6 ms·

The US is not a country governed by the rule of the law

• 9dev 1mo ago
  at least not by universal human rights, apparently
  • schubidubiduba 1mo ago
    At this point it is neither
• avazhi 1mo ago
  [flagged]
• spl757 1mo ago
  The US is currently governed by a dictator propped up by an oligarchy that can only do that because of the Citizens United supreme court decision. Until Citizens United is mitigated, and that appears to be starting to happen as states make laws that state you can't be on the ballot in their state if you take large, anonymous campaign donations from people who will want, and get, a return on their investment. Hawaii is either considering, or has passed just such a law. We don't even need a plurality of states to make similar laws, just the right ones. Look at a chart of campaign spending prior to, and following the Citizens United decision. Spoiler alert, it looks like a hockey stick standing upright.
  • mrcwinn 1mo ago
    An elected dictator with a nearing term limit. America continues to innovate!
    • shigawire 1mo ago
      Competitive authoritarianism is a closer term that IR people use.
    • spl757 1mo ago
      One I belive has no intention of leaving office, and is trying to prevent the midterm elections from happening. Since the founding of the US, no elections have been delayed, or missed. Not once. Not during WWII, not after 9/11, never. The failure that allowed trump to happen stems from one thing. Lack of imagination. The system in the US assumes that all of the politicians are at least attempting to argue in good faith. trump is more like a hurricane. he rolled in, fucked everthing up, and will roll out. After November when the Democrat party has control of the upper and lower houses of congress, there are going to be investigations, grand jury indictments, and people will go to prison. They will also begin the work of closing some of the loopholes that were used to bypass how the government is supposed to operate.
    • sofixa 1mo ago
      Putin also had a nearing term limit, but he found a transparent way around it. He didn't have "Putin next election year" merch for it, so I guess you can say this is innovation.
  • inigyou 1mo ago
    Citizens United is a scapegoat here. The people genuinely want what they voted for.
    • shigawire 1mo ago
      But the people generally seem to want whatever the person who spends the most money on media says they should want.
      • BobaFloutist 1mo ago
        Harris rose over twice as much money as Trump in 2024.
    • spl757 1mo ago
      Maybe you are right, and it's a scapegoat here. CU was and continues to be a disaster for this country, and I don't think enough attention can be brought to it until it is mitigated.
    • spl757 1mo ago
      No citizen voted for Citizens United. So it's inaccurate to say that we did. Citizens United was a decision by an unelected group of federal judges we call the Supreme Court when a case was brought before them to determine if chump could have Navy Seal Team 6 assinate a political opponent. They ruled, that yeah, he can. Supreme court justices are appointed for life and have no oversight or ethical restrictions. They are bound by duty to be impartial. They are not. The Supreme court is not supposed to MAKE law, that's the job of Congress, they are supposed to interpret the law. The Citizens United supreme court decision made new law, but it was made by people that were not elected by the citizens of this country. They are not acting in good faith, and are clearly in it to help chump.
  • Supermancho 1mo ago
    Bribery and collusion existed well before Citizen's United, notably through shell PACs. Now there is a clear methodology that is less troublesome. Maybe behavior was amplified, but I doubt it.
• shuwix 1mo ago
  It's governed by the wicked version of Anglo-Saxxon law. In some cases it works much better than "criminal's have rights, victims doesn't" Continental law system in Europe. In other cases, it's insanity. In normal World, criminals have rights for any kind of defense. And that's good, because government have power to make anyone "criminal". Total breach of privacy by US government is a mirror to shitload of problems US has. Europe js heading same direction (both the problems & government solutions).
  • embedding-shape 1mo ago
    I think even by the second word you're outside bicycling, US isn't governed by anything at this point, except some rich people. > In some cases it works much better than "criminal's have rights, victims doesn't" Continental law system in Europe. What on earth are you talking about, "victims" definitively have rights in most European countries, but the fact you seemingly think there is one "Continental law system in Europe" clearly shows you have zero idea what you're talking about, Europe isn't one country with one law system across the continent... Sometimes, it's better just to say nothing :)
    • paganel 1mo ago
      > Europe isn't one country with one law system across the continent... The Napoleonic Code is indeed pervasive across the continent. And, ignoring that, we have EU law, which is supra-statal law that most certainly and de facto has come to replace/impose on "local" laws.
      • homarp 1mo ago
        https://lawshun.com/article/what-is-the-relationship-between-eu-law-and-national-law https://lawshun.com/article/what-is-the-relationship-between... explains the complex relation between EU law and national law. in a nutshell, EU law takes precedence over conflicting national laws in areas where the EU has competence. While EU law is directly applicable or requires transposition into national law, member states retain autonomy in areas outside EU competence. National courts are obligated to interpret domestic law in line with EU law. National Constitutional Court/Supreme court, occasionally challenge EU law’s supremacy.
• shrubby 1mo ago
  Or basic humanity
• unsupp0rted 1mo ago
  Everybody of any means around the world seems to be eager to invest in this country not governed by the rule of law
• DeusExMachina 1mo ago
  Except that the UDHR is not the rule of law. It is a mere declaration, as specified at the top of the page, that "is widely recognized as having inspired [...] the adoption of more than seventy human rights treaties" That does not make it an enforceable law. Moreover, treaties are agreements between countries, not laws, which a country can violate at will. People might create supranational organizations like the UN or the ECHR, but that has, untimately, no enforcement power because that always belongs to sovereign countries. Violating a treaty can also lead to retaliation by other signatories or even war, but it still does not make a treaty law. It might well be that the US has specific laws that prevent charging a citizen when they wipe their phone. But that must be a law passed by the US legislature, not a "universal declaration".
