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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26352 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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I do not believe that the Biden white house has more than a ceremonial purpose. Its reality TV for political junkies.

The machinery of USGov will operate itself whether the big guys call in sick or not. It would be a horrible weakness for any of them to actually be important anyway.

Biden is not FDR and Austin is not Truman. Those sort of men are not living today.

Perhaps for the best, the dreams of those those men killed millions. But I do wonder how an autonomous bureaucracy will operate during world war 3. Probably it will execute a series of pointless and poorly planned small interventions in seemingly random theatres. Well, that's basically where we are now.

It would be a horrible weakness for any of them to actually be important anyway.

Fawning articles about our military (sometimes under the guise of promoting Ukraine's internalized lessons from us) often celebrate autonomy throughout the chain of command. For whatever peanuts it's worth, running a business the same way provides dividends too. In a western culture, it "just makes sense".

The concept of civilian control, however, is important. The average American has no concept of why crossing the Rubicon is important, and closes their eyes to the churn of cycles of violent coups that plague Africa.

Yes, there is weakness in enforcing the chain of command. But I don't think the military-industrial complex in this country needs a longer leash.

This assertion flies in the face of a great deal of reporting about White House deliberations and decisions. The President still has a very high degree of control over the military in terms of which operations are done. It's just that the military is very persuasive about arguing for the status quo. That's not "ceremonial purpose", it's a process that re-occurs with practically every president. A sufficiently determined president can and will make changes. Before you cry "oh but Trump was stymied by the deep state!" the much more likely conclusion is merely that he cared more about the appearance of being a loose cannon than actually doing so.

Also, another huge hold with this assertion: you forget that the president is literally the only one to nominate leaders in the Cabinet, and a whole host of others to boot. It's like claiming that a corporate board that is in charge of hiring the CEO has no control of the company... Like sure, there's a big degree of separation but they certainly DO have a lot of control in a broad sense!

Before you cry "oh but Trump was stymied by the deep state!" the much more likely conclusion is merely that he cared more about the appearance of being a loose cannon than actually doing so.

We know for a fact that the Pentagon lied to him about the number of troops stationed in Syria (I think), which also colors your point about them being persuasive, somewhat.

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