Consequences of the loss of trust in the rule of law

Here is a good example of what loss of trust in the rule of law will likely produce.  For instance, I consider it very illogical to now trust that any government institution will be guaranteed to have your interests in mind should you have the wrong identity or some wrong identity expression history.

FBI -> Gestapo

What's more scary is, I don't think this is nearly as conspiratorial as it might initially appear.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/can-reform-fbi-behaves-like-gestapo/?utm_source=Parler&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons

4th Century Christianity as a template for Woke Political Takeover

 For the last half year I've been looking into possible dynamic parallels between the Christian takeover of Roman politics with our current Wokeism political & institutional takeover.  The main idea supposition is rooted in Peter Turchin's elite overproduction model for secular dynamics.  This is a predictive model for great awakening cycles.  In case you didn't notice - we're in a major one.

I've enjoyed the non-technical Fall of Civilizations podcasts.  The images (in those that have them) are great.

I've started to go through the classic Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, but its not terribly good.  Maybe you just need to be in the mood for its type of romp.

My latest big find is Gabriel Gardan's The Relationship Between Church and State during the 4th Century.  It's a very nice find.  Beyond getting the reference for the main 4th century historian (Glen Thompson), it has a number of very dynamically relevant quotes. 

 The first signals of the cruel Christians persecution started in the Eastern part of the Empire, where Diocletian and Galerius governed during the year 298. Under the pretext of purging the army of any dangerous elements, a significant number of Christian soldiers were martyred. Around the year 300 the loyalty of the soldiers became a capital matter for the imperial politics. In this context the Caesar Galerius in the East and Maximian in the West started promoting their anti-Christian politics. As a result of their refusal to participate to the acts of sacrifice, the Christian soldiers were to be accused of lack of loyalty towards the Empire and its leaders. Moreover, the failure of the worshiping acts was attributed to the presence of the Christian soldiers at these sacrifices, where they would mark their own foreheads with theeternal sign”

The nice bit of info here is how signs of oblations were used to marginalize Christians.  Basically their refusal to perform normal societal rituals threatened social stability.  It's akin to refusing to stand for the national anthem.

But we have to be careful not to look for exact parallels.  For instance while Wokeism is a start up religion of equality, much like Christianity was, this does not mean we should look for our political states to use oblation tests to oppress wokeism.  While you could stretch that parallel with 1950's McCarthyism, the dynamical parallel is simply the fact that simple display commitment tests tend to get used to purify the large group.  In this sense, I tend to see wokeism performing these functions.  Biden's recent and unprecedented military purge has these hallmarks. You will soon be required to make very dubios faith-like pledges to prove your woke / anti-white/conservative bonafides.

On the 23rd of February 303 the Christian cathedral of Nicomedia was devastated, and the following day an edict was made public stipulating that the followers of the Christian religion could no longer occupy the designated official functions and dignities. The Christian churches had to be demolished, the Scriptures and the religious books were to be burnt, the liturgical vessels were to be confiscated, and the meetings were forbidden. In order to stop any complaints regarding these regular abuses, the complaints brought in front of the judges had to be preceded by acts of sacrifice on altars placed at the entrance of the judging courts. The ones that refused to apostasy were punished, and the punishment was always an exemplary one

Exemplary punishments are an obvious dynamical parallel.  But this tends to be fairly common with any authoritarian reaction.  As states get larger, punishments need to be more symbolic.  The Soviet Union and Maoist China certainly realized this.

In terms of modern politicized Wokeism, we see a similar dynamic of "reach prevention".  Social media giants are doing just this to conservative identities.  The gathering of such groups will gradually be outlawed as "hate speech". We already see some very one sided protest prosecutions using Covid's convenient scape-goating.  The dynamic similarity with court systems is also very interesting.  You need to make the right oblations to be given standing.  The DC swamp is certainly heading that way.

