We live in an age where we can gather a group of people from around the world on a minute’s notice and hold a conversation among them in real-time over vast distances. Where any piece of information can be found…
High Crimes And Misdemeanors: Everything He Does Is Illegal, So Is He Really President?
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…
No Appeal: When The Supreme Court Goes Bad
“The peace, the prosperity, and the very existence of the Union are vested in the hands of the justices of the Supreme Court.” -Alexis de Tocqueville Which was probably a mistake, but an understandable one. When the Constitution was written,…
Weak Sauce: Due Process Is No Guarantee
So, the administration and Supreme Court seem to be of the opinion that it’s OK for the State to grab [people] off the street and [do stuff] to them without a court being involved. Or even being able to intervene.…
No Sign: The Militia Movement Is Missing Their Moment Again
This has been an ongoing annoyance for me, for pretty much as long as I’ve been paying attention to U.S. politics. The U.S. militia movement is never around when they might actually be useful. Seriously, this is an active political…
Legal Bribery: Big Law Pays Protection
This particular story is getting some press, but no one’s mentioning the bribery aspect. And it’s definitely bribery. Even under the Supreme Court’s corrupt “it’s only bribery if you explicitly say so in advance” standard this is bribery. And abuse…
Change Is Hard: Designing A Path For Change Is Harder
Even if you ignore the “convincing everyone else to go along with it” part. Which is frankly the hardest bit. The easy part is identifying something you don’t like about the world as it is. And it’s not really that…
Hitting Escape: Like Marriages, Sometimes Countries Need To End
Situations change, people change, governments change; and now the United States is not the country they taught you that it was back in grade school civics. And it needs to just end. To be honest, the U.S. has never actually…
Look Outward And Up: Some New Role Models For Americans
It has been quite a year already, and it’s only March. We’ve got even more quite-a-year ahead of us. But these problems aren’t limited to the U.S.; most of the globe is seeing similar autocratic movements and uprisings these days.…
No Delegation: The State Should Do Its Own Work
I’m not optimistic on anything being fixable at this point, but we should still think about how to do better next time. Because there will (eventually) be a next time. And when it comes time to write the constitution for…