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I was specifically avoiding commenting on the legitimacy and use of said powers and instead addressing only what I saw was the core premise of OP: That the US's

I was specifically avoiding commenting on the legitimacy and use of said powers and instead addressing only what I saw was the core premise of OP: That the US's desire for abilities (maybe that's a better word to use so that we don't conflate legal power with practical power, that is what is possible vs what is allowed) that others do not have is somehow wrong or strange. A core function of all governments, and one that government doesn't exist without, is power. You can't claim jurisdiction without the ability to enforce it. You kind of went off in the weeds and talked about a lot of things I wasn't saying anything about. The one point of yours I will respond to is this: > I guess it just smells like fascism to me when you submit to this without like... actually thinking about the specifics of each power? Or letting them just spread illegal shit around the world? Maybe i misunderstand. This all seems weird. Two things: First and foremost, I don't see how you drew a line from the U.S. preventing export of technologies that enable fascism to the U.S. 'spreading illegal shit'. Kind of a hard turn there, and not really what I, OP, or the article were commenting on. Second, power is not equal to fascism. Personal freedoms rely on the power to defend them. You are not free to live if someone else is free to take your life. Even a loving and benevolent government requires the power to protect and care for it's constituents. (Now, don't misread that, and think I'm saying the US government is loving and benevolent, I'm making a broader point), and that power needs to be highly asymmetrical or it simply doesn't serve its purpose.

mrobot 5y ago
> I was specifically avoiding commenting on the legitimacy and use of said powers and instead addressing only what I saw was the core premise of OP: That the US's desire for abilities (maybe that's a better word to use so that we don't conflate legal power with practical power, that is what is possible vs what is allowed) that others do not have is somehow wrong or strange. A core function of all governments, and one that government doesn't exist without, is power. You can't claim jurisdiction without the ability to enforce it. You kind of went off in the weeds and talked about a lot of things I wasn't saying anything about. Ya, i wrote too much without getting enough clarification, sorry. > The one point of yours I will respond to is this: >> I guess it just smells like fascism to me when you submit to this without like... actually thinking about the specifics of each power? Or letting them just spread illegal shit around the world? Maybe i misunderstand. This all seems weird. > Two things: First and foremost, I don't see how you drew a line from the U.S. preventing export of technologies that enable fascism to the U.S. 'spreading illegal shit'. Kind of a hard turn there, and not really what I, OP, or the article were commenting on. So i didn't mean to draw the line you describe there, i should be clearer in what i write. If i understand what you are going for by adding your comment to this issue, you were kind of dismissing anyone being "surprised or alarmed", and you were maybe a little annoyed anyone was even talking about it. I am not personally really surprised, but i was suggesting alarm and discussion might be good when government decides to exercise power (and my weeds about this gov in particular and the historical events leading up to the issue at hand), because people should understand they should be a part of what power is exercised. I still don't know if i am misunderstanding, but it seemed you were kinda dismissing people being alarmed because this is kinda just what governments do -- "they do power, what's the alarm?". What i meant about fascism was not the line you suggested but the idea that someone might just glance over the entire issue by saying 'governments do power, the government is posturing to enhance this power, who cares?'. I was suggesting that a bunch of people submitting to the the state building power without involvement or question of the specifics of the powers being built is kind of fascistic. > Second, power is not equal to fascism. Personal freedoms rely on the power to defend them. You are not free to live if someone else is free to take your life. Even a loving and benevolent government requires the power to protect and care for it's constituents. (Now, don't misread that, and think I'm saying the US government is loving and benevolent, I'm making a broader point), and that power needs to be highly asymmetrical or it simply doesn't serve its purpose. If one state gets to build asymmetric power, that means other states don't have it, right? So.. those states under your definition here can no longer be loving and benevolent because they can't have enough highly asymmetric power in the reverse direction if something bad happens? Am i simplifying too much or missing your point? How does this work out? Is prematurely building asymmetry with technology really necessary as you say? What if there is symmetry in all countries, then someone does something bad, we all meet and see this person is behaving incorrectly, and then unite. No individual state has asymmetric power but asymmetric power was constructed and used as needed for this situation. Am i still way off? What are you trying to get across with your comments here? Are you dismissing people being concerned or am i misunderstanding?
zemo 5y ago
no, I agree with mrobot and I'm only commenting because you're framing my argument oddly and suggesting that I wouldn't agree with mrobot. I think your commentary is tautological reasoning that says the US Government's use of force is legitimate because the point of the US Government is to use force. I agree with mrobot's framing that your line of reasoning is authoritarian and proto-fascist. The "illegal shit" thing feels like a sidebar and not really important to mrobot's argument (and also a bit left-field), so I'm ignoring it entirely. Governments don't exist for the purposes of exercising force, they exist for things like paving the roads, building hospitals, etc; for the benefit of the commons. Greater specialization leads to greater productivity, and administering things like "how do we pave the roads" is a specialization that all of society benefits from that no one person or entity should bear the responsibility of paying for. Establishing the taxation and monetary structure by which those things are funded is a core function of the government, and a legitimate one in my opinion, as I would rather live in a society where I simply pay my taxes than a society in which I have to sit around and decide which roads projects to "invest" in. I would like to "hire" someone to do that, and I do so by voting for a Superintendent of Highways (or whatever it's called in your jurisdiction), who receives a pay from the government, which is funded in part by the taxes I pay. All of that seems totally legitimate and has nothing to do with the usage of force or the legitimization of state violence. The use of force by governments is indefensible far more often than it is defensible, and a core function of the citizenry is to question and investigate its governments use of force, and to use their voting rights to eject those in the government that would perpetrate indefensible uses of force against innocents, both domestic and foreign. We should always be questioning the government's usage of force. We should never, ever stop questioning the government's usage of force. There are some legitimate uses of force. For example, the Nazi government used force, that was bad. We can all probably agree on that. Other governments used force to oppose them. That was good. Again, probably not controversial. Clearly, not all governments' usage of force is equivalently legitimate. It appears that your position is that the US Government's usage of force is more legitimate than other governments' usage of force, because they're the US Government. The idea that the usage of force is more legitimate if it's the US Government than if it's a different government, which is how I interpret your position, is a position so obviously jingoistic that I am embarrassed to have to clarify that I think it's preposterous. Now let's say the US government formed a red team to attack the electrical grid of, I dunno, Iran. And let's say the Iranian government thought "we sure would like to have a blue team, let's buy some blue team tools", and all the blue team tools were made by ... American companies. Would those American companies be barred from selling blue team tools to the Iranian government, which the Iranian government would use to defend themselves against American aggression? That, in effect, is my question. If these tools are legitimate tools, then other governments should have the ability to use them. If these tools are not legitimate tools, then no government should use them; not the US Government alone. That later position is what I'm interpreting these rules to mean: that these tools are dangerous, and so China shouldn't have them, but we're good guys, so don't worry, we can handle them safely. The rules aren't "you can't make tools that can be used to violate people's rights", the rules are "you can make and sell and profit off of making tools that can be used to violate people's rights so long as the customers are the US government and its friends, but not if the customers are governments we don't like". If those tools are illegitimate and prone to abuse, then I don't want my own government having them either! The ruling I want is "Don't make PRISM", not "You can sell PRISM to us but not to China". > The entire premise of government is that is assumes power over others. No I don't think that's at all the entire premise of government. I think that statement is terrifying and authoritarian, and it is so terrifying that I originally didn't want to engage you. Since you've chosen to attempt to speak for me, I felt it only fitting to clarify my position for anyone that may make the mistake of taking my silence for agreement.