Here we see how common spaces were used to enforce litmus tests.  You can imagine woke slogans and "don't enter if you're a white supremacist" signs fulfilling the same function today.  You just have to remember that dynamical parallels don't imply equal action intensity.  Life was values very differently in the 4th century than today.  We're looking for dynamical parity.  That should give us insight into evolution landscapes.

As Constantine takes over we start to see him settling the differences between Christian sects.  Constantine expressed his belief that “the greater the honor towards divinity, the greater the goodness manifested regarding the public matters, and from the letters of the convocation of the synods against the Donatists, there resulted the belief promoted by Constantine regarding his duty, which was to make sure that the problems of the Church were solved by free consent during the assembly of the bishops19. The measures adopted in favor of the Church aimed at two main levels: the life of Church itself and the relations of the Church with the world, with pagans and with the Jews.

Constantine likely used the reconciliation process to favour sects that moved his political agenda.  Need the black vote, let's favour the reparations branch of wokeism over ANTIFA goons.

The other interesting feature of Christian political takeover is the establishment of two judicial streams.  Bishops were empowered to act as judges for Chirstian matters. This is a very anti-Roman thing to do (ie one law for every citizen). It is rather reminiscent of Canada's restorative justice path.  The US is almost certain to follow suit. Thought crimes may be able to be minimally punished in a Constitutional democracy like the US with explicit free speech protections, but you can certainly set up some extra legal institutions - at least if you want to keep your public standing (ie a functional social credit score).

Constantine did not limit himself to these measures. He started to interfere with the doctrinaire problems of the Church. The problem was brought forth by the dissident Donatist branch of the Church in North Africa which stated that the emperor should judge and intervene in the internal disagreements. There was in history a precedent in this sense. The eastern bishops were in a dispute with the heretic Paul of Samosata, and asked the emperor Aurelian to settle the dispute. Aurelian established a precedent himself, by bringing the problem to the attention and the judging of the bishop of Rome and soliciting a solution. Initially Constantine intended to adopt a similar solution, and in the year 313, he asked the bishop Miltiades of Rome to judge the matter. The protests of the Donatists determined him to establish another precedent, this time around in favor of the Church, and decided to summon a synod at Arelate, in the year 314, where bishops from the West were invited to participate and analyze the doctrinaire and disciplinary dissensions that divided the Church in the North of Africa.

Here we can see an obvious Biden move.  Instead of judging maters via State systems, turn it over to Woke institutions/mobs like the NAACP, ACLU, and SPLC.  Then just follow their edict.  But, put some government officials into the "discourse" so control is maintained, albeit at arms reach from normal political safeguards.

Following this line of precedents, we must mention alongside Constantine’s decision to summon the synod, another precedent which targeted the assurance of the necessary means for the travel of the bishops in order to reach an optimal development of the activity of the synod. Due to the fact that the decisions of this synod were not accepted by the Donatists, Constantine went further and acted by force, via imperial decrees and via the armed hand of the state, in order to reestablish the order in the Church28. Harold Drake believes that it is not exaggerated to consider that the formal relations between the Church and the Roman Empire follow directly the steps Constantine followed in order to solve the controversy. The Donatists episode revealed Constantine’s option and his involvement in the life of the Church in general, and especially in the theological disputes.

Here we more clearly see theological reconciliations being used to shape Church growth, presumably according to Constantines desired political reformation strategic plan.  Thus, we'd expect to see a Harris (if she's competent enough - Biden is too demetia'ed out to be functional here) or some other Left leaning political figure like Pelosi start to settle Woke 'theological' disputes as a way of exerting power and filtering out political opponents.

The main idea is that this process ensures the stability of Church-state.  The leaders can rationalize any power movements as creating a better future.  This type of utopian thinking is a classic trap for hard core authoritarians like Mao, Stalin, Hitler, etc.

What apparently spells disaster is pluralism.  

