HN

Comments (157)

• Menu

  xbar
  Exactly what everyone said when Patriot Act was passed and renewed repeatedly.America permanently traded away basic freedoms for the bogus promise of safety in the shadow of fear. And the Supreme Court was too scared to stop it despite its obvious constitutional problems. Crying eagle photos in chain-emails were sufficient propaganda to keep it in place.
• Menu

  Animats
  Yes. History will record that bin Laden won. There's a pre-9/11 book about bin Laden, "The Man Who Declared War on America". Bin Laden was interviewed.Consider the situation at the end of the Clinton administration. The US was at peace. The Soviet Union was gone. The US got along with China and Russia. No major enemies remained. The federal budget was balanced. Bin Laden looked at that, and realized that America had to be weakened before it could be defeated. That was his plan.Mission accomplished.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden:_The_Man_Who_Declare...
• Menu

  marssaxman
  This seemed obvious to me at the time. It was hard to understand why people in the cultural mainstream let themselves get swept up in it. I felt like I lost my country, back then, as they pretty much all went off into crazyland together.
• noduerme
  I agree that 9/11 primed America for totalitarianism, but as someone who was tear gassed protesting our invasion of Iraq and the Patriot Act, I don't think we're living in an autocracy. I've lived in too many autocratic countries now to think that that's anywhere close to the truth..America is living in an anarchic zone between a failed or wannabe autocratic regime and two anti-government movements, one right-wing and one left-wing. It's a nutty situation, but it definitely prevents either party from implementing anything even remotely resembling autocratic rule, to the extent that term has meaning in any other part of the world. Any sort of objective look at American political debate makes this patently obvious.
• solidsnack9000
  Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#1750sIt's time to reconsider some of what we bought.
• agnosticmantis
  Any policy/weapon/tech used against an outgroup (e.g. brown people across the ocean) can and will eventually be used against the ingroup (citizens voting for it) by an inner ingroup.Sooner or later any ingroup will itself be divided into an inner ingroup in power and a powerless outer ingroup who'll be treated just like the old outgroup.
• maciejw
  I recommend a book 'Silk Roads' by Peter Frankopan. It’s an attempt to show world’s history as a continuous movement of center of civilizational gravity. It’s not without flaws, but interesting nonetheless.Frankopan describes most of modern US history as a series of blunders. This approach is maybe a bit harsh, but it shows how difficult it is for a dominant power to stay on top.I would summarise the book with a sentence „When you reach the top, the seeds of your decline are already planted”. In fact you can look at China or India - future dominant powers, and guess which of their flaws will make them fall.
• Menu

  chaseadam17
  we're at the stage of the cycle where we know things are wrong but we don't care enough to do anything about them. unfortunately, it might not be until we live through the consequences that we can muster the energy to care enough again.
• Menu

  NordStreamYacht
  FTA:"In 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy."I like the sly use of "what they saw" - typical British snark.
• Menu

  SubiculumCode
  The elevation of the Executive branch the last and this century has led to this primordial autocracy. Say no to the royal perogative, and accept the more limited powers of Execution of Law.https://jach.law.wisc.edu/exec-power-royal-prerogative-found...
• Menu

