6 ms·

The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? I think the only thing people have been hab

The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? I think the only thing people have been habituated to is the enormity of the government; go back to any other point in history, was the government this big in terms of independent agencies, employee/contractor count, budget/debt as percentage of gdp? Sure the spoils system was bad, but the current iteration where you have hundreds of independent agencies that cannot be fired breathing down your neck with statutory power is fucking insane.

palmotea 2y ago
> The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? You do know the president is not supposed to have that power, right? His job is to execute the law, which as currently written requires those agencies to exist.
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  Yes and FDR also skirted around constitutionality and even threatened to pack the courts to ram his reforms in. I don't agree with everything the president is doing, but the rail we are going down is just doomed. What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate?
  - gambiting 2y ago
    >>What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate? How is that related to shutting down agencies?
    - asdasdsddd 2y ago
      Because those agencies are funded by the federal budget. We are literally going into a deficit to send money to other countries. Do you realize how insane that is? And don't tell me this is just a small part of the federal budget. Oh its just a couple billion here and there. That's a lot of money that could go towards not being in debt. This level of fiscal irresponsibility is basically taxation without representation on the unborn.
      - gambiting 2y ago
        >>We are literally going into a deficit to send money to other countries. Do you realize how insane that is? You mean the international development fund that's being raided right now? You know that it exists because US realized that it's cheaper(as in - LESS money spent overall) to help countries develop, so that US is less likely to engage militarily with whatever conflict happens in those countries eventually? It's part of being a global hagemony - it's not insane, it's just good business strategy. Out of all people, Musk and his cohort should be able to see this. >>That's a lot of money that could go towards not being in debt. The whole idea is that you'd be in more debt if you didn't do this, because you'd spend another trillion dollars on yet another conflict somewhere because people got fed up with having no access to fresh water and food and now there's a war that US just "has to" intervene in. Aid money is meant to explicitly prevent this.
        asdasdsddd 2y ago
        > so that US is less likely to engage militarily with whatever conflict happens in those coutries eventually Or you know, we can stop getting into wars? Did our adventures in the middle east advance US interests? > It's part of being a global hagemony It's called overextension and almost every historical power declined due to internal rot coupled by continuously getting into conflicts, which, wouldn't you know, drained the treasury.
        gambiting 2y ago
        >>Or you know, we can stop getting into wars? Ah yes, "just stop". I mean, but all means - please do. >> Did our adventures in the middle east advance US interests? They made a few american corporations extremely rich and justified balooning the military expenditure. Whether that's in US interests or not - you decide. >>It's called overextension It's part of projecting your might as a superpower. The same reason why American taxpayers are paying billions of dollars to station troops in Eastern European countries - not out of charity but because it's explicitly in American interests to do so. International Aid is the same - "we're giving you money now so that we don't have to spend more money fighting with/against you(cross out one) in the future". "stop getting into wars" has the same energy as "just stop tipping" or "just stop spending so much money on the military" - imagine how quickly your entire national debt would be wiped out if you did that!
  - Cthulhu_ 2y ago
    Nobody is denying that the US budget / finances are in dire need of cleaning up, but the approach taken is a hostile and forced takeover of essentials like foreign aid, education, medicaid, etc. People will die because of this approach and its short sightedness will have a bigger negative impact on the US economy and international relationships than it will gain them from reduced costs.
  - palmotea 2y ago
    > I don't agree with everything the president is doing, but the rail we are going down is just doomed. What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate? So, for you, an acceptable solution to "the budget is too big," is "let's rip up the Constitution?" If Trump wants to veto budget bills and demand certain cuts in exchange of passage, that's fine, totally within his power, and would probably work.
afiori 2y ago
[flagged]
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  Yes and we managed to do that for 150 years with a fraction of the current government size.
  - etchalon 2y ago
    ... there's a lot of people who aren't landing-owning white men who would disagree with you.
    - asdasdsddd 2y ago
      So you are saying if the founding fathers had 100 agencies then slavery wouldve been abolished?
      - etchalon 2y ago
        I'm saying your premise is so hilariously ahistorical it deserves mocking.
  - afiori 2y ago
    Many things like childcare, elder care, or healthcare have significantly changed over the last 150 years and now people have much less slack[0] to go back to the old ways. Anyway I care little about the size of a government as it is the result of many perverse incentives (vetocracy, companies pushing for both deregulations and regulatory capture, late stage capitalism trying to make almost everyone poor and/or unstable) but the latest generation of attacks on the size of the government feel a lot like a Embrace Extend Extinguish on social safety nets so that predatory industries like healtcare insurance can better extract wealth from the lower classes [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/12/studies-on-slack/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/12/studies-on-slack/
    - 2y ago
etchalon 2y ago
He's not shutting down agencies to relinquish governmental power. He's shutting them down to strengthen his own power.
- asdasdsddd 2y ago
  What power has he gained.
  - etchalon 2y ago
    He's apparently gained the power to arbitrarily shut down federal agencies, for one.
    - throw10920 2y ago
      That's circular reasoning.
      - lolc 2y ago
        Joke's on you, circular reasoning works well when people accept it!
- simianparrot 2y ago
  Explain how shutting down USAID due to documented fraudulent spending strengthens the president’s power. I can’t think of a single way myself, but maybe I’m overlooking something?
  - jhp123 2y ago
    If he gets away with shutting down USAID by fiat then it makes it clear that he can go outside the bounds of law and demand anything of the executive branch. The next step might be going to the DOJ and telling them to detain, let's say, Ilhan Omar on suspicion of treason. This illegal demand will have much more force because anyone refusing it will know that they stand on their own and have no recourse through the courts or congressional oversight.