In the year 337, at Constantine’s death, the governance of the Empire was taken over by his three sons: Constantine II (337-340), Constantius II (337-361) and Constant 194(337-350). Their reign is marked by political and ecclesiastic confusion. From the point of view of the church, the period overlaps with the second stage of the Arian crisis. Their religious politics was confusing: on the one hand they continued their father’s tendency to favor and privilege Christianity; on the other hand they interfered more and more with the Arian theological disputes, manifesting equivocal attitudes towards the heretics, intentionally ignoring sometimes the decisions of the synods. The most faithful image of this period is represented by the case of the intransigent Nicene bishop Athanasius, dismissed and put back in his chair, exiled, self-exiled, blamed and adulated.

From an evolutionary point of view focussed on adaptive groups, you want to look for unique benefits provided to the group being favoured.  For example, we are now heading to two tiered justice - certain minorities whose political intersection matches the states, are increasingly likely to get "free passes" (at least if they get the right public 'reach'.  Those who commit crimes against protected groups now get 'hate' enhancements - right now sometimes regardless of racial intent.

the Jews were not allowed to buy Christians as slaves (CT 16 .9.2); the sons of the clergy young and poor were exempt from some public obligations (CT 16.2.11); tax exempts and other privileges of the clergy were confirmed and extended (CT 16.2.8-9). Special laws that bring new elements are the ones regarding the pagans. In the year 341 the pagan sacrifices were forbidden, and in the year 346 the temples of the cities were closed (CT 16.10.2-4). The situation did not register significant changes after 350 when Constantius II remained the only leader of the Empire. He continued to promote laws favoring Christianity and the Church: some properties of the clergy were exempt from taxes (CT 16.2.10); the capital punishment was established for the ones that raped widows and nuns (CT 9.25.1); all the properties of the Church were exempts from taxes (CT 11.1.1); the monks were exempt from the state obligations (CT 16.2.16). The legislation against pagans and Jews became more and more restrictive and the Christians that were converted to paganism were to lose their properties (CT 16.8.7);

Here's one example of how the modern parallels are working....  (but note, this particular video is light on the religious side of things).

Understanding

 This piece seems to show an understanding of what has happened in the US...

https://americanmind.org/salvo/once-upon-a-presidency/

Two systems of commerce

 As I've said over the last few years, I fully expect society to evolve into two de facto systems of commerce - one for the "right" one for the "left". History shows this is what happened during the American Revolution. I get the sense this happened during the Protestant - Catholic wars of religion in the 1600's.  I have no idea if this happened in Rome during the century when Christianity oscillated between being tolerated and being persecuted.  I would expect so.

Deplatforming is already going on (albeit mostly one sided since the Right has no real institutional control nor any major public platforms).  That leaves commerce as the next big place for institutional separation.  The expectation has always been that the government would find a way to run the gun industry out either by 

• enabling tonnes of frivolous lawsuits (which then push an Overton window), or by
• regulating it to death (how much is that tax for that gun....  how many forms do you need to fill out each year...  with what absurd penalty for any error?), or by
• deplatforming the industry from financial operation.

All of these are clearly stated methods by which the left seeks "common sense" gun reform.  It looks like financial industry control may be back in play...

https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/19/biden-administration-prepares-way-for-banks-to-refuse-service-to-democrats-enemies/

Imagine that

 Easy to imagine this type of logic coming to the States 

Anti racist Racists

 It's weird how you have a lot of KKK level racist anti-racists....

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/02/14/anti-churchill-professor-accused-racially-abusing-black-conservatives/

Lots more examples on the twitterverse - if you're of the mind to support Pravda's....

Signs you're in a cult

 Signs you're in a cult (and I mean this technically, not just metaphorically)

You just can't see that the norms you've supported throughout your life lead to an entirely different conclusion here (see Richard Jewell's hoax prosecution) just because your group and it's moral hysterias lead you to villianize, with no recourse to logic, your group's devil.  For the avoidance of logic, the election results were very questionable and it is constitutionally appropriate - even necessary - to follow the procedures to adjudicate validity.  To criminalize this and anyone supporting it is akin to 1900's KKK criminalizing legal actions of Blacks, or Muslims criminalizing Jewishness.  

