Another good post. Of course, I don't believe that "open societies" are good. It's like saying "democracy" is inherently good - a foolish statement. Authoritarianism, similarly, isn't inherently bad either. Can it be bad or tends toward bad? Of course.spottybrowncow wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2025 1:16 pmCB, the way I see it, it's the "Catch 22" of open societies; how do you stop your enemies from using the permissiveness of your free country to work against you? The answer is, you probably can't. The closest you can come, in my opinion, is by doing what Trump and Musk are doing - maximizing transparency of government dealings.Cool Breeze wrote: Sat Feb 08, 2025 11:33 am Navi, if America is so great, the government and Constitution are so enlightened, how is it that we've had decades of swamp building that only now is trying to be dismantled? You've never really squared that circle. It's pretty clear that other people, entities, whatever control the US government - what you call that and how is the only question.
By having three co-equal branches of government, the Constitution provides for two short term "escape valves" with elections (executive and legislative), and one longer term escape valve with appointments (judicial). When enough people finally realize that things are going the wrong way, for a long enough time, then all three valves are open to maximize course correction, which is where we are now. Brilliant as this system is, it has at least one great weakness - an absolute dependence on free and fair elections. That is why the democrats were so rabid to federalize the whole election system while they had power. Talk about a close call!
Even "free and fair" elections won't work when you have something like the 19th amendment. The idea that "democracy" isn't just a stealthy way for other types of control is to completely misunderstand what government even is.