mrobot 5y ago

> I was specifically avoiding commenting on the legitimacy and use of said powers and instead addressing only what I saw was the core premise of OP: That the US's desire for abilities (maybe that's a better word to use so that we don't conflate legal power with practical power, that is what is possible vs what is allowed) that others do not have is somehow wrong or strange. A core function of all governments, and one that government doesn't exist without, is power. You can't claim jurisdiction without the ability to enforce it. You kind of went off in the weeds and talked about a lot of things I wasn't saying anything about. Ya, i wrote too much without getting enough clarification, sorry. > The one point of yours I will respond to is this: >> I guess it just smells like fascism to me when you submit to this without like... actually thinking about the specifics of each power? Or letting them just spread illegal shit around the world? Maybe i misunderstand. This all seems weird. > Two things: First and foremost, I don't see how you drew a line from the U.S. preventing export of technologies that enable fascism to the U.S. 'spreading illegal shit'. Kind of a hard turn there, and not really what I, OP, or the article were commenting on. So i didn't mean to draw the line you describe there, i should be clearer in what i write. If i understand what you are going for by adding your comment to this issue, you were kind of dismissing anyone being "surprised or alarmed", and you were maybe a little annoyed anyone was even talking about it. I am not personally really surprised, but i was suggesting alarm and discussion might be good when government decides to exercise power (and my weeds about this gov in particular and the historical events leading up to the issue at hand), because people should understand they should be a part of what power is exercised. I still don't know if i am misunderstanding, but it seemed you were kinda dismissing people being alarmed because this is kinda just what governments do -- "they do power, what's the alarm?". What i meant about fascism was not the line you suggested but the idea that someone might just glance over the entire issue by saying 'governments do power, the government is posturing to enhance this power, who cares?'. I was suggesting that a bunch of people submitting to the the state building power without involvement or question of the specifics of the powers being built is kind of fascistic. > Second, power is not equal to fascism. Personal freedoms rely on the power to defend them. You are not free to live if someone else is free to take your life. Even a loving and benevolent government requires the power to protect and care for it's constituents. (Now, don't misread that, and think I'm saying the US government is loving and benevolent, I'm making a broader point), and that power needs to be highly asymmetrical or it simply doesn't serve its purpose. If one state gets to build asymmetric power, that means other states don't have it, right? So.. those states under your definition here can no longer be loving and benevolent because they can't have enough highly asymmetric power in the reverse direction if something bad happens? Am i simplifying too much or missing your point? How does this work out? Is prematurely building asymmetry with technology really necessary as you say? What if there is symmetry in all countries, then someone does something bad, we all meet and see this person is behaving incorrectly, and then unite. No individual state has asymmetric power but asymmetric power was constructed and used as needed for this situation. Am i still way off? What are you trying to get across with your comments here? Are you dismissing people being concerned or am i misunderstanding?