These political nutjobs are CRAZY and they don't even have a clue about it.  That's a good sign your in a cult.  The dynamics just validate this.

Double Speak

 War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength

        #GinaCorano

The predicted start of 2 states of commerce has begun

 A few years ago I ruminated that growing tribalism coupled with the left's anti-pluralistic stance as reflected by full deplatforming would necessitate the right developing their own commercial industries.  Robert Barnes who represented Alex Jones during that time said as much.  Jones could not even get bank access. He could not get any online platform to process payments. He basically had to reinvent all levels of operation again.  My theorizing came more from Alan Taylor's historical work on the Revolutionary War and how commerce fared then.  There were loyalists stores and there were patriot stores.  You had to stick to your own.

This is how the worst of the Jim Crow era functioned. If you had the wrong identity you were functionally not free to fully participate in commerce or public society.  That's pretty much what we're seeing now, albeit only applied to conservative people with "reach".  That's better than things were.  But it is obviously still very disturbing.  That's because it pushes the marginalization of identity toward some crazy extremes. "If you're not Muslim, here's the limits to which you can participate in society". That seems to be where progressive tolerance is headed. After all, you can always convert. Just a small step is required to renounce your heretical ways...

On this front, Daily Wire's move into film is interesting.  It looks like Ben Shapiro has decided to go big and accept the need for media companies to produce their own content.  Looking at Netflix this weekend (prior to seeing the Wire's move), I thought, half these films are pretty much straight up hate about me (a freedom oriented centrist).  Content is more and more sovietesque, albeit with much better production quality. In terms of moral messaging, it's about as subtle as an Evangelical Christian flick. And, equally as appealing.

Shapiro's movie studio's acquired Gina Caarano (of Mandalorian fame) after she was purged for the sin of saying "violence based upon political identity is bad".  Does this reflect an inflection point in the rise of a conservative hollywood?  I don't know.  I looked at the Wire's school shooting movie trailer, and I have to say, it hit a lot of check marks for me.  There aren't a lot of movies that glorify conservative ideals any more.  Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 14%.  One can't help but wonder the extent to which establishment industries will go to to prevent the escape of the captive conservative market.  I suspect they will go far.

 

 
I don't know how long it will be until internet traffic running through public utilities will get functionally censored.  After all, it won't be that the traffic itself is censored, only that the relay of certain sites through AT&T servers is prohibited by private hosting companies.  After all, a service provider like Shaw Cable has no duty to serve you everything...  And fibre companies surely can discriminate on who gets a "phone" even if they can't discriminate on the content of that "phone call".  This seems all but ensured now.

Lawfare provides precious few real solutions.  Politicians chose many years ago not to pass legislation protecting political identity. They were still trying to fight against the loss of equality under the law.  Caving in to identity carve outs (like sexual orientation, etc.) was not something they wanted to energize. But this failure to acquiesce has spelt political doom.  Once the progressive left was sufficiently energized to leverage judicial and law enforcement systems for one sided prosecutions, all balance was lost.  

While you can recreate your own systems as per Alex Jones, I suspect you will need to lay your own fibre too....  At that point, what really is the advantage one gets from a single USA?  There is none. And that is what spurns some really major polity changes.

The future

 The future of the US can be seen in duelling legalities.  A few years ago it was sanctuary cities and the denial of immigration enforcement. The worry was, what will the equivalent action on the right look like?  It was always assumed that these reactions would involve 2nd ammendment issues.  This has always been the point over which I thought left authoririans would over reach and would produce a "Fort Sumter" moment.

You also had the somewhat far fetched worry about NY law enforcement trying to arrest the President over some baloney charge and wondering what the secret service would do. That may have come close a couple of times when Trump visited Michigan and didn't follow their mask laws.  I suspect right now Whitmer wouldn't worry about the fall out or broken norms anymore (see my criminalization of identity post).

