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202 points akersten | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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ipython ◴[] No.45767903[source]
My concern is that we will end up in a state of perpetual government "shutdown". The republicans, instead of reopening the entire government, will simply choose agencies to fund in order to keep the pain felt by the American people just low enough so they don't get fired (ala office space).

Once that happens, Congress has basically iced itself out. Oversight from unfriendly government agencies? No worries, they're shut down because they're unpaid. And clearly this demonstrates the executive needs more power, since Congress is completely frozen. Finally, the Supreme Court is no longer an issue either, since that's not funded either.

Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

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colechristensen ◴[] No.45768067[source]
>Someone tell me why this couldn't happen.

Beware the ides of march.

During a constitutional crisis that doesn't seem to have an immediate resolution political violence should be expected from the inside as an attempt to reach a resolution. The last line of defense is that military leadership actually do have a pretty solid loyalty to the constitution and soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command.

nobody can gain loyalty anywhere near trump nor does anyone have close to the unhinged charisma

but the government is shut down there should be no expectation that there will be any agreement to half fund it and absent that there's not really any foreseeable mechanism for the treasury to start operating on a large scale entirely outside of the law

so i guess the other last line of defense is the bond market and foreign exchange markets which wouldn't respond well to dictatorial control of the treasury and the fed

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1. 0xbadcafebee ◴[] No.45768917[source]
> soldiers are pretty well trained to follow the chain of command

Actually, soldiers mostly follow the money. In Rome the the Praetorian Guard realized their power and started installing leaders. In developing nations with military coups, the soldiers back whoever will pay them. Yes, ideologically soldiers will follow a chain of command and conservative-anything; but practically speaking, they will follow whoever lets them rape and pillage and retire to a villa.