palmotea 2y ago

> The president is fascist because he's, checks notes... , relinquishing governmental power by shutting down agencies? You do know the president is not supposed to have that power, right? His job is to execute the law, which as currently written requires those agencies to exist.

asdasdsddd 2y ago
Yes and FDR also skirted around constitutionality and even threatened to pack the courts to ram his reforms in. I don't agree with everything the president is doing, but the rail we are going down is just doomed. What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate?
- gambiting 2y ago
  >>What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate? How is that related to shutting down agencies?
  - asdasdsddd 2y ago
    Because those agencies are funded by the federal budget. We are literally going into a deficit to send money to other countries. Do you realize how insane that is? And don't tell me this is just a small part of the federal budget. Oh its just a couple billion here and there. That's a lot of money that could go towards not being in debt. This level of fiscal irresponsibility is basically taxation without representation on the unborn.
    - gambiting 2y ago
      >>We are literally going into a deficit to send money to other countries. Do you realize how insane that is? You mean the international development fund that's being raided right now? You know that it exists because US realized that it's cheaper(as in - LESS money spent overall) to help countries develop, so that US is less likely to engage militarily with whatever conflict happens in those countries eventually? It's part of being a global hagemony - it's not insane, it's just good business strategy. Out of all people, Musk and his cohort should be able to see this. >>That's a lot of money that could go towards not being in debt. The whole idea is that you'd be in more debt if you didn't do this, because you'd spend another trillion dollars on yet another conflict somewhere because people got fed up with having no access to fresh water and food and now there's a war that US just "has to" intervene in. Aid money is meant to explicitly prevent this.
      - asdasdsddd 2y ago
        > so that US is less likely to engage militarily with whatever conflict happens in those coutries eventually Or you know, we can stop getting into wars? Did our adventures in the middle east advance US interests? > It's part of being a global hagemony It's called overextension and almost every historical power declined due to internal rot coupled by continuously getting into conflicts, which, wouldn't you know, drained the treasury.
        gambiting 2y ago
        >>Or you know, we can stop getting into wars? Ah yes, "just stop". I mean, but all means - please do. >> Did our adventures in the middle east advance US interests? They made a few american corporations extremely rich and justified balooning the military expenditure. Whether that's in US interests or not - you decide. >>It's called overextension It's part of projecting your might as a superpower. The same reason why American taxpayers are paying billions of dollars to station troops in Eastern European countries - not out of charity but because it's explicitly in American interests to do so. International Aid is the same - "we're giving you money now so that we don't have to spend more money fighting with/against you(cross out one) in the future". "stop getting into wars" has the same energy as "just stop tipping" or "just stop spending so much money on the military" - imagine how quickly your entire national debt would be wiped out if you did that!
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  Nobody is denying that the US budget / finances are in dire need of cleaning up, but the approach taken is a hostile and forced takeover of essentials like foreign aid, education, medicaid, etc. People will die because of this approach and its short sightedness will have a bigger negative impact on the US economy and international relationships than it will gain them from reduced costs.
- palmotea 2y ago
  > I don't agree with everything the president is doing, but the rail we are going down is just doomed. What is your proposition to stop interest from eating 100% of the federal budget. We just paid 1T of interest, do you think that is going to decelerate? So, for you, an acceptable solution to "the budget is too big," is "let's rip up the Constitution?" If Trump wants to veto budget bills and demand certain cuts in exchange of passage, that's fine, totally within his power, and would probably work.

afiori 2y ago

[flagged]

asdasdsddd 2y ago
Yes and we managed to do that for 150 years with a fraction of the current government size.
- etchalon 2y ago
  ... there's a lot of people who aren't landing-owning white men who would disagree with you.
  - asdasdsddd 2y ago
    So you are saying if the founding fathers had 100 agencies then slavery wouldve been abolished?
    - etchalon 2y ago
      I'm saying your premise is so hilariously ahistorical it deserves mocking.
- afiori 2y ago
  Many things like childcare, elder care, or healthcare have significantly changed over the last 150 years and now people have much less slack[0] to go back to the old ways. Anyway I care little about the size of a government as it is the result of many perverse incentives (vetocracy, companies pushing for both deregulations and regulatory capture, late stage capitalism trying to make almost everyone poor and/or unstable) but the latest generation of attacks on the size of the government feel a lot like a Embrace Extend Extinguish on social safety nets so that predatory industries like healtcare insurance can better extract wealth from the lower classes [0] https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/12/studies-on-slack/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/05/12/studies-on-slack/
  - 2y ago

etchalon 2y ago

He's not shutting down agencies to relinquish governmental power. He's shutting them down to strengthen his own power.

asdasdsddd 2y ago
What power has he gained.
- etchalon 2y ago
  He's apparently gained the power to arbitrarily shut down federal agencies, for one.
  - throw10920 2y ago
    That's circular reasoning.
    - lolc 2y ago
      Joke's on you, circular reasoning works well when people accept it!
simianparrot 2y ago
Explain how shutting down USAID due to documented fraudulent spending strengthens the president’s power. I can’t think of a single way myself, but maybe I’m overlooking something?
- jhp123 2y ago
  If he gets away with shutting down USAID by fiat then it makes it clear that he can go outside the bounds of law and demand anything of the executive branch. The next step might be going to the DOJ and telling them to detain, let's say, Ilhan Omar on suspicion of treason. This illegal demand will have much more force because anyone refusing it will know that they stand on their own and have no recourse through the courts or congressional oversight.