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Notes -
Considering the track that the nation is going down, I was doing some more thinking. The approach that seemed to be the best to me is that the federal government must be weakened until it is no longer present, and let states spend their incomes how they choose and enact policies that they want, rather than viciously fighting over the same federal institutions every 4 or so years.
But upon my trying to dig up arguments against Marxism (probably the most dangerous philosophy I think has a chance of doing anything right now), I found that Karl Marx didn't really outline how socialist countries should make the transition into communism and, in fact, such a thing is probably not even possible. Institutions will try to perpetuate themselves in any way they can. Given this fact, I think DOGE is doomed to ultimately fail, especially if the next administration comes in and undoes the damage it is doing. So what is the prudent path forward?
Furthermore, this episode of history has revealed the weaknesses of liberalism: if you give people their own individual rights, including the ability to speak and convince each other of values detrimental to the state, eventually this kind of split will happen. If the federal government dissolves, and each state becomes its own nation, should they still embrace liberalism as the least bad of every option? Or should countries reserve full authority to do as they please, and there are no inherent rights?
This is my understanding of the best likely outcome as well. Picture the federal government as a fencepost set firmly in the ground. The left and right yank it right and left over and over, and each pull loosens the earth around it until eventually it is ripped loose entirely. That is the process we are currently witnessing: a breakdown in the credibility of the federal government, as each escalation converges both sides on "valid only if we control it". The optimistic view is that such a convergence rounds down to "not valid at all", as simply rejecting validity is simpler and easier to enforce than absolute tribal control. Finding a way to leave each other alone is, I hope, simply easier than exercising tyranny over half the nation.
What we're currently seeing, more or less. Blue-Tribe has dominated the institutions and used them to secure unaccountable power. Those institutions must be un-dominated and accountability restored, or they must be destroyed. There isn't really any other option available. The mistake is viewing this as fundamentally about DOGE, or Trump for that matter. If DOGE and Trump fail, the proper course is to escalate again.
In my view, they should retain as much liberalism as they can without compromising society. It seems to me that being clear-headed about liberalism's inherent flaws makes it easier to retain more of it than one can otherwise manage. In the end, though, there are no "inherent rights" in any sort of objective sense. There are values, and some of those values are compatible. Power does what it will, and constraining its abuse is a never-ending responsibility incumbent on each individual human; no system will ever do this job for us, and if we don't do it, it won't be done.
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