Canada is moving further from US, not closer. Canadians who support Americans are in the minority at the moment.

I'm not sure how a new US president would be able to turn it around.. further more, what's to say that the president thereafter will follow suit? How about the next 5?

What matters is the taxi, not the checkers. Stuff like tax returns is window dressing.

You can't turn corrupt officials into honest ones by changing the laws they're already turning a blind eye to. And you can't use systems (such as the political parties and their donors/owners) that exist to further corruption to reign it in.

Americans need to want honest governance, and be willing to go to the mat for it. Until and unless there's a substantial engaged minority will to do so, changing the rules is just theater. And if the government was honest, the existing laws are sufficient. Nothing stops Congress from removing Trump and the Supreme Court tomorrow, save their own lack of interest in doing so.

Personally, I think the best solution is to abandon the federal government as unfit for the purpose. Build a new one to handle what may actually be needed from the states and other existing and new interstate and international organizations. This will not be easy (gross understatement) but I think it is still more likely to succeed than any attempt to fix the current Constitutional government.

It's becoming more obvious every day. And yeah, people in 1910 watched Europe dominate the world for about 1500 years. Yet it came to an end.

If you want to Speedrun the collapse, vote for trump. He sure is making a good job right now with diplomacy, lack of long term planning and just getting all your allies to hate you.

Besides that, you say to just pick up and leave as if it were that easy. And I suppose if I followed your advice, it could be. Get a divorce, not care about the kids (sorry, but I'm not bringing my daughters there), ignore the fact my parents are in their 80s, server all my friendships, likely end my career.

Not all freedoms are good. Or rather some bindings, like family and other loved ones, are worth it.

Your other morally correct option is to stand and fight.

> If you want to Speedrun the collapse, vote for trump.

This nonsense needs to stop. You can’t vote for him again unless he deigns to run for a lower office (unlikely). Term limits are real. America needs to start planning for the post-Trump era and hopefully mitigate further damage with a blue wave in the midterms. Or with non-MAGA republicans who might even return to actual fiscal conservatism.

Oh he will run again, and people will vote for him. The theory underpinning this is the fact that he did not serve consecutive terms and if you think that won’t work; all it takes is one party going along with it. And fuck you for downplaying what he is capable of.

If he tries, some states will keep him off the ballot and likely threaten secession if the feds attempt to force him through. That’s the point when doomers like you can decide to get your shit together and forge a compromise, or let the oligarchs have their way and light off a civil war.

The compromise is that corrupt officials on both sides need punished. Both sides need reform. Neither party should have the kind of power Trump has seized. We don’t fix this by voting in a Dem who goes on a GOP witch hunt without also rooting out corruption in the DNC. There has to be enough consensus to pass constitutional reform, and you don’t get there with extremism or hate.

> When America collapses it will definitely lead to societal collapse. The racial tensions are kept under control only because of the mirage of prosperity and equal opportunity. And when the mirage clears it will turn real ugly really fast.

You say that like you want it to happen. Continuing to harp on that future is a self fulfilling prophecy. If you want a better America first you have to envision it instead of tearing it down.

It has already started [1]. It has increased 100% since 2015. Just in the past decade alone. This is only reported hate crimes.

> If you want a better America first you have to envision it instead of tearing it down.

That ship has sailed long ago.

> American imperialism is well documented. We have military outposts all over the world. Puerto Rico is still in essence a colony.

Still not an Empire. You can call it an outward expansion or projection of power but not direct control. An Empire has direct control over colonies that send back tributes which run the Kingdom and give its residents prosperity, at the expense of residents of colonies who are taxed and deprived of their wealth. The tributes outweigh whatever growth is happening within the Kingdom itself. Puerto Rico or any of the military outposts are not equivalent. Puerto Rico does not run USA. USA losing Puerto Rico will not do anything to its economic or military power.

[1]: https://usafacts.org/articles/which-groups-have-experienced-...

[1] I'm not defending the behavior of border control here, but I also don't think we need to overreact to this one example which is exactly what is happening.

This is precisely the time to “overreact”. The government is clearly targeting dissidents and if we don’t “overreact” shit will get much worse.

We have kids sent to concentration camps. We have illegally deported U.S. citizens. The President has canceled monies allocated by Congress and signed into law. He is waging war against Iran without Congressional approval. He is openly selling pardons. The list goes on.

This isn’t enough to get you to “overreact”?

Really? You have no rights now!? Jeez. When did that start? Was it on Inauguration Day or was it like, the day after Trump was elected? Or does it go back to the Obama years? Did you lose your rights when the police could kill, main, or otherwise fuck you up in 2017 or so when Trump was elected the first time and then gain them back when Biden was elected? Or have you never had rights since you were born? I can't seem to recall when police had this special power to officially take away your rights but maybe you know?

