I enjoyed this conversation; thank you both for having it. I understand that Grant swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and that is admirable, but I am curious about the level of awe and respect that he gives it. He sees it as a kind of timeless, genius, immutable document, kind of like a religious belief; my question to Grant would …
I enjoyed this conversation; thank you both for having it. I understand that Grant swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and that is admirable, but I am curious about the level of awe and respect that he gives it. He sees it as a kind of timeless, genius, immutable document, kind of like a religious belief; my question to Grant would be under what circumstances would he come to see it as flawed?
The way I see it, America has gone through either three or four iterations: the first from America's founding until the Civil War, the results of which firmly established federal rights over state rights; the second era ended with either the introduction of the Federal Reserve or a bit later with FDR's dictatorship and the so-called New Deal, which ushered in the giant bloated parasitical managerial state we have today; and arguably the third iteration was superseded in 1965 by opening up the gates to total white population replacement with the Immigration Act.
Because of the First and Second Amendments globohomo has had to pursue its expansion in a kind of circuitous way, but it's still expanded and become the horrific behemoth we have today. The government utilizes major tech companies to ban speech instead of them doing it directly, and in prior iterations they banned book publishers and threw dissenters in prison (see the Sedition Act of 1918 aimed at isolationists); there are all sorts of restrictions both on gun ownership and on the right to defend oneself (criminals commit crimes and go free; innocent gun owners defend themselves and go to prison).
Ultimately, the American system of checks-and-balances, to me, prevents the ascension of a strongman which is the only counter to oligarchy. The initial setup seemed predestined to lead to oligarchical ascendency. America's glory, under this setup, wasn't so much from it's system of government as it was from having a giant mostly uninhabited continent to conquer and exploit...
I don't mean to give the impression that I conceive of the Constitution as some perfect document. After all, it lead America to the current moment where the majority of those who actually implement policy have open contempt for many of its principles. I work to fulfill my oath because I take oaths seriously, and if I felt I couldn't continue to do so in good conscience I would be honor bound to resign (honor also being indispensable to me).
I don't completely agree that the system prevents the ascension of a strongman. I posit that it prevents a certain kind of strongman from ascending, namely one with the power to unilaterally grant positive freedoms and curtail negative ones. We really only need a strongman to do the opposite (curtail positive freedoms and protect/restore negative ones). The checks and balances are biased towards constraining government action, and while the ubiquity of private-public partnerships and government cutouts cloud the issue (not to mention the complex relationship between the federal government and the federal reserve that you're all too familiar with), the bottom line is the ability to get away with all the bullshit almost always has some nexus to the government and its monopoly on force. There are a lot of things a chief executive could do within the constraints outlined by the Constitution, and I have hope that some of these things will be done. In the meantime there are things that I can do to call out the most egregious examples of contempt for the Constitution and strive for accountability in such circumstances. I also have an overall disposition that holistically healthy and fit Soldiers are most likely to uphold their oaths in spite of how challenging it can be.
I also think there is something much more to American prosperity than conquering a resource rich continent, but that's probably a topic worthy of an entire conversation itself...
I enjoyed this conversation; thank you both for having it. I understand that Grant swore an oath to uphold the Constitution and that is admirable, but I am curious about the level of awe and respect that he gives it. He sees it as a kind of timeless, genius, immutable document, kind of like a religious belief; my question to Grant would be under what circumstances would he come to see it as flawed?
The way I see it, America has gone through either three or four iterations: the first from America's founding until the Civil War, the results of which firmly established federal rights over state rights; the second era ended with either the introduction of the Federal Reserve or a bit later with FDR's dictatorship and the so-called New Deal, which ushered in the giant bloated parasitical managerial state we have today; and arguably the third iteration was superseded in 1965 by opening up the gates to total white population replacement with the Immigration Act.
Because of the First and Second Amendments globohomo has had to pursue its expansion in a kind of circuitous way, but it's still expanded and become the horrific behemoth we have today. The government utilizes major tech companies to ban speech instead of them doing it directly, and in prior iterations they banned book publishers and threw dissenters in prison (see the Sedition Act of 1918 aimed at isolationists); there are all sorts of restrictions both on gun ownership and on the right to defend oneself (criminals commit crimes and go free; innocent gun owners defend themselves and go to prison).
Ultimately, the American system of checks-and-balances, to me, prevents the ascension of a strongman which is the only counter to oligarchy. The initial setup seemed predestined to lead to oligarchical ascendency. America's glory, under this setup, wasn't so much from it's system of government as it was from having a giant mostly uninhabited continent to conquer and exploit...
I don't mean to give the impression that I conceive of the Constitution as some perfect document. After all, it lead America to the current moment where the majority of those who actually implement policy have open contempt for many of its principles. I work to fulfill my oath because I take oaths seriously, and if I felt I couldn't continue to do so in good conscience I would be honor bound to resign (honor also being indispensable to me).
I don't completely agree that the system prevents the ascension of a strongman. I posit that it prevents a certain kind of strongman from ascending, namely one with the power to unilaterally grant positive freedoms and curtail negative ones. We really only need a strongman to do the opposite (curtail positive freedoms and protect/restore negative ones). The checks and balances are biased towards constraining government action, and while the ubiquity of private-public partnerships and government cutouts cloud the issue (not to mention the complex relationship between the federal government and the federal reserve that you're all too familiar with), the bottom line is the ability to get away with all the bullshit almost always has some nexus to the government and its monopoly on force. There are a lot of things a chief executive could do within the constraints outlined by the Constitution, and I have hope that some of these things will be done. In the meantime there are things that I can do to call out the most egregious examples of contempt for the Constitution and strive for accountability in such circumstances. I also have an overall disposition that holistically healthy and fit Soldiers are most likely to uphold their oaths in spite of how challenging it can be.
I also think there is something much more to American prosperity than conquering a resource rich continent, but that's probably a topic worthy of an entire conversation itself...