Life at the End of American Empire

Re:Life at the End of American Empire by Apocryphon on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @05:28PM (#22049896)

Thus, ironically, the problem for both the right and the left is the same one- that governments today are too weak. The right needs an at least temporarily strong government to effect the dismantling of the state, whereas the left needs a strong government not merely to respond to the grinding conditions of the economic “recovery”, but to overturn previous policies, put in new protections and find some alternative to the current political and economic order. Dark enlightenment types and progressives are confronting the same frustration while having diametrically opposed goals. It is not so much that Washington is too powerful as it is that the power it has is embedded in a system, which, as Mark Leibovich portrays brilliantly, is feckless and corrupt.

https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/searle20131202

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by pwinnski on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @05:41PM (#22050004)

The idea of using "temporary" power to effect the dismantling of structures of power was appealing to Sulla, too. Fortunately for him, he died before seeing Julius Caesar follow his precedent to establish Rome as an empire, and Caesar himself as emperor for life.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by wostusername on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @05:58PM (#22050122)

This honestly reads as "working as intended" to me. No side can become the tyrant and get everything it wants and screw the other ~50%.

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by danzig13 on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @10:05PM (#22051441)

I don’t think the intention was to never solve anything though.

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by thecolorblue on Thursday January 16, 2020 @09:50AM (#22064984)

This is really just my opinion, but I think the intention is to solve problems when there is consensus.

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by naringas on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @06:04PM (#22050158)

seems to me like subcultural-ideology (frankly puerile and overly simplistic) intended to set-up a more robust (still) unrepresented ideology summed up as "just do what the algoritm/computer system tells you to do". i.e. the super-king they want will speak to them through their phones.

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by Apocryphon on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @06:08PM (#22050182)

Yeah, this article's attempt to explain the Dark Enlightenment subculture is interesting on its own, and deserves its own post. But I also find the author's description of the current problems of the age (and thus gives rise to these radical movements) compelling. It's the same world that the OP is describing.

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by yepguy on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @05:53PM (#22050090)

https://conventionofstates.com/

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Re:Life at the End of American Empire by Apocryphon on Tuesday January 14, 2020 @06:02PM (#22050141)

Good luck with that. The system does have the one power to do something- to self-perpetuate in its feckless and corrupt upholding of the status quo. Neither party wants constitutional change that could actually change the system at a fundamental level.

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