  • rswail 1mo ago
    Not necessarily the same in every nation, but any treaty ratified by Congress in the United States has the same status as any law passed by Congress. It is subject to judicial review, but has equal standing. So the US cannot "violate [it] at will".
    • inigyou 1mo ago
      Sure it can, just like it can violate laws passed by Congress.
• ransom1538 1mo ago
  Yes. We need to respect all laws. I am strongly uphold the Peruvian Naval Law here in Michigan.
• Taek 1mo ago
  I get that the political system could be better, but having been to places that actually are not governed by the rule of law, I can assure you that the US is doing quite well on that front. When there is actually no rule of law, consequences include: + entire regions / areas where merely visiting those areas invites a highly non-trivial (think, more than 10% chance) chance of being kidnapped or murdered + every neighborhood and business has substantial, often military-grade private security + if credit exists at all, it exists outside of any formal banking structure and will have interest rates that are north of 30% APR, sometimes north of 100% APR. I've genuinely seen interest rates on credit as high as 2% *per day*, and these are rates that the local population is willing to pay for certain short term expenses (like food) + families that maintain good social relationships with the local police/militants/whoever-has-guns live substantially better lives than people without good social connections to the local authorities. + Travelers are told on repeat: "it's really not safe here for non-locals, you should stay inside and also reconsider being in this part of the world at all" + If the travelers are there for business reasons, they are probably assigned 24/7 armed guards (as many as 4 guards per traveler, each guard carrying full-auto weapons) by the locals, provided for free. And while the US maybe has a neighborhood here or there which might be like this, every part of every major city in the country has more rule of law than the above.
  • basisword 1mo ago
    When you can't trust your highest court is impartial the whole system is untrustworthy. Unfortunately the US system is designed in such a way that the highest court can't be trusted (life terms, appointed by the sitting president).
    • gottorf 1mo ago
      > the highest court can't be trusted (life terms, appointed by the sitting president) Do you really think that judges that have to run for reelection every few years can be more trusted to rule on cases fairly, according to the law, rather than bending to popular whims?
      • 1mo ago
• jckahn 1mo ago
  Also the legal system is not autistic. It's based on vibes more than anyone wants to admit.
  • deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
• ImJamal 1mo ago
  What country does not have a law against destruction of evidence? It seems like arresting a person for a law that most countries have is following the rule of law.
  • rdiddly 1mo ago
    Evidence of what? Had a crime been charged when the search was undertaken? You can't just declare things evidence in order to get unfettered access to them.
    • ImJamal 1mo ago
      That is not how any of this works. Destruction of evidence is a crime regardless if you have been charged with a crime. This is the case under both federal and Georgia law.
      • rdiddly 1mo ago
        Okay, and how are you supposed to know when your own property is evidence and when it's not, when you've committed no crime? That reasoning doesn't "work," so in fact that's not how it "works," it's simply unjust and presumes guilt.
        • ImJamal 1mo ago
          Georgia law requires "intent" and federal law requires "knowingly" doing it. Being charged with a crime is completely irrelevant. You probably should take 2 minutes and read the law since it would have completely answered your question. I would also say that in this case it is quite clear he intended and knowingly did this so he could be charged under either law. They were asking him for his phone in connection to an alleged crime and he provided the password which erases the phone.
          • rdiddly 1mo ago
            I'd rather have you answer it, so thanks. My point is that if intent or knowledge is required, that means you must be aware of a crime by you or someone else. Assuming your property has remained under your control, and that you have committed no crime (which is always supposed to be the presumption), the chief way by which you would find out that your own property, that you can usually destroy freely, is now deemed "evidence" and not to be destroyed, is by being charged with a crime involving said property. Until you are charged, you don't know it's evidence. So the charge is not irrelevant. Anyone can read the damn law, I'm saying the law is bullshit and rests on circular reasoning. Charging with destroying evidence will in some cases require presuming guilt for the crime the evidence supposedly supports.
• chermi 1mo ago
  A UN declared right is not legally binding in general AFAIK. Assuming I'm correct, your comment is non sequitur. Not that I agree at all what happened.
• UltraSane 1mo ago
  Judges have been stopping hundreds of things Trump has tried to do.
  • dredmorbius 1mo ago
    Lower courts. SCOTUS has overwhelmingly sided with the Administration. Not always, but quite often.
• thesmtsolver2 1mo ago
  This is the kind of comment that is considered informative and acceptable?
• linuxhansl 1mo ago
  While there are things less than ideal in the US, this is absolutely not the case. The "Rule of Law" applies to everybody, including the President (recent decisions of the supreme court not withstanding - though they are very unfortunate). You have provisions for the freedom of press, freedom of speech, to be free from unreasonable searches, a reliable court system, etc, etc. Searches at the border are murky legal territory, and I think that there is a problem here. You may also argue that the president and senate have too much power, or that gerrymandering is a serious problem (which it is). But from these you cannot conclude a general lawlessness. (I'm from North-Western Europe, living in the US for a few decades now, so I feel that I have at least some data to compare.)