It's strange. I also lost my rights as you mentioned yet the other day I prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster in public in front of a police cruiser and nothing happened. Can you believe it?

EDIT: Being in the position of not belonging to a group targeted for retribution by the government isn’t an indication of having rights. When black men who are legally carrying guns are murdered by police without consequence then we don’t truly have the right to own guns. It shows that if one ever becomes part of an out group then you too can be targeted.

Clearly you are not part of a targeted group so you feel safe and naively think nothing is amiss. This is ignorant foolishness.

-edit to your edit-

Black people still have rights even if some cops do some dumb, illegal thing.

Yeah, that's awful. As far as federal overreach of power goes, that's pretty inexcusable. I'd probably posit that COINTELPRO in the 60s was more insidious, but that doesn't discount this story individually being terrible.

I still maintain that America is not in the midst of its own demise and a comparison to East Germany is inaccurate.

Selectively detaining this guy, likely overreach.

Trying to get his phone's unlock code to go on a fishing expedition for whatever they can find, absolutely overreach.

But this guy catching felony charges for giving federal border police a duress PIN to wipe his phone when they asked for an unlock PIN? Not actually overreach.

You have the right to remain silent, not to lie to the police when detained (18 USC § 1001, and many state-level laws to the same effect also exist). Our justice system could not function if people had a right to lie to the police. Once you are detained, whether or not that detention is eventually determined to be lawful, destroying or disposing of your possessions to prevent police from accessing them is also generally a crime.

You fight abuses later, in court. Or, if you're going to use a duress PIN in the moment, you accept the legal consequences.

And yes, giving a duress PIN to wipe a phone when asked for an unlock PIN is a lie which may result in destruction of evidence. And no, the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations of whether something is a lie or whether it was technically the police who entered the code to wipe the phone. Proximate cause is a longstanding legal concept.

I think it's an interesting case that will get litigated in the courts. It seems they'll have to prove that the phone contained "evidence"; it could have just had embarrassing personal photos that he didn't want shared. When a house is raided and someone flushes a toilet, can courts assume they flushed drugs, or does that have to be proven?

I hope he's found not guilty, but either way this definitely is not the "sky is falling", "we're almost a police state" case that folks here are making it out to be. It's a very narrow and novel line.

Game it out at the systems level. If the prosecution had to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that what was destroyed would have been evidence, then destruction of evidence would be functionally permissible whenever done competently.

> ...either way this definitely is not the "sky is falling", "we're almost a police state" case that folks here are making it out to be. It's a very narrow and novel line.

Agreed. And activists should generally work with lawyers in order to be familiar with areas of the law they are likely to encounter in the course of their activism. Especially activists who travel internationally.

Well yes, but ... is that not the case? Game out the opposite. If the prosection doesn't have to demonstrate that something was valid evidence beyond a shadow of doubt that's rife for all sorts of abuse.

In general I don't believe I can catch a (legitimate) felony for locking myself in the bathroom and flushing the toilet during a police raid.

Most juristictions have a duty to preserve or not to spoil evidence once you are clearly detained or a search is clearly imminent (i.e. the police are knocking on your door), or when litigation can be reasonably anticipated. Behavior like locking the door and then burning/shredding papers, wiping a phone, or even flushing a toilet can absolutely be considered destruction-of/tampering-with evidence past that point, even (and especially) if the evidence is impossible to recover.

Assuming that is the preceding paragraph you reference, then there is nothing to respond to because the law is clear. As zugi mentions, obstruction of a federal investigation by tampering with evidence (i.e. potentially anything in the scope of a particular search of which you are aware) in just about any sort of way is illegal under 18 USC § 1519 (and again, most states have similar laws with regard to state officials/departments and searches).

This subthread, the general thread, the linked article, and the original event it covers are all within the context of someone aware they are detained or under investigation. In that context, the prosecution doesn't need to demonstrate that what was destroyed is evidence. Just that the suspect obstructed the search by destroying, altering, or tampering with something in the search's lawful scope.

This state of affairs isn't any more or less rife for abuse than the general process for obtaining a warrant or the standards for an officer assessing probably cause.

So as much as I sympathize with the guy a d wabt to cheer him on, he's probably screwed.

If yes, then those confessions or statements could become inadmissable (i.e. the suspect was effectively compelled to testify against himself, in violation of the 5th Amendment). When police combine deception with coercion or threats, the answer to that question leans toward yes, but it will depend on the juristiction and the judge and is often assessed on a case-by-case basis. Police in any given juristiction probably have a reasonably good sense (from their own accumulated experience and local training) of what kind of deception results in the produced evidence becoming inadmissable in the courts where the defendant will appear.

I was distressed and got confused and gave the wrong PIN. Anyway there was no evidence on the phone just a few embarrassing photos.