zemo 5y ago

no, I agree with mrobot and I'm only commenting because you're framing my argument oddly and suggesting that I wouldn't agree with mrobot. I think your commentary is tautological reasoning that says the US Government's use of force is legitimate because the point of the US Government is to use force. I agree with mrobot's framing that your line of reasoning is authoritarian and proto-fascist. The "illegal shit" thing feels like a sidebar and not really important to mrobot's argument (and also a bit left-field), so I'm ignoring it entirely. Governments don't exist for the purposes of exercising force, they exist for things like paving the roads, building hospitals, etc; for the benefit of the commons. Greater specialization leads to greater productivity, and administering things like "how do we pave the roads" is a specialization that all of society benefits from that no one person or entity should bear the responsibility of paying for. Establishing the taxation and monetary structure by which those things are funded is a core function of the government, and a legitimate one in my opinion, as I would rather live in a society where I simply pay my taxes than a society in which I have to sit around and decide which roads projects to "invest" in. I would like to "hire" someone to do that, and I do so by voting for a Superintendent of Highways (or whatever it's called in your jurisdiction), who receives a pay from the government, which is funded in part by the taxes I pay. All of that seems totally legitimate and has nothing to do with the usage of force or the legitimization of state violence. The use of force by governments is indefensible far more often than it is defensible, and a core function of the citizenry is to question and investigate its governments use of force, and to use their voting rights to eject those in the government that would perpetrate indefensible uses of force against innocents, both domestic and foreign. We should always be questioning the government's usage of force. We should never, ever stop questioning the government's usage of force. There are some legitimate uses of force. For example, the Nazi government used force, that was bad. We can all probably agree on that. Other governments used force to oppose them. That was good. Again, probably not controversial. Clearly, not all governments' usage of force is equivalently legitimate. It appears that your position is that the US Government's usage of force is more legitimate than other governments' usage of force, because they're the US Government. The idea that the usage of force is more legitimate if it's the US Government than if it's a different government, which is how I interpret your position, is a position so obviously jingoistic that I am embarrassed to have to clarify that I think it's preposterous. Now let's say the US government formed a red team to attack the electrical grid of, I dunno, Iran. And let's say the Iranian government thought "we sure would like to have a blue team, let's buy some blue team tools", and all the blue team tools were made by ... American companies. Would those American companies be barred from selling blue team tools to the Iranian government, which the Iranian government would use to defend themselves against American aggression? That, in effect, is my question. If these tools are legitimate tools, then other governments should have the ability to use them. If these tools are not legitimate tools, then no government should use them; not the US Government alone. That later position is what I'm interpreting these rules to mean: that these tools are dangerous, and so China shouldn't have them, but we're good guys, so don't worry, we can handle them safely. The rules aren't "you can't make tools that can be used to violate people's rights", the rules are "you can make and sell and profit off of making tools that can be used to violate people's rights so long as the customers are the US government and its friends, but not if the customers are governments we don't like". If those tools are illegitimate and prone to abuse, then I don't want my own government having them either! The ruling I want is "Don't make PRISM", not "You can sell PRISM to us but not to China". > The entire premise of government is that is assumes power over others. No I don't think that's at all the entire premise of government. I think that statement is terrifying and authoritarian, and it is so terrifying that I originally didn't want to engage you. Since you've chosen to attempt to speak for me, I felt it only fitting to clarify my position for anyone that may make the mistake of taking my silence for agreement.