While everyone is watching the world stage and some are predicting WWIII, isn't there a good chance that the USA is getting close to some kind of civil war?

SnausagesinaBlanket@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 126 points –

All the ingredients are there and it won't take much to put it all together.

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The states have armies. That is the national guard. Some states have defense forces as well.

So if we have a civil war, there are plenty of armies to go around.

I hear lots of rumblings about a civil war but I don’t think we are close to one. You hear it from all sides. California wants to leave. Texas wants to lead. East Oregon wants to join Idaho.

I just see people bitching as they always do.

While I may dislike my current president. I’m not going to pick up a rifle for any of these jokers to try to change my government. Overall our system works. Something drastic would have to happen to change my mind.

Overall our system works

I was with you all the way till right here.

The system does not work when corruption is pretty standard especially in the higher levels.

Are there any systems that work within an environment of standard and widespread corruption though?

Yeah it's called actually following checks and balances.

The main issue is humans are naturally corrupted by power. Due to that fact we need a system that actually upholds the rules for the people in power. This whole notion that someone in a position of authority can get away with breaking any laws or rules is the problem. People with power should be held to a higher standard and extremely scrutinized. Even the smallest mistakes should be blasted throughout the news reels and should have immediate punishment.

When you're actually willing and able to punish the corrupt people in your system you lower the amount of corruption overall.

But for some reason most people think that people with authority are untouchable and as a result they practically are.

That's what we were going for. Thing is, any "system* of checks and balances is composed of the corrupt individuals it's designed to check and balance. Sociopaths gravitate to positions of power, and are really great at campaigning for them.

What's your alternative to the present system, sortition?

Why I said overall. I feel corruption has increased significantly in my lifetime but we are working to punish corruption. I count that as overall it’s working. Now if we don’t clean it up, then I’ll reconsider that

Idk this whole Donald Trump thing kinda tells me we're already fucked on that regard.

Kinda hard to claim we're punishing corruption when he's still in the court systems almost a year after his failed coup

I’m so sorry to do this to you. It’s been almost three years, January 21-December 23. The pandemic fucked everyone’s sense of time though.

Ah fuck

Doesn't help I can barely remember what day of the week it is

It literally happens constantly to me. I used to have a pretty good greater sense of time, and I can still remember/estimate pretty well when things happened until 2019, but time’s a weird black hole after that

Watergate took 5 years & Jan 6 makes Watergate look like shoplifting.

I guess my main point is "intent matters" doesn't apply equally.

Common crime intent means nothing in most courts. Like in some states if you perform a crime and someone dies regardless of if you were involved with their death in anyway you'll be charged with murder just for simply being there.

Meanwhile a corporation can poison it's customers and because it wasn't completely obviously intentional* they barely even get a fine.

*I say it that way because they know damn well what they're doing and know that even if they get fined it's cheaper to just pay the fine and keep breaking the law. Looking at you McDonald's.

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Courts take time.

Ignore Trump for just a minute. The average court case takes years in many cases. Isn’t that insane? Speedy trial is a joke.

It only takes that long if your in a position of authority though.

Meanwhile as an average citizen a cop can just decide to arrest you, make up a bullshit story and your in jail without bail that day.

Speedy trial is a right that you have and can invoke. However, it almost always screws the defense. As such, everyone waives it.

and that is a fair point. I feel often we have people over charged for bullshit crimes and then drag them through the system for years.

I am a conservative, so if I am saying that then you know the system is really out of whack.

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National Guard isn’t going to fight

Not sure you get what a civil war is. It's when the country fights itself. The national guard would be heavily involved in a civil war. Just like they were in the first civil war.

Oh thanks, had no idea

I suspected based on your comment, but I thought I would clarify. Without the guard then you could really don't have a civil war.

The states have armies. That is the national guard. Some states have defense forces as well.

Yeah there isn't a National Guard unit out there that stands a chance against an Active Duty unit of the same size. They do important work but the get a train up when they're federalized for a reason.

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