  Barrin92
  >in 1776 the American colonists rebelled against what they saw as the arbitrary and tyrannical British monarchy.although they didn't just do that, the American founders also articulated the point that the article seems to present as some new insight. That permanent foreign military involvements and the state it requires will eventually diminish freedom at home, that was why many of them wanted to avoid emulating the British empire.Given that papers like the Economist used to regularly be staunch defenders of these interventions until they went wrong, and only ever seemed to disavow them for their practical outcomes rather than in principle they might want to do some reflecting on that.
• jdw64
  In democracy, there is a distinction between peacetime power and wartime power, and in a wartime power state, there is an inherent affinity with authoritarianism. After 9/11, the political language in the United States saw a revival of terms like 'state of emergency' and 'enemy within.' The moment the government is granted the authority to define who the 'enemy' is, the gun inevitably turns toward the citizens. The reason is simple: those in power come to see the state as an extension of themselves, and anyone who speaks against them becomes labeled as the 'enemy.'On top of this, the limitations of the petrodollar system are becoming increasingly apparent. When it worked well in the past, economic distribution could be used to suppress dissatisfaction — the American middle class generation is a case in point. But as dollar hegemony weakens and resource allocation becomes more difficult, the ruling class typically begins to replace economic rewards with emotional rewards like fear and hostility. They point fingers and say, 'Your enemy is these people.' When the system cannot grow the pie, the most efficient resource allocation for authoritarianism is to forcefully suppress internal divisions through coercion. Perhaps the dollar system itself might be a fundamentally flawed system.
• TripleFFF
  Actually, it was the acceptance of blatantly and provably wrong information used to justify attacking an unrelated country and then deciding it didn't warrant any further investigation, justification or consequences that proved American fascism
• Mistletoe
  After 9/11 is when the country I loved began its descent into this mutated form, a country I don’t recognize today.
• rob74
  > Less than a month after 9/11 President George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan, starting a war that would last for 20 years and kill more than 6,000 American military personnel and contractors before its ignominious end....and again (despite the Economist being British), the US-centric view that led to Trump declaring that NATO has never done anything for the US. In fact, after the US was the first (and so far only) country to invoke NATO article 5 after the 9/11 attacks, NATO troops were also sent to Afghanistan, and Wikipedia lists the following military casualty numbers:USA: 2420UK: 457Canada: 159France: 90Germany: 62Italy: 53Others: 338more details, including deaths per million population, where Georgia and Denmark are before the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_casualties_in_Afghan...
• 0xbadcafebee
  The war on terror was a great example of doublethink. First there's the name, which is redundant (war is already terrible/terrorizing). Then there's the fact that we inspired 9/11 to begin with. We trained and funded Al Qaeda in their fight with the Russians. Then we inserted ourselves into Middle East politics for financial reasons (we invaded Iraq the first time after Saddam threatened to take over the global supply of oil, which we were heavily dependent on with a secret deal with Saudi Arabia propping up the petrodollar). Finally we committed terrorism by razing Iraq and Afghanistan, destabilizing the entire region, illegally renditioning/torturing people and keeping them indefinitely in prison without a trial, growing the world-wide heroin trade, and giving birth to more radical militant groups (we directly caused the creation of ISIS and helped strengthen the Taliban). Our War on Terror birthed more terror in the Middle East at one time than has ever happened in history.The War on Terror was also an early sign of kleptocracy in the US Executive by conservatives. There was massive waste, fraud and abuse, in the billions of dollars. People working in the executive directly profited by making sure their corporations won bids, and dollars sent overseas just vanished. The people who decided to wage war got rich off it. (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/opinion/afghanistan-war-e...)
• Apocryphon
  It arguably polarized the public, paving the way to today's sharp ideological divisions, because political differences suddenly were treated as matters of life and death compared to the laid-back '90s.
• digitaltrees
  Before conservatives hurled TDS at democrats they called them unpatriotic when they said the war on terror would undermine civil liberties. Its rather annoying to see a title like this.
• Menu

  jmyeet
  That's just not looking back far enough. The war on terror was a continuation. I'd say we're seeing the results of not stringing up all the slave owners after the Civil War.American industrialists going back to the robber baron era and beyond have always loved autocracy, specifically fascism. This was heightened by the fear of communism. When FDR was elected, there was an attempted coup (ie the business plot [1]). Hitler was a fan of Henry Ford and named him in Mein Kampf. The Nazi regime enjoyed a certain amount of popularity in the US. There was a rally by the German American Bund in Madison Square Gardens in 1939. But FDR gave concessions to the working class that we still enjoy today (eg Social Security).After WW2, we decided to make an enemy of Stalin (again, because communism). Thousands of former Nazis emigrated to the US (and, no, not just Operation Paper Clip; they were also in the CIA and FBI). Former Nazis gained high positions in the West German military and ultimatly NATO (eg Adolf Heuzinger [2]).The mere existence of the Soviet Union forced the US government to give more concessions to the working class. The 1950s were incredibly prosperous as a result, in an era when the top marginal tax rate was 91% and the ratio of CEO to median wage was a fraction of what it is now.The Fall of the Soviet Union was about the worst thing that could happen for normal Americans because suddenly there was no counterbalance to US global hegemony. The 1990s saw the Democrats abandon the New Deal in favor of Reagan economics and policies despite ~60 years of almost unbroken control of Congress up until that point. They then sowed the seeds for the destruction of American manufacturing and having an economy completely focused on hoarding land and housing. The 1990s is really where that began to go out of control.My point is that history didn't begin with the war on terror. 9/11 itself was blowback from American imperialism that had been around since the 19th century.I'd say if anything primed America for autocracy it was the domino effect from desegregation. This led to the political activation of the evangelical movement (no, it wasn't abortion) and evagelicals are primed to be followers. Add to this that there's no effective opposition because the Democrats decided to be Republican Lite and here we are.All of this came about because a handful of very wealthy people wanted to be even wealthier at the expense of everyone else.[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Heusinger
• throwitaway222
  Bush did far more evil things and non-legal killings than Trump. He CREATED Ice, homeland security, etc.. So yeah, Bush was THE authoritarian, no need to jump forward 15 years, that's just TDS. Trump for the most part is just reinforcing existing laws, something that simply stopped happening during Biden's term. If you really think Trump is more authoritarian, then you forgot.Never Forget.
• Menu

