America' either, but I do believe in everyone having freedom to live their life, be themselves, and have equal opportunities. So yeah, that's never happened. But building back better should always be the goal, absolutely.
 
I should disclaim that I’m honestly just not wired for “reverence” in general. I wasn’t raised religious so I had nothing to embrace nor rebel against in that regard, I was never afraid of my peers in school from a “they might kick my ass” perspective, I’ve never had that older person that I super-duper look up to, hell by the time I was 13 I knew I could beat my dad in a fistfight with ease. “Following orders”, “respecting authority”, “honoring tradition” . . . these are totally foreign to me. Like I *understand* them, I recognize that people believe in them, just from my perspective they seem totally made-up, and made up by folks who want you to do what they say.

So a lot of this authoritarian stuff is extra-perplexing to me, because it literally does not compute.

They say “we must protect [insert institution]”, and my honest first response is “but why?; seriously: but why?????”
 
The fun thing about when Trump was running the first time and said things about how the institution was failing the people, he said a lot of things that were entirely true, but I knew he wasn't the right person to address those issues. I kinda miss the days when I thought of him as an idiot failure who would probably fuck some things up then go away.
 
Yeah, I remember Trump’s first run, and I was like “OK sure yes our shit is broken, but you’re even wrong about what you’re right about”. Also, I don’t give a fuck if a bully is making a “good point”. I reject bullies, full-stop, just on basis of their existence. Trump could be 💯 correct in the things he says, and I’d still want him mulched for fertilizer simply because of who he is and how he conducts himself.

I can’t stress strongly enough that if a guy walked into my house talking like that braying jackass of man, I would physically toss him in the street. He’s disgusting just for being who he is. MAGA is disgusting, on a macro and individual level, just for being what it is/they are. My objections are way beyond politics. It’s personal. I literally object to the continued existence of Trump and MAGA on a biological level.
 
I considered expatriating during the first Trump administration. I slowly changed my tune. I'm fortunate enough to have traveled overseas extensively over the last four years. The more time you spend in other countries, the more you realize they don't have it all, either. We have a lot of work to do. Gun violence is rampant, people go bankrupt from medical bills, and our cities are car-centric. While the European countries I visited didn't have those issues, they had others. They're as racist and bigoted. They have less social mobility. Some of their governments are so corrupt they'd make Donald Trump blush.

The main thing I realized is that I'm culturally American. Sure, I like English football and foreign cinema, but there's nothing quite like boarding a flight home to the land of the free and the home of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

It'd be great to live somewhere like Amsterdam, where I could bike everywhere. It'd also be great to live somewhere like Seattle, fighting like hell to make sure the next generation can bike everywhere.

I don't begrudge anyone for leaving. But I found a place I love and I'm going to fight to make it the best I can.

As they say, they can take it from my cold, dead hands.
 
I often wish I felt “American”, or at least that I belonged *somewhere*.

Agreed that other countries don’t have it right either, although I do think some are doing MUCH better than America, at least for the things I personally value.
 
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