Now here is a very concrete example of what happened just before the civil war.  One side criminalized the other for their "legal actions". The tension was typically viewed as states rights vs. federal rights, but that level of simplicity has always been too flat for me.  There were also layers of political party fighting. And that is just what we see with a county who has chosen to arrest Feds who try to enforce constitutionally questionable 2nd A edicts.

https://www.thenationalsentinel.com/2021/02/10/missouri-county-passes-ordinance-calling-for-arrest-of-feds-who-enforce-unconstitutional-gun-laws-this-is-how-you-do-it/

Of course, once the supreme courts rules on the issue, it should be over. But, I doubt stirred-up counties will quit arresting people while the appeal process is pending.  Can you imagine leftist political zealots halting law enforcement action over something they feel is morally right just because the case has yet to be fully decided at the highest court levels?  I certainly can't.  And hence, you almost guarantee evolution into war by competing law enforcement agencies.  That is why Biden's move to clean house is so smart. It's also why historic authoritarians did the same. Allowing doubt sews the seeds of dissension and sets up narratives which motivated reasoners can use to justify legitimacy claims.  (Think of old battles over who was the correct heir to the kingdom).

Identity as a determiner of allowability

A few years ago the UK started criminalizing identity via disproportional actions towards individuals with social reach. Tommy Robinson was the obvious example.  His mere presence at a rally was considered incitement, regardless of his actions.

US intersectionalism has obviously been building toward this.  It just started out with a negative rather than positive approach.  Instead of criminalizing individuals based on identity, woke movements wanted to excuse individuals based on identity (under the reasoning that systemic effects magnified prejudice).  Privilege debates switched this.  Certain identities were to be "criminalized" or at least removed from any public platform.

Political reactions to Trump amplified this to crazy levels.  Current politics now makes the case that if someone has the wrong identity then we should be able to pull a "show me the man, I'll find you the crime" dynamic.  Victor David Hanson mentions this soviet turn in his recent podcast on American Thought Leaders (which is of course now demonitized and throttled as wrongthink).  He also mentions how woke religious points serve as a wall for cancellation attention.

Here is a very overt example of the criminalization and excusation of identity.  The inference is that people of a certain colour should be allowed to use word and rhetoric that others are not.  Maxime Waters can do all sorts of direct incitement to violence (like sicking the justice department on foes which relies on process being sufficient punishment). But if another identity, like Trump or a conservative social media node does it, it is criminal.

As I've said before, the best way to understand and accept this is to realize that it is just an inevitable structural move toward caste.  Levels of selection (evolutionary) logic makes these trends nearly inevitable. Our heart follows very different rules from our skin.  In practice it comes out as "all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others".

But notice in the above twee how woke religious values are being used to censor anyone who might question doublethink.  If you do, you're racist as sin!

On becoming an authoritarian state

 The American Thinker has been doing a number of very good articles on society's current political-moral phase change.  Here's another excellent one...

When does a free state become a police state?  Is it when government declares itself "essential" but religious worship "selfish"?  Or when making a living becomes a crime?  Or when free speech rights are afforded only to those who say "correct" things?  Or maybe when tens of millions of Americans find themselves unexpectedly labeled as "domestic terrorists" by the military-media complex overnight?

Perhaps the telltale sign is this: simply asking why becomes subversive

Does it matter if it is just the state doing this, or if it's a combination of state and state aligned institutions who are united by a new religious coherence? 

https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/02/the-mandalorian-star-gina-carano-fired-dropped-by-talent-agency-for-social-media-posts/

Hard to beat...

Hard to beat this one for accuracy...

I'm still torn between whether today's dynamics are best captured by:

• the era when Christianity co-opted Roman political institutions, or
• the 1600's when Protestantism challenged Catholicism's thought and political controls.

