At what point, as you shut down all the legally-mandated parts of a State and replace them with illegal actions, does that State cease to be and a new one has arisen?
It’s a political science version of the Ship of Theseus puzzle.
At some point, enough bits of the old State must be gone that it no longer exists; equally, at some point enough new bits have come into existence that there is a new State there.
It’s a classic dorm-room-philosophy puzzle, best argued by drunk sophomores.
You can debate that one all you like, but wherever the line is it’s already been crossed here.
The government in D.C. is not the United States of America.
Because, by the laws of the United States of America so much of what it does would be illegal.
In the United States of America, it’s illegal:
- for the State to punish a person for their speech
- for agents of the State to secretly pull people off the streets
- for agents of the State to fail to maintain accurate records of detained people
- for the State to exile legal residents to other countries
- for the Executive branch to redirect State money from the uses the legislature has approved
- for non-State actors to access federal computer systems and data
- for, oh so many other things,
(It’s also not doing a bunch of stuff the U.S. government must do, but just that list is enough to make the point.)
And yet the executive agencies there are going along with most of it, and the courts there aren’t stopping it and the legislature there is not impeaching it.
Whatever it is, it is not the United States.
It really is a very simple syllogism:
- the U.S. government cannot do x
- this entity is doing x
- therefore: this entity is not the U.S. government
What exactly it is I’m not sure; I doubt its proponents have thought that far ahead yet.
MAGAland, maybe? Trumpistan?
But it is not the United States.
It is a new State, trying to rise from the burning of the old United States. And while I never believed the United States was perfect or even particularly good, this new State is an abomination.
And collaborating with it is treason.
