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Notes -
What "breakdown in federal authority"? My point is that there wouldn't be any such thing. Why would there be? Just because a few hundred temporary figureheads are cut out of the loop more openly and explicitly than before?
Legitimacy, legitimacy, legitimacy. And more legitimacy. And eventually money, but still more legitimacy.
This "legitimacy" thing people keep talking about seems like a spook to me. "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." People obey the law and the government because armed men will haul you off and throw you in a cage if you don't (and shoot you if you resist). "The law" is only whatever rules you'll get punished for breaking. "Federal Law" isn't the US Code, it's only 'whatever the FBI, DEA, ATF, etc. will arrest you for' — nothing less, nothing more. And as long as those men with guns keep on enforcing the same rules, nothing changes, regardless of what some old man in some old building might say quoting old words on some old piece of parchment.
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