  1970-01-01
  I just don't buy this narrative. What primed the USA for decline was it's new allergy to manufacturing, addiction to social media, and Trump taking his spot as POTUS twice. If anything, these wars were something for everyone to worry about, which involved actual critical thinking. They were nowhere near the root cause.
• arjie
  There's always some kind of monocausal influence claimed, but really that was like the Boer War in the early 1900s. America was certainly at top power in the last twenty years, but its alliance was already fracturing. The Western NATO members were pushing more of their productive capacity into social services and forming strong dependencies on Russian fossil fuels. China's ascendance also meant that the encirclement that US's presence in Europe + Taiwan + Japan (and those governments themselves) kept was going to need to be extra tight.But Europe couldn't keep herself together, Taiwan was constrained by circumstances to not defence-spend-up and Japan is just moribund despite attempts to rebuild. Realistically, the US kept everyone together for some 40 years after the Berlin Wall fell and that's a pretty good run. Two generations in "Whitey's on the Moon" is a resurgent and wide culture, and China outproduces any other nation while domestically and internationally repudiating that culture.Perhaps we were doomed to this path by the inexorable nature of success. Two generations have been born and enough time has passed that people have forgotten what it is like to fear the "awesome Soviet threat". The modern empire was a loose confederation of US-Europe and the East-Asian satrapies with a capital in DC perhaps but other capitals in London and Paris as well. And just like that Boer War showed the old British Empire could bleed so will Iran have done the same this time.Doubtless when the need arises we will sweep away environmental law and historical protection law in order to build our factories but already the appetite for war is gone from America. Why Europe couldn't keep herself together and why America couldn't retain the alliance and why the modern Not-Empire fell will probably be written about, but I think it's worth remembering Kipling at the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria who was then queen over an indomitable empire: Far-called, our navies melt away; On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! Or in the more elementary school warning manner: "This too shall pass". For my part, I certainly hope that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth" and that means our mighty opponents should not prevail because that is not their way of life. And certainly I do not think that lashing out at our allies or attempting to take for ourselves land which is nonetheless in this larger Not Empire is the way to ensure that.At best, I hope that the Iran War teaches us where we are weak and we are wise enough to learn this, and I hope that the Not-Empire heals and order is restored in this world.
• Menu

  Pxtl
  There are people walking around today who voted Bush twice and regretted it and now voted Trump three times and regretted it.I wonder what war they'll regret next?
• IAmGraydon
  https://archive.is/CBCZM
• rjejrkrk
  [dead]
• Menu

  40four
  [flagged]
• dartharva
  Juvenile ad hominem
• Menu

  bobjordan
  I subscribed to the economist from ~2008 for 10+ years before I cancelled. I'm mostly a centrist but admit to leaning libertarian these days, I think both sides do not represent "democracy" anymore, I do not trust the Democrats any more than Republicans in this regard. One only has to look at how the Democrats have turned California into a single party state to stop taking serious their tropes about anyone endangering "Democracy" more than they have when they've got a chance. Reading this article reinforces that I've only saved money and had time for other things than reading these thought pieces from biased echo chamber academics.
• Menu

  yanhangyhy
  What do people really think about Mearsheimer's book? (John Mearsheimer, co-author of "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy") His analysis and interpretation of the Jewish lobby provide excellent answers to a lot of questions. Perhaps this is a topic that isn't easy to discuss openly?I don't want to make a sweeping statement that the U.S. is Israel's lapdog, but it is true that regarding many policies—especially those concerning the Middle East—the U.S. is essentially swayed by Israel.Of course, right now J.D. Vance might represent a kind of domestic counter-force in the U.S. that leans more toward 'America First' rather than prioritizing Israel. Rubio is also a more pragmatic individual, and Trump is not your traditional politician who just blindly follows Israel's orders. Unfortunately, Trump might lose the next election, and the Democratic Party will absolutely revert the country back to its past status as a vassal state to Israel."
• Menu

  rjzzleep
  It's interesting that decades into this we are still calling the massmurder and pillaging of dozens of countries, turning entire geographic regions into war ridden wastelands with slave markets, a "war on terror". Meanwhile the leaders of those so-called terror groups are praised and invited to ALL the western capitals.
• Menu

  applicative
  That my every movement is known to Google, Meta, Apple, et al, is much more disturbing than any autocratic effect of the dismal Patriot Act. The idea that ‘the state’ is the thing to fear, or even worth a moments’ thought, is basically childish and premodern. Witness eg the apotheosis of Snowden for revealing nugatory CIA corner cutting … in the same historical period when the above mentioned are completely hoovering up and relentlessly analyzing every datum about every American.