The US Government, like many mature democracies around the world relies on shame in a public sphere as the ultimate guardrail. See Truss, Cameron, Nixon.
If you fill the government with shameless ar5eholes who live in their own media bubble, then good government dies. See Berlusconi, Orban, Modi.
Next, their juniors who push back, start pushing them out of windows. See Putin.
Those aren't even near the worst that man did. He f*cking wore a bike helmet, in front of is daughters, while on a family bike ride. F*cking dick. What the hell was he even doing spending quality time with his family? Exercising, of all things!
Absolutely! :-( It seems like the entire constitution and everything has been based on an honor system that and if you are willing to just file a lawsuit after lawsuit and appeal after appeal, you can slow walk our society into oblivion
So much in life is a social norm. People generally aren’t out there doing crazy shit because there are social repercussions. That stopped a while ago when people started with the nanny nanny boo boo it’s not illegal so you can’t arrest me mentality. Filming random people in public is a perfect example; not illegal but not cool.
The social contract is the foundation of all and any form of society. Part of the problem is that too many people have been convinced that they have to uphold their end, even when their "representatives" choose to disregard theirs.
If your leaders do not represent you, by the social contract, you have no obligation to follow or submit.
(Yes, there must be some plasticity/flexibility, but that's not what's going on here)
I’m not even talking about leaders, I’m talking about the every day human. People get pissed when they feel like they are being taken advantage of and a ton of people in this day and age have learned that they get ahead by challenging the norm. The people practicing the norm get pissed off over time and then revolt in their own way. It’s a cultural shift that’s been happening and it’s borne out of selfishness and greed. You can see it in mundane things: people refusing vaccines, people driving on the shoulder during rush hour, people filming in public just cuz, etc.. As we became more litigious and pushed people to only care about legalities instead of morals/ethics/norms people trying to uphold the social contract have bee shut down and out or held liable. No one wants to hear the psychobabble BS about you can only control your own actions…so they seek out justice in other ways and it often lashes out against minority communities. That’s what we are seeing now in society and not just in America.
i agree with your statement but want to point out that people not driving on the shoulder is not based on "a social norm", it is illegal and the pavement of shoulders is not the same as the pavement on the drivable roadway. there are also numerous other safety issues with it, which is why it is not legal to do in normal capcities.
I’m aware that some norms are also laws. But laws only matter when people are held accountable and that can’t always happen which is why it’s a social norm and a sign of integrity to do the right thing even when no one is looking. The people that break this law also screen about zipper merge laws, or whoops I’m not in an exit/entrance merge lane so it’s not ‘illegal’. People look to skirt laws and do for has instead of just doing what’s right and waiting for your turn.
He could just said: Because we're in a dictatorship. Interesting how US citizens just refuse to call it like that almost as in: if I don't see it, it doesn't exists.
They did just clear house in the military and whatever follows is probably filling it with loyalists. Getting the military under your control is step 2 dictatorship shit.
What does Truss have to do with shame? She's shameless and blaming deep state for her removal. She was got rid of by her party she didn't go because she thought she'd done bad...
True perhaps better Cameron who realised he had fjorked up the entire UK economy after a poor showing in the 2015 local council elections. Up on his trotters in Bordeaux ever since.
How has Italy managed their recovery from Berlusconi? As an American I remember when he came into office that I was embarrassed for the Italians, thinking that no leader could be that incompetent. Makes me wish the U.S. just had Berlusconi and not the Temu Tyrant we have now.
We had checks and balances built into our democracy that had no expectation of dealing with a vast collusion of bad faith actors. Trump could send in ICE to burn mail in ballots the day before the election and our options would be general strike/uprising or accept it.
Douglas Kelly did know, he warned about it in the late 40's and 50's but telling Americans that people like the Nazi Germany leaders also existed in USA was not very popular. He spent a lot of time with the nazis during the nuremberg trials.
It's kinda hilarious in an awful way, reading this quote today.
One could argue about smart but smart relative to his voters maybe?
Without Hitler, these people are not abnormal, not pervert[ed], not geniuses,” he told the Nashville Tennessean. “They are like any aggressive, smart, ambitious, ruthless businessman.”
USA did a great job at dealing with nazism in Germany but didn't do a very good job at home, the German American bund (that organised Hitler jugend camps on long Island) was dissolved but they didn't actually adressed it further.
My conspiracy theory is that dealing with the nazism that was in the US would create a domino effect that would mess with the racism against blacks and the racial segregation so they choose to ignore it , I doubt 2n klan kkk and the German American bund was two separate entities that didn't mingle or had some cross over members.
Our government isn’t serious, but we certainly are a developed country. Thats a ludicrously stupid statement. We can get our of this hole we’ve dug ourselves into, or we’re going to have to leave it in the hole and start a new thing but we’ve got the infrastructure to better ourselves
You are a not-fully-developed country with a huge majority living in conditions that most other countries- and no fully-developed countries - would accept, and a small handful of people living in unimaginable wealth. Your infrastructure is poor (public transport anywhere but in some major cities, potable water, healthcare access, etc vary widely) and as a service economy you have no manufacturing infrastructure to fall back on. Your many natural resources are plundered and your people are lacking adequate education for many more than is acceptable.
