| | Consent of the governed:
A major political act is our agreement to concede power to politicians who ask for our vote under the current political context to exactly wield that power over all of us.
In theory, we grant the power to perfect strangers that we've never met, and will never meet, to direct coercive power over our lives at the point of the state's guns.
We do so with the understanding that their wielding of that coercive power will be limited under a set of rules and a constitution.
And, we also do that with the understanding that there are limits of disagreement under those rules; when we believe that politicians have overstepped those rules, our remedy is first limited to process within those same rules, and only ultimately as a final and last resort of the desperate, via all or nothing violence/force outside of those rules; a total failure of our political context.
Meaning, our choices outside the rules are limited, in the instance of our disagreements with the political outcomes within the rules-- even, of reconciliation of politicians steps outside of the rules. It is not realistically possible to go outside of the rules for a single issue, or on a temporary basis; it is all or nothing. And because the instances that justify all are few, the instances that tolerate nothing are many, and by that mechanism, our system is ratcheted to tolerate an endless stream of less than critical mass abuses which in total render the constitution meaningless, so many faded wishes on paper. The parchment inevitably rots over time until another inevitability; revolution.
This is exactly what is going on with the USSC right now, and a narrow 5-4 decision might go down either way. Any single instance can easily go down 'right or wrong' and render the constitution meaningless(which many already believe is the case with the continued abuse of the Commerce Clause as carte blanche to do anything.)
I don't see how this process ultimately rights itself in the long run, it seems to inevitably lead only to a nation divided against itself, propped up in fits and starts until the built in process of rot succeeds in tearing freedom to shreds.
We stopped asking so clearly, on purpose: what are the reasonable limits of political wishes in our political context?
And by not clearly insisting on both clearly asking and answering, we've invited the current tribal mess as an inevitability. A major reason for this is that, if one's agenda is exactly to shred freedom, the last thing in the world one wants in the existing political context is a clear asking and answering of those questions; they must remain murky and fluid and ill defined, and thus, indefensible, if one's goal is to topple freedom.
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