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zataomm  10mo ago (text post)   5705 thread views

Colorado Supreme Court Thread

Link to the decision

I don't know to what extent there are established precedents for when a topic is worthy of a mega-thread, but this decision seems like a big deal to me with a lot to discuss, so I'm putting this thread here as a place for discussion. If nobody agrees then I guess they just won't comment.

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I do have to wonder: how do Europeans react to news like this? If I'm, say, Emmanuelle Macron, then I'm probably gonna be in a mild panic every time news like this breaks, because I'm going to try and pull every political lever in reach to prepare my country for the possibility of the Pax Americana going poof by the middle of 2025.

Not sure whether your question was only refering to European politicians, but I tried in vain to explain to an American I was drinking with the other night that democracies don't put election losers in jail, because that disincentivises all politicians from respecting the results of future elections.

She didn't seem to buy it though. In her view, Trump will go to jail because his actions were treason and everything will go back to normal with no long term consequences.

democracies don't put election losers in jail, because that disincentivises all politicians from respecting the results of future elections.

The trouble we've realized with this ideal is that it also presumes that politicians refrain from doing obviously blatantly illegal things.

In my opinion, this was first realized with respect to Hillary, who faced effectively no consequences from breaking a bunch of laws (besides whatever effect it had on her losing the election). In her case, it was terrible for democracy for her to face any serious legal consequences.

I'm not about to claim Trump has perfectly abided by the law either. It's rather academic though exactly which laws he may or may not have broken and whether anything he did is or is not worse than what Hillary and other prominent Democrats have done. But it sure smells bad that he gets aggressively prosecuted all over the nation, taken off of ballots, etc, and nothing at all happens to any Democrats.

Can you clarify for me, is France a democracy? Because they convicted Sarkozy of corruption after he lost.

I mean, the EU doesn't really have to fear invasion absent the Pax; it's got more-than-sufficient firepower to stop Russia even on its own, and France has nukes. It's more "the world economy is now tits-up" that they've got to worry about.

This is in contrast to, for instance, Taiwan.

The EU does not have sufficient conventional firepower to stop Russia on its own, although Russia is probably capable of stopping Russia and France does have nukes(and Germany at least can get them before the Russian troops get through Poland).

The global economy might go tits up, but it also might strengthen the euro as people look for alternatives to the dollar, and IIRC European goods are the only real substitute for American ones. It’s not wildly implausible that after some temporary pain Europe winds up slightly better off- especially if the euro appreciates.

The bigger problem is shipping lanes, but A) France and Britain have large navies and can head up a coalition on their own and B) China wants to be able to ship goods to and from Europe and has motives to keep shipping lanes clear.

although Russia is probably capable of stopping Russia

I think you made some sort of error here.

Nope, I'm referring to Russia's corruption and incompetence. A competently run Russia which prioritizes military capabilities over brown-nosing and graft would've already steamrolled Ukraine and be posing a serious threat to the European powers of NATO. Russia as it actually exists wouldn't be a real threat to NATO even with US withdrawal.

Ah, thanks for clarifying.

Macron is probably mildly heartened. The most plausible path to e.g. the US withdrawing from NATO is that Trump wins and withdraws from NATO.

If there's a civil war, the USA might not formally withdraw from NATO but its power projection is going to take a huge hit.

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