The sad decline of American democracy

Only voters can stop the slide toward authoritarianism, and voters actually seem to like what is happening.

I find the below from Pierre Lemieux’s post on Anthony De Jasay’s ‘The State’ to be more realistic. The advance of state power can only be stopped by the right to bear arms and the right to political assembly working together. Both rights are under threat and erosion, more so recently. While the populace have firearms, the attacks on disfavored political views must be muted and cloaked in the illusion of legal recourse against the perpetrators. Perhaps voters can stop the imposition of gun control. If not, then they cannot stop the slide to authoritarianism.

The state “seeks to maximize its discretionary power,” but it must use up more and more of it just to satisfy its electoral clientele. Democratic competition between would-be tenants pushes the state towards an equilibrium of zero discretionary power (analogous to the firm reduced to normal profits by competition on the market). The state is reduced to an unhappy drudge for unsatisfied citizens demanding ever more. But note that only discretionary power is reduced to zero; total state power continues to grow.

No constitution can control this. To constrain the state, only private force could be successful: “Self-imposed limits on sovereign power can disarm mistrust, but provide no guarantee of liberty and property beyond those afforded by the balance between state and private force.” If individuals cannot keep their private institutions and their guns, the state will meet no resistance for it “has got all the guns.” An effective electoral resistance is impossible because the practical purpose of elections is to buy consent, which fuels the exercise of state power. Redistribution calls for more redistribution. [emphasis mine]

“But Congress never approved the nuclear deal with Iran.”

True. It also lost the war in Vietnam after at first approving it almost unanimously, and now demands U.S. troops stay in Syria and Afghanistan forever after there is no longer any point in the U.S. remaining there. Given this, I think the case for expanded executive powers over foreign policy matters might actually be stronger than the case for expanded congressional powers over foreign policy matters (the wisdom of which has only been demonstrated twice, in Libya and Yugoslavia).

“Congress refused to appropriate funds for a new border wall, but the Trump administration plans to ignore this vote and build the wall anyway.”

The National Emergencies Act has been overused long before this, Sumner, without much complaint.

What you should really be concerned about, Sumner, is that Trump has vetoed precisely zero appropriations bills of any kind. He has vetoed only two things; the removal of the national emergency over the Southern border and the withdrawal of U.S. military support from the internationally recognized Yemeni government. This paucity of vetoes concerns me greatly.

The real “decline of American democracy” lies in the rapidly growing and exorbitant power of congressional leadership, the refusal of Congress to reduce the exorbitant power of the courts, and the collapse of any sort of amendment process for appropriations bills.

“Which of the following four topics attracts the greatest amount of protest from millennials”

The war on drugs by miles. And there’s nothing unjust about the imprisonment of people for drug dealing. It’s just inefficient.

1984 is peanuts compared to the modern surveillance state especially as being perpetrated in China, but also the United States.

In 1984 there was the occasional camera hidden behind a mirror, or a secreted microphone,  or an informant.

To catalog today the full range of surveillance technology would be too depressing in a comment section. Suffice it to say every time you pass through a toll bridge your license plate is noted, and your whereabouts are always identifiable through your smartphone. A copy is made of every email, text or phone call you make.

Add on: Roger Stone is being prosecuted by the federal government, and is not allowed to talk in public about that prosecution. As Stone is associated with the Trump Administration, this evidently is not an issue. Like everybody who is not a multi-millionaire, Stone will become bankrupted defending himself from federal prosecution.

Yemen is absolutely awful. Beyond that,  the United States has spent $7 trillion in the Mideast since 9/11 with counterproductive results and widespread carnage. But everybody is in a fright over spending on a Green New Deal.

It ain’t just the millennials.

Extrapolating from the experience of Brexit, I wonder if the decline in the effectiveness of Congress has to do with a change in its makeup?

When Britain was faced by an issue that didn’t cut cleanly left/right, it just completely fell apart. The executive didn’t organize Brexit effectively, and Parliament was unable to wrest back control because once the party whip had failed, it lacked any ability to create decisive coalitions.

Despite the increase in political noise, it still seems true to me that left and right parties are in general closer together than they used to be. That means many fewer issues will cut cleanly left/right or D/R, and as a result, Congress is basically floundering. Hence the perennial inability to pass budgets.

Perhaps the era of decisive legislatures, driven by ideologically distinctive parties, is over? They’re quite a recent phenomenon, after all. There’s no reason to think that the post-war normal is necessarily a long-term arrangement.

If “use of military force” is not war, what is “war”?

The politicians want no hint of the cost, the sacrifices, the losses, that FDR demanded be met. Congress committed all the resources to achieving victory, and FDR required the nation bear the burden, and Congress enabled it with laws during the war.

But presidents taking the US to war is nothing new. President Polk was desperate for war with Mexico to expand the US territory southwest. After sending US Army units  into Mexico, Mexican army efforts to expell them from Mexican territory led to his call to Congress to declare war. Congressman Lincoln asked for specifics as to the location of the attack, to no avail.

Even with Mexico in political turmoil, the war was seen as too costly by many. And the treaty ending it required the US give citizenship to many Trump seems to consider illegitimate Americans, like US District Judge Curiel.

The only difference between the action of Congress in the days after Pearl Harbor and 9/11 was in the commitment the nation, and the word “war”, but the intent was simply military force in both cases, also called simply “war”.