alt Hacker NewsThis is a very common thing for corrupt governments. No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership.
Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy.
See also the way that grants are now being distributed at NCI and NSF. Only very large grants for many many years, to reward those who are in the favored status, and kill those who are disfavored. Decision making is random and capricious, just be sure to bribe those at the top with whatever favors you can.
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> Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy.
This is what is so hard for me to handle, and it really feels like I'm grieving a death. Because no matter what happens, even if some things eventually get better, I feel like the US as I knew it is dead - there is simply no coming back from the fact that it's been laid bare how quickly and easily vast swaths of our political leadership would sell out to completely destroy our Constitutional principles.
I had to laugh when I read a title on the Washington Post today, "President Trump faced a wall of opposition from Senate G.O.P. lawmakers, in part over his plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to reward his allies", with of all people Susan Collins in the header image. Lol, I'm sure she'll release a statement saying how she's "very concerned" and end up doing nothing anyway.
To be fair, this has been a long time coming, and a lot of forces have been committed over decades to finally make this kind of thing possible. You're just seeing the next phase of the plan unfolding.
> always be on very very good terms with leadership
Not a guarantee either.. just a hope
We can go even further: One hallmark of fascist regimes is selective enforcement. They start with making laws and rules so opaque and convoluted that pretty much anyone will break them at one point. But they will be extremely selective on when they enforce them, and who they go after.
EDIT: But, as someone will probably point out, convoluted laws / bureaucracy does obviously not automatically mean fascism or corruption. Lots of weird laws are there to cover all sorts of edge cases.
The US is trending towards a Russian style oligarchy and these latest moves are just one of a wider pattern of trying to suppress academia, freedom of speech, personal freedoms.
This is also very foreseeable for an administrative state, and this slippery slope has been predicted for over a century. Rule by administrators (or bureaucrats) is just as opaque/unaccountable/corrupt, and as the extent of their power grew, it was inevitable that the political leadership would exploit the power (as has already happened many times before). It seems like nobody (at least on the liberal end of the spectrum) really cared about the arbitrary use of power when it was mostly left-liberals making the choices.
The way to fix this is to reduce the power of the administrative state, not to just complain about Trump, but I have little hope of a real solution.
>This is a very common thing for corrupt governments.
Seriously, is there any other kind?
> No rules are clear, so that those at the top can dictate whatever they want whenever they want. Which means that the only safe route is to always be on very very good terms with leadership.
Exactly. That’s why dictatorships are so adverse to the rule of law, despite many (notably the macho-nationalist ones) being ostensibly for "law and order".
> Very sad to see the US fall away from the rule of law, into kleptocracy.
Yes, it is sad. It’s Hungary all over again, just with a world-spanning blast radius.