Why do people talk about law as if it has any sort of substance? If all the books were burnt we would only be able to faithfully reproduce the science books, everything else is just some stuff we made up.
In 1241 the danish king signed the first major law of the land. The law itself is pretty much outdated, but its preamble is still a very useful explanation of ‘why laws?’
Allow me to quote it fully and then mark a few bits that I consider important in 2025.
With law shall the country be built but if all men were content with what is theirs and let others enjoy the same right, there would be no need for a law. But no law is as good as the truth, but if one wonders what the truth is, then shall the law show the truth. If the land had no law, then he would have the most who could grab the most by force… The law must be honest, just, reasonable and according to the ways of the people. It must meet their needs and speak plainly, so that all men may know and understand, what the law is. It is not to be made in any man’s favor, but for the needs of all them who live in the land. No man shall judge contrary to the law, which the king has given and the country chosen. […] neither shall he [the king] take it back without the will of the people.
Now, this, of course is just a tiny local law based on ideas from the countries further to the south of denmark. But it holds some concepts that all who dabble in lawmaking ought to consider.
That’s an interesting origin story. I suspect these ideas came about and came to possess a utility as larger societies formed. Nobody needs to be told that murder and stealing are wrong, we know it instinctively. It has been shown that primates understand this concept generally.
One problem with large societies is that customs becomes entrenched over time. We keep following the same rules and forget where they came from, we mistake the menu for the food. We cannot turn to a naturalistic solution to this problem, where everything is eating everything else because that amounts to fascism. Instead we must settle for a kludge where rich people get a different type of justice than do the poor, sentencing is more punitive before lunch and many other idiosyncrasies. My point is, I don’t want to forget that a menu is just a menu. Some things will always be true and the law is not one of those things.
They will be indispensable for documenting, for historians, what it was like when the United States still had law.
We don’t need historians. We need people who are willing to risk their career to put up a fight. Documenting is just a word for being a bystander and let it happen.
You need both.
You need people to fight now, and people to document the shit out of this to cut through as much propaganda as possible for the future.
The current regime has already started to rewrite history, documenting the truth is putting up a fight!
The Palantir threat model specifically says only a fringe will put up a fight right now.
There’s a projected line in the sand where people stand up, but so long as you stay on one side, you’re safe, and the scary thing is, you can push that line and it will move.
The plan is to be super aggressive now to move the line, then 12 months from now to act all domestic abuser who regrets it and love bombing to cancel out most of the anger before the midterms.
In their defense, this is exactly how Reagan did it and it worked.
I think as you get younger, people are much more aware of abuse dynamics than they were in the past. I think their models may be off.
This is the interesting part!
We Americans believe we are all blessed by the holy aura of freedom and democracy.
These models were trained on 3rd world countries.
Let’s see how far they work, maybe we really are just as weak and corrupt as those we hold in contempt.
not an american thing. product of global culture, generally. the kids (and to a lesser extent, the middle aged) are a lot more aware of abuse dynamics specifically. I don’t think it’s just america.
americans are ABSOLUTELY as weak as those they hold in contempt. corrupt… depends on their politics; the left holds some pretty intensely corrupt bastards in contempt.
If they also aren’t “discarded.”
oh honey, you, um… that…
who wants to tell them? I can’t.
I look forward all of this scholars writing “Rule-of-Law” fanfiction where the protagonists and antagonists live and interact in a society with a system of mostly reasonable laws and law enforcement. Definitely now categorized as Speculative Fiction.
Lol I see all those “honor codes” in movies and TV and I’m like… why doesn’t the villian just ignore it? Like… just sneak attack against the protagonist, fuck the rules lol. If they are dead, there’s no one to report you for breaking the rules anyways.
🤣
Not everyone will be dead, because the villain himself lives and when he breaks the honor code he will be ashamed of himself for his hole life, always haunted by the memories of his disgrace and his lack of honor. Or any other bullshit explanation like that…
Yeah, the evil villain should be evil and ignore all the honor code rules.
If you ever feel like what you are doing is meaningless, remember that there is someone in a BMW factory installing indicators.
Ive been wondering what the difference is between an executive that ignores court orders and acts counter to congressional laws and martial law.
Martial law would probably allow stricter control of the internet… so Americans like me probably wouldn’t be able to use Lemmy.
(And I’d probably also end up getting summarily executed by the American Gestapo/SS, since… I’m not white… 😖)
Martial law generally has legal mechanisms in place to provide some limitations to duration etc.
In other words, it would be an improvement over what is currently happening.
Amount of police/national guard troops, maybe?
Something serious is being implied here… Not sure what to make of it tho🤔
That the concept of three branches of government keeping each other in check fails miserably when one branch has no way to constrain the other, or willingly abdicates their responsibility.
Those among them lacking in morals would make bank (or influence, whatever is afforded to them) justifying that government’s actions according to US constitutional law.
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That’s seems pretty meaningful
Although I here constitutional rights have fallen out of favor for the last few decades.
And most of them will be millionaires by 2029
I worry they’ll be trillionaires and everyone else will be the millionaires, carting our wheelbarrows full of useless dollars around
