The Former President's Policies Pose a Threat to Civilized Society.
The internal and external initiatives – including the effort to overturn the election in the past to latest incursions and warnings – erode both domestic and international jurisprudence. However, the issue goes deeper.
They threaten the very concept of civilization itself.
A guiding principle of civilized society is to stop the more powerful from preying upon and using the less powerful. Failing that, we would be permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where might makes right prevails.
This ideal is embedded of America’s founding documents. It’s also the heart of the global system established after WWII advocated by the United States, which stresses multilateralism, democratic governance, human rights, and the rule of law.
However, it is a fragile principle, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their influence. Maintaining it necessitates that the powerful have enough integrity to abstain from seeking immediate gains, and that the rest of us demand responsibility when they fail.
Absolute power does not equal right. It makes for instability, upheaval, and war.
Every time people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful target and use those that are less so, the fabric of civilization unravels. Should such behavior are not contained, the structure collapses. Allowing it to persist, the world can plunge into disorder and conflict. History provides ample precedent.
We now inhabit a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than ever before. This creates conditions for the powerful to leverage their position against the weaker because they act with a sense of omnipotent.
The fortunes of a small group of billionaires is almost beyond comprehension. The reach of global industrial giants covers numerous countries. Advanced technology is likely to consolidate wealth and power further. The military might of the major powers is unprecedented in the annals of time.
Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant high court, the executive office has been turned into the most dominant and unchecked agent of the state in recent memory.
Consider this confluence and you see the threat.
A clear connection connects earlier lawless actions to ongoing menaces. These were founded upon the arrogance of omnipotence.
There is parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in wars of aggression, in expansive ambitions, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.
Yet, strength without restraint does not create right. It produces fragility, revolution, and bloodshed.
Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to constrain the influential also protect them. Absent these limits, their endless appetite for more power and wealth ultimately lead to their downfall – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.
This kind of contempt for legal order will plague the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilization – for a long time.