Also I just so happened to catch a bad case of indigestion right as the police knocked down my door. There were absolutely no drugs in the toilet when I flushed it.

To me the far more concerning fact is that this is getting any pushback at all. The response described is what everyone ought to do without exception when asked for their PIN by law enforcement. The right not to be forced to provide access to your own devices needs to be staunchly defended. These devices serve as extensions of ourselves at this point.

> Also I just so happened to catch a bad case of indigestion right as the police knocked down my door. There were absolutely no drugs in the toilet when I flushed it.

To repeat, for emphasis: the law does not care about "I'm not touching you"-level rationalizations.

> The response described is what everyone ought to do without exception when asked for their PIN by law enforcement. The right not to be forced to provide access to your own devices needs to be staunchly defended.

If by "response described" you mean "remain silent," then absolutely. Not 100% clear from your last paragraph.

But it does AFAIK care about plausible deniability. Whether or not any given instance of denial is plausible must of course ultimately be determined by a judge.

> Not 100% clear from your last paragraph.

The "response described" was (I think quite clearly) "provide a duress PIN that wipes the device in violation of the law". I am advocating for civil disobedience in defense of privacy and the right not to self incriminate. These devices have become extensions of ourselves but the law does not currently treat them as such which I see as a violation of my fundamental rights.

Actually even if they were recognized as an extension I don't believe there's any prohibition against reading people's minds. It's just that the technology doesn't exist yet. But it likely will soon so we badly need to update the law to account for that IMO.

There is near zero chance that a judge or jury will decide you have plausible deniability for providing a duress PIN when asked by police for an unlock PIN. It is your phone, you had to configure the duress PIN when setting up the phone, knowing what it does, and provide it to police instead of the unlock PIN.

> I am advocating for civil disobedience in defense of privacy and the right not to self incriminate.

You have a right to silence, not a right to lie, and certainly not a right to lie in a way that is the proximate cause of destruction of evidence during a lawful search. Call the lie civil disobedience all you like, but expect totally avoidable federal felony charges in cases like then one at hand, when all you had to do was remain silent (especially as in this case with a GrapheneOS device).

> I don't believe there's any prohibition against reading people's minds

Common law often doesn't require specific prohibitions (or specific updates in the manner of computer code) because the practice of common law has long functioned on the good faith application of human reason and common sense by jurists. Consider the relevant language of the 5th Amendment: "...nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself..." I think it's extremely likely that, when mind-reading tech is invented, it will be treated as a form of compelled testimony, and therefore impermissible against a defendant (though potentially permissible against a witness with immunity).

Now? It is all out in the open. They're BOASTING about it. The baddies do whatever they want and noone is going to do anything about it besides write a blog. There will be no 1970s backlash with progressive Supreme Court judges and a senate committee investigating Hover.

We don't have to have brown shirts pulling people off the street, and we also don't need to have this stupid fight over simply enforcing our borders like every other country on the planet. Extremists on both sides are as always, simply incorrect. Reject MAGA, reject DSA.

In context to my OP, none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives. If you turned the news off you'd probably have no clue people were jumping the border en masse and you'd likely have no clue that those very same people were being arrested and deported.

This is an indication you don’t understand what is going on. Some illegals have been deported but amongst those illegals are U.S. citizens and people who are legally allowed to be here. They are being deported without judicial oversight and in some cases in direct violation of judicial orders.

… none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives.

Man. What a profoundly immoral thing to say and believe. This illegal shit going on doesn’t affect more than 49.999% of the population so… no big deal.

It is people like you that Martin Luther King described in his letter:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Because it’s true.

> But now, what you write is it’s only 5% of the people being affected.

Well you wrote it was 49% or something. Me saying 5% is still in the bounds of “vast majority not affected”. I’m being generous here as the number is likely even lower and that’s accounting for folks who hired folks or extended family or whatnot.

> It’s not righteous pearl clutching to be alarmed when my neighbors are being illegally targeted.

Are they here illegally? I would expect (aside from heavy handed tactics which I broadly disagree with) that they would eventually be found and deported just like anyone else in any other country. What exactly are you suggesting is “being illegally targeted”?

> Illegal wars, illegal deportations, illegal cancellation of appropriated funds, illegal bribes to give pardons, etc. and your response is that the people alarmed by this are engaging in righteous pearl clutching.

Illegal taxes, illegal immigrants, illegal drone strikes, illegal lockdowns

Don’t accuse me of pearl clutching though. You just have to accept my declaration that things are illegal and anyone who disagrees must be immoral and part of the problem. In the words of some famous person, I declare famous saying!!

That’s the argument you’re making and as an independent who can’t stand MAGA or DSA + associates it’s very tiresome. I reject illegal