I increasingly see our present moment as the logical endpoint of the Enlightenment: a culture premised on defiance of the laws of reality meeting limitation and hating it.
On which basis, Trump is not the outlier but the inevitability, and the remedy is accepting that we create our world in almost every aspect, in our interactions with reality, and we have to choose what it looks like: wise and highly developed or savagely random and cruel.
Neither the Market nor Historical Materialism can any longer be fig leaves for our shame. We get the world we want, in a completely merciless generational and collective averaging that isn’t fair and won’t be unless we impose fairness.
Indeed. From which the angry 19th Century pamphleteer in me declares it has none, sir! None! For when, declining reasonable certainty in the course of society’s doings, and shirking even-handedness for the convenience of the mighty -
In seriousness: to my eye in those moments, “the Constitution” becomes a self-rewriting body of un-law which is not set or accessible to ordinary people but changes to meet the needs of power. I grant you, it’s a sense & reference issue, but the word stays the same while the meaning changes.
Or one can ask whether an entity which is no longer able to follow its own constitutive rules as written still exists as a polity, or has already collapsed but still superficially persists - precisely because, despite appearances, it is no longer constituted at all.
I mean I guess it depends on what one thinks a Constitution does. Obviously we have one. Is it effective? Clearly not.
Kind of like how one can have a car that's liable to break down if you try to drive it more than a couple blocks or at more than local road speed.
It’s been picked apart since 1981. Every time we try to shore it up the reactionaries come back to kick the props out.
Right now it’s Schrödinger’s constitution. Both alive and dead.
Unfortunately that means it’s dead unless and until we can do much better than the Germans in 1933
Yeah that's what democrats did the last 4 years letting a demented president stay in office while unelected officials made the decisions and prevented an open primary
It's times like this I'm glad that we don't have a founding written one. (Besides stuff like the echr) The desperation and disillusionment is depressing.
And it's high time our elected officials the Democrats need to enforce their constitution and remove Trump out of office he is a danger to our democracy
Guarantees of rights and the rule of law are universal and permanent or they do not exist. Habeas corpus holds for every case or it guarantees none etc.
Lest anyone feel unfairly targeted: Britain’s recent record in this area is pretty horrible. As is our longer term record, to be honest, which is in part why a lot of these laws have their origin here.
Although - for example in the moment where a UK government sought to introduce evidence from torture into our courts - the top court often does better than our elected leaders.
That’s the point. Either the US owns a piece of paper with “Constitution” at the top but doesn’t actually honour it, or it has a Constitution which is honoured and enforced. You can’t only have guarantees of rights and the rule of law some of the time; that means you don’t have them.
I’m familiar with the document; my point is that it’s binary. There are no pauses and no exceptions. It’s either the Constitution or it’s a piece of paper in a case.
The law only works if everyone consents. If the President decides it doesn’t apply to him, he’s withdrawn his consent. And if he can everyone can. Therefore America has no constitution
Only the army have the ability to reinstate it and their loyalties have recently proved to lie with the president
I am confident we will get back to Consitiutional norms. I am not confident we will do it without substantial bloodshed. Seems like the man is committed to pushing his people into a corner.
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#DemocracyFail
#PolitburoNow
Trump has all sorts of rights and protections, and they have full constitutional force, but those who oppose him have few.
*adumbrates in a frilly shirt*
The account of how that polity is constituted is the constitution.
That is its only positive meaning, though one can have normative views on what a constitution should be.
Kind of like how one can have a car that's liable to break down if you try to drive it more than a couple blocks or at more than local road speed.
See also: States’ Rights
Right now it’s Schrödinger’s constitution. Both alive and dead.
Unfortunately that means it’s dead unless and until we can do much better than the Germans in 1933
According to democrats, it should.
“grey area”
“Schrödinger law”
“on pause”
“temporarily out of service”
are all ways of saying it does not.
Guarantees of rights and the rule of law are universal and permanent or they do not exist. Habeas corpus holds for every case or it guarantees none etc.
https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html https://jeffreykegler.github.io/personal/morgenstern.html
What they stand or fall on is whether people are willing to uphold them. That's it.
Of course there are logical inconsistencies. It's a human-made document. They're unavoidable.
Of course America has a constitution.
The question is whether there will be a resistance to a felon-president who openly ignores this constitution or not.
Only the army have the ability to reinstate it and their loyalties have recently proved to lie with the president
It's not about the paper! It's about the people!
It always was.
🇨🇦