This long article is about the attack on democracy and how a democracy can slide into an autocracy. It gives a lot of good connections and I'm curious what members here think of the article.

"Those citizens who fantasize about defying tyranny from within fortified compounds have never understood how liberty is actually threatened in a modern bureaucratic state: not by diktat and violence, but by the slow, demoralizing process of corruption and deceit."
-David Frum
-March 2017 The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... cy/513872/

Democracy will last until the people find out that they can vote themselves money. Visiting French politician 18th century commenting on the American government system.

The visitor was DeToqueville.

Amazing article.

Shows the slow fall into chaos. Most things don't happen overnight.
It's a long article though. Worth the read but very long.

TL;DR -
Author establishes how these things have happened in the past.
Author compares some past examples to things that have occurred in the early Trump administration.
Author then by using historical examples and trends makes predictions about what we may see in the future.

It gave me tons of anxiety. I had to walk away from some parts.

I will use this thread to post ways we fall closer to the chaos.

3/7/2019 - Judge Thomas Selby Ellis III sentenced Manafort to 47 months in federal prison

• Guidelines for his crimes called for 19-24 years.
• "For context on Manafort’s 47 months in prison, my client yesterday was offered 36-72 months in prison for stealing $100 worth of quarters from a residential laundry room." - Scott Hechinger
• "47 months. That’s all. A federal judge in Virginia gave Paul Manafort less prison time for eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud, and failing to file a foreign bank account report than Crystal Mason got in Texas for voting [accidentally] while on probation. America. " - Jamil Smith
• Judge Ellis says that the sentencing guidelines are "excessive" and he says that Paul Manafort was involved in "lots of good things" he says Manafort is "a generous person." He says Manafort, "has lived an otherwise blameless life.”
• Check out Paul Manafort's Wiki to find out how much his daughter thinks he lived an awful life and how he lobbied on behave of some of the worst people on the planet.

RCA wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 08, 2019 9:15 pm

Amazing article.

Shows the slow fall into chaos. Most things don't happen overnight.
It's a long article though. Worth the read but very long.

TL;DR -
Author establishes how these things have happened in the past.
Author compares some past examples to things that have occurred in the early Trump administration.
Author then by using historical examples and trends makes predictions about what we may see in the future.

It gave me tons of anxiety. I had to walk away from some parts.

I will use this thread to post ways we fall closer to the chaos.

3/7/2019 - Judge Thomas Selby Ellis III sentenced Manafort to 47 months in federal prison

• Guidelines for his crimes called for 19-24 years.
• "For context on Manafort’s 47 months in prison, my client yesterday was offered 36-72 months in prison for stealing $100 worth of quarters from a residential laundry room." - Scott Hechinger
• "47 months. That’s all. A federal judge in Virginia gave Paul Manafort less prison time for eight counts of bank fraud, tax fraud, and failing to file a foreign bank account report than Crystal Mason got in Texas for voting [accidentally] while on probation. America. " - Jamil Smith
• Judge Ellis says that the sentencing guidelines are "excessive" and he says that Paul Manafort was involved in "lots of good things" he says Manafort is "a generous person." He says Manafort, "has lived an otherwise blameless life.”
• Check out Paul Manafort's Wiki to find out how much his daughter thinks he lived an awful life and how he lobbied on behave of some of the worst people on the planet.

It really is a good read and worth the effort. The lack of competitive intelligence is truly scary and the call for nationalism is continually pulling the wool over the public's eyes. This has been a problem spanning multiple presidencies on both sides of the aisle. We need to pull money out of our politics and we need to pull it out, soon. Doing so will just stem the bleeding, but it can be a start. I think we should start recalling judges, just like the judge who gave Rapist Brock Turner was recalled and the people need to send a message to the republic that there are consequences to failing the good of the nation. Politicians are in office just to grab power and not to serve the people and term limits need to be handed out to at least our representatives and senators.

“The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty.”

In the original post by krimsonviper the article discusses how America is on the path of becoming a corrupt nation similar to developing nations of those run by "mob" types aka Russia.

Donald Trump accuses Mueller report participants of 'treason' and vows to 'turn tables' on them

This bully mob mentality is just another slide into despotic rule.
Keep your mouth shut when prosecutors speak to you or else.
Bad enough coming from the person being investigated.

Blows my mind when it comes from Commander and Cheif in charge of enforcing justice.

He's ordering people to stay quiet and not cooperate with Congress. The fact that Congress doesn't keep a lock on the president is offensive and while Republicans are jumping for joy right now, it's only a matter of time before they're out of power and a Democrat president decides to do the same and we are once again sliding into peril. And the justification for the Democrat president doing it? "Well they did it!" One day the scale is going to tip and fall off if this keeps up.

When a government fails its people it's not when it fails to protect the innocent, but when it decides to protect the guilty.