I just wish we had an IC that loved America more than its own power.
Yet time and time again we see these orgs are full of corrupt, evil people.
Yet time and time again we see these orgs are full of corrupt, evil people.
Any system of governance that depends on an unbroken chain of good people is bound to fail, and fail much sooner rather than later. The only sustainable safeguard against it is to make sure that said system of governance is limited in what it can do.
This is false.
America was reconceived as a country where the federal government had enumerated powers because it started as one where the federal government had no powers and could only act by ad hoc unanimity of the constituent states, and that failed hard, and the particular idea of, and particular set of, enumerated powers chosen was a compromise among the Framers who were called to fix the failing system, and whose preferences ranged from a much more powerful central government (the Hamilton and, less extremely, Pinkney plans) to a vastly less powerful one (the New Jersey plan), and did not represent a shared common vision, contrary to the later-constructed mythology.
Taking this mythological common vision, and then constructiong a rationalization for it, and then presenting it as the original plan of government for America falsely projects into a hotly debated contentious compromise created to deal with particular exigencies arising under the earlier plan into a kind of perfect divine revelation of government, which it very much was not and was not viewed as by participants in the process.
Though, among those regarded as Founding Fathers, that might be most particularly the view of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote: “On similar ground it may be proved that no society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished them, in their natural course, with those whose will gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force and not of right.” (Letter to James Madison, Paris, Sep. 6, 1789)
No, that was Thomas Jefferson saying that.
I’m saying asking “what would the founders think?” is asking an irrelevant question, as well as an unanswerable one.
It was drafted to be binding with 9 out of the 13 states signing on in direct Defiance of the unanimity required by the previous Constitution. It was somewhat a moot point because all 13 colonies ended up eventually signing,
> because the framers knew that every organization eventually becomes run (at one point or all subsequent points) by corrupt, evil people.
That doesn't logically follow, given that the state governments can exercise more than just enumerated powers. And at the moment, quite a few of them are really, really fucking evil, with a few more being highly corrupt.
It makes a lot more sense when you view that separation of power as a compromise made to deal with the problem <one 'evil, corrupt'[1] federal organization in conflict with another 'evil, corrupt'[1] state organization>[2] as opposed to some weird conflict between <'evil, corrupt' federal government versus the people (but the 'evil, corrupt' state governments get a free pass or something..?)>.
The question of 'who gets residual powers' isn't some 250 IQ bit of brilliant statesmanship and foresight, it's a just a decision that quite honestly, has gone either way in plenty of different countries, and none of them are in any quantifiable way worse off for it.
[1] Your words, not mine. I think it's a pretty childish moniker devoid of all nuance, but when in Rome...
[2] Which is actually the lens through which the founders viewed things. [3]
[3] And they have been proven so, so wrong by history. As it turns out, in a high-speed communication society, party unity tends to override these kind of extra-organizational struggles. It's why the party of states rights complaints incessantly about federal tyranny, but only when it doesn't control the presidency.
Because it's happy with that state of affairs, and you keep voting them in.
> There is recourse at the state level.
No, there isn't. Not at the state level, nor at a more local level. We're at a point where even municipalities aren't able to rein in their police departments!
I do not keep voting these people in.
> municipalities aren't able to rein in their police departments
Where are you seeing this? Seems like there's been fairly significant changes and individual officers are being held accountable. I'm genuinely curious if you have examples.
I believe you can more easily push change at the local level. Our federal government is a monstrous, unstoppable force.
All it will take is an embarrassing data breach like Bork's video rental records and they'll pass legislation to cover their asses.
The thing with being shameless is that scandal rolls off you like water off a duck's back.
They probably think that they do love their country more than their power, while believing they need the power to protect their country. This may be a sort of 'moral corruption', though not the conventional sort. It doesn't seem 'evil' to me.
- C.S. Lewis
> It’s only habit, you know. I’m not mad anymore, really.
> It wasn’t as though she wanted her mother’s keys, nor her mother’s life that went with them. She scarcely knew what she wanted. She knew what she feared—to be locked up in some dark, narrow place by people who loved her. An enemy might drop his guard, weary of his task, turn his back; love would never falter. Her fingers rubbed restlessly on the stone.
-- Paladin of Souls by Lois McMaster Bujold
I've known a few people involved in intelligence, and they absolutely believe they were serving and loving their country. It reminds me a bit of being an infrastructure person where when you mess up, everybody knows, but when you're doing your job well, nobody knows you exist. They see a constant and non-stop stream of threats that outsiders don't see, and when a threat is stopped nobody knows about it. I would bet it's not too hard to justify the intrusive capabilities and any "mistakes" made with them when you have that visibility into the successes. Humans are wonderful at justifying what they want to believe is true, and intel is no exception.
The individual intel person is not the problem here. It's a systemic problem enabled by legislation that needs to be addressed at the legislative level.
CIA director admitted to interferring in elections. https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/374372-ex-...
Is it theoretically possible to stop terrorism/catch and guys to the same extent without breaking the constitution? I think so, but it would probably require a lot more boots on the ground, and a lot of creativity and smart thinking from individuals to be able to get as good outcomes as you’d get from just looking at data when you aren’t supposed to.
Have you ever seen how the bottom-level of people in a huge bureaucratic organization behave? They're not evil, they're just being human. Unless you're prepared to say that at least 65% to 95% of humans are evil[1].
I'm not sure what kind of freedom you advocate for Ben, it certainly doesn't seem to jive with the notion of We the People.
So is the large majority of the population.
Unchallenged idealism is the root of many evils. If you are convinced of your own righteousness, its very easy to “ends justify the means” almost anything. Its the danger of even a well-motivated person ending up with a cultivation or otherwise in an ideological echo chamber.
> First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.
> Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.
> The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.[1]
Definitely. I think this very well explains how we got to this position.
[1]: https://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/iron.html