The Roman era captures the negative sum dynamics which are coming.  It also reflects wokeism's use as a vehicle to empower one political tribe by leveraging popular sentiment for a new morality of "equality".  Thus it really captures elite over production (see Turchin) and the use of a simple signalling convention as a way to filter out a lot of elites.

The Protestant wars miss a lot of this.  Protestant upstarts were more revolutionary than co-opting.  But the war of religions capture the dynamics of mass communication and censorship.  The Roman era doesn't reflect that much (at least as far as we know).   The Protestant era also better captures the physical admixture between the two competing tribes.  US's state system matches this well.  Europe - not so much.

The French revolution really doesn't seem to fit.  Napolean does fit Trump pretty well.  All the elites thought the emergence of a populist outsider was an existential threat to order.  I'm sure their Napolean derangement syndrome matches TDS pretty well.  Napolean was just a better fighter...

The American Revolution is another good dynamical mirror.  But, land expansion dynamics really make for a different scenario, despite the obvious mirrors with deplatforming and liberty vs parochial governance.  The major thing I don't like with this revolution's parallels to today is that the revolutionaries had pretty decent representation in the media.  Also, today, institutions are tending toward authoritarian governance.  In the American Revolution they were largely tending away from it.  This messes up a lot of the dynamics.  You get the wrong momentum vectors for multi-level selection dynamics.  Thus, you're mainly looking at superficial behavioural similarities, not deep structural parallels.  That's why I like Protestantism and the Roman era.

The Roman era seems better when you're looking at things from a woke / egalitarian or elite perspective.  The Protestant move looks better when you're looking at things from a populist / freedom or commoner perspective.

Years ahead of this...

 

If only...

 If only the FBI investigated these claims (Michigan 3:30am ballot dumps) as intensely as they're doing the Capital protestors/rioters. Then you'd actually have first hand interviews to find out what really happened.  That would assuage everyone. Instead you get a "don't look" type narrative. It's sort of like asking the Capital rioters, did you do anything wrong, and then taking their word for the legality of their actions.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/fact-checking-phony-fact-checkers-gateway-pundits-explosive-michigan-tcf-center-reporting-absolututely-shows-voter-fraud/

The War Against Celebrities

 A few years ago I tested the extent to which modern media and political celebrities are falling into the cultural evolutionary well of shamanism.

The conclusion was - most likely. It's just very hard for some personalities and the groups they belong to to resist the performative rewards of angst expression.  This is probably a good lens from which to analyze the current bro-ha-ha of Gad Saad's deplatformed Psychology Today article on the moral hypocrisy of celebrities.  Go read it on the archive site and give the thought police the finger with respect to their tribal allegiances and sacrileges.

The main critique seems to be his use of the term parasitic.  As he just wrote a book with this exact title, it is hard not to see it as an accurate technical term. But it is also very clear it is used for its negative connotations.  Apparently that linguistic trick is only appropriate for wrong-think targets. Psychology Today, as a cultural monolithic organization, has almost certainly fallen into post facto rationalization. That they are likely to justify this position as morally necessary speaks to the increasing co-option of societal institutions by religious wokeism.

It is really hard not to see this as the ancient Christian take-over of Roman institutions. As I've said many times before, we're seeing a retwining of religion with politics. Our secular pluralistic society is coming to a close.  Private companies are doing what government can't legally do with a down-the-middle support split. Once institutions make deplatforming legit, then the Overton window should be sufficiently shifted to allow the Washington establishment to go where it wants - to deplatform half the population.

The end result is certain to follow 1600's war of religion trajectories. The end result is almost certain to be the splitting of countries into "Catholic" and "Protestant" camps.  Which will prove more evolutionarily successful is something that can't really be predicted.  The "Catholics" will link together under a type of globalism. Their elites will certainly rake in money, while their commoners will become increasing serf-like.  But will they be rich serfs or poor serfs? The evolutionary path is always toward poor serfs, but in the modern age, we may very will see rich happy functionally powerless plebes. Socialism compensates for true poverty, but it does so via serf solutions.