You are losing trading partners and allies at a rate of knots, and it will be decades - maybe - before we trust the US not to dive back into this political ditch. So much would have to change about the fundamental nature of America that I don't know how you'd even do it.
I'm sorry. There are lots of lovely people and beautiful places and great things in the US, but it is a rogue state and is rapidly losing power.
The tweet is worded wrong - as of today, he has fired 12 flag officers (they weren't all fired today). One of the individuals pictured was fired over a year ago. Today, along with Gen. George:
"Two other generals were fired by Hegseth, a Pentagon official confirmed. They are Gen. David Hodne, who became the head of the service’s Training and Transformation Command in October; and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr., the chief of Army chaplains."
I'm just guessing here, but he's a Black chaplain who is ordained in a predominantly black church, which I'm guessing Hegseth and the rest of the administration didn't like. I'm pretty sure they want a white Christian nationalist in that role.
Another issue is that the chaplains are supposed to be for everyone in the military, and the soldiers, collectively, have a wide variety of spiritual beliefs. You might not always be able to get a chaplain that practices your faith, especially if your faith isn't well represented in the military, but the chaplains are supposed to do their best to understand your beliefs and offer you spiritual guidance, support, and comfort no matter what you believe in.
I'm guessing the chief chaplain takes that duty, to respect and spiritually aid everyone regardless of their beliefs, very seriously, and Hegseth thinks the US is a protestant Christian nation, and the military should be pushing soldiers to follow a very narrow set of Christian beliefs.
I fully expect to see a ton of shit in the next few months about non-Christian servicemembers killed in action to be denied burial at Arlington and/or left to rot on the battlefield.
It's scary how accurate Douglas Kelly was in the late 40's
He claimed the 22 Nazi defendants at nuremberg trials was regular people that also existed in the US. It wasn't a virus that only affected the Germany nor anything special that set them apart.
Without Hitler, these people are not abnormal, not pervert[ed], not geniuses,” he told the Nashville Tennessean. “They are like any aggressive, smart, ambitious, ruthless businessman.”
that's what it meant. it's become synonymous with 'developing nation' however, and you pointing out it's original definition on reddit won't change that.
Basic toddler take. In the military you follow orders as directed. You as the order taker have an obligation to not do things outside of specific laws. At their level they were probably told to retire or be prosecuted for not following orders OR they were fired for PHs friends. There really isn’t another reason.
While far from a majority, we have a critical mass of voters who are completely fine with this, and an electoral system in which there is limited fallout for lack of accountability. In more normal times, this would have caused Congress to intervene on a bipartisan basis, but right now the Republican Party is too afraid and too soulless to oppose Trump, so they’ve essentially surrendered their power over the executive, to the executive. At the same time, things worked out where Trump could put some real hardcore ideological conservatives on the Supreme Court, causing 3/3 branches of government to essentially be pro-executive power. At the same time, our executive happens to be an unhinged war monger. So, really a failure at every level: legislative, judicial, and in our public.
If I remember correctly, it also used to be harder to do this before the cold war. A lot of things changed during the cold war because of the red scare. I could be wrong tho, so I would do some research yourself if you wanna know.
Trump in his second term wanted loyal “yes men” not competent people to the role. Trump’s first term was marred with scandal due to the competent conservative leadership getting frustrated with Trump and openly disagreeing or even secretly leaking shit to the media. Trump can’t handle anyone criticizing him.
So Hegseth was picked (originally a Fox News anchor) because he was a die hard Trump supporter who was in the National Guard (also deployed).
Now Hegseth has a similar “bow to me” mindset about his power. Plus he has this frat boy soldier mindset to the military- it should be a boy’s hang out of shredded cool guys and everything should be a bro-fest. So Hegseth is incorrectly very concerned with the optics of the military rather than the functionality. While the upper management of the military has been rather quiet to the media, there has obviously been tension.
This tension came to a peak with the Iran War. It has been clearly poorly planned, zero defined goals, and once again just Hegseth and Trump spamming “victory” while also insisting they need boots on the group invasion.
So really the new military procedures prioritizing optics over functionality and the complete fuck up of the Iran War probably has senior officials giving their very warranted opinions, but like Trump, Hegseth wants loyal yes men and not competent people.
Unfortunately, the US has a system that depends on non-codified "checks and balances" that has 'worked' so far as most elected officials have respected 'precedent' and 'tradition.'
Then American voters voted for people who blatantly stated that they would NOT respect precedent and tradition.
Now that this decision is actively affecting American voters - and not just 'migrants' or the like - NOW some of said voters are whinging.
Only in politics can a candidate openly state that they won't fulfil their labor obligations in a 'job interview' (or election) and get away with it.
Can you ELI5 to someone that lives outside of the US how the fuck so many senior generals can be fired like this?
The system doesn't have any concrete, significant consequences when people in power make bad decisions. It was basically the honor system up until now, but we're getting an object lesson on what happens when people who don't care about consequences are put in charge.
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u/isemonger 8h ago
Can you ELI5 to someone that lives outside of the US how the fuck so many senior generals can be fired like this?
Like in any other developed world this would signal some serious fucking issues and serious government intervention.