As for celebrities, there is a growing percentage of people who are happy to see them screwed any way they can.  The pandemic has greatly reduced the power of hollywood celebrities.  They have few outlets for their extroverted personalities. The loss of the movie industry has depowered them. The emergence of B-celebrity political figures (like Alyssa Milano and Debra Messing) make a lot of people hate (or love) them.

Psychology today has picked tribes. Old injuctions that everything is now political are coming true. Wise people tried to say that this was a bad idea. But, it is only a bad idea if you like pluralism. If your side controls all the wheels of power and all the public squares, then it isn't a bad idea - it is getting on the right side of history....

Go to the Psychology Today's feedback form and leave a comment about deplatforming in academically oriented magazines in fields that should, by the nature of the the service they provide, be politically neutral.

Political prisoners, the American edition

 It's hard not tho think of Kyle Rittenhouse and many of the Capital rioters/protestors as political prisoners. I don't think there's much doubt that Rittenhouse shot the BLM rioters in self-defense after they attacked him for putting out a garbage bin rolled into a gas station.  He is clearly a show piece meant to prevent unorganized militia from doing what the police and national guard should have done in the summer riots (or according to the constitution, what WELL ORGANIZED local militia should have been able to do).

The other week I discussed how the system was setting things up to treat the capital rioters/protesters in sovietesque style.  Looks like the denial of bail for people who refuse to acquiesce about election illegitimacy are getting denied bail.  Does denying the fact that there was large voter harvesting or large amounts of after-the-deadline mail in ballots, or lack of signature verification really mean you are going to flee the country or engage in violence?  That's sort of the foil one has to take to decide if these people are really political prisoners or not. From there questions about over-charging and "find me the man, I'll find you a crime" come out. I don't think there's any doubt that's what the government is doing. You can almost hear their intonations of "we'll restore order one way or another". There's no doubt systems got their marching orders to press things as hard as they can. As systems, governments have a hard time resisting the siren call of power application - especially when it is seen in moral terms. This event has certainly been moralized. And that's why they can't see the soviet styled purge they're doing as anything bad.

Here's another, better written take on the political prisoner lens - with a few more facts about what has been happening legally.

Calls to violence

 At some point, shouldn't over-the-top calls for jailing one's political foes be considered de facto calls for violence? After all, is it much difference is the state forcibly takes away years of ones life than if a mob does it? I guess it all depends on how "legal" state violence is. In a one sided witch hunt oriented DOJ and judiciary, I'm not sure I see much difference.

But, I suspect Maxine Waters has just figured a way to call for violence legally.  It's sort of like Putin saying he isn't doing anything violent against Navalny because the law clearly said he broke his parole, and he has access to a fair trial.  Maxine is simply advocating, not controlling.  Just like Trump at capital hill was....   wait a sec....

Maxine Waters wants trump charged with premeditated murder

From another lens...

 From another lens, this could be seen as a military purge based upon political ideology.  The more time goes by, the more coincidences start to line up with various 20th century authoritarian nations.

That isn't to say a review isn't warranted. It's just to say, every 20th century strongman could have, and did, say the same thing

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/defense-secretary-will-order-military-wide-stand-down-to-address-extremism-1.660899

Parallels

 I don't think anyone can rationally argue that the US (and most western countries) and not now in the deep throws of overly mature political systems dominated by increasingly detached and un-reformable Mandarin technocracies.  Covid exemplifies the technocratic detachment from reality. Clinesmith, Flynn, and anti-Trump legal moves exemplify un-reformability of political machinations.  The system is fully ripe. As Gamestop trading shows, there really isn't ability to create much of a pretence that the system is equally loaded for the big guys and little guys. Washington is an inbred mess - and they like it that way.

As systems mature, they becoming increasingly optimized.  Reform seems less and less logical. This is because change destabilizes the whole thing - and for any optimized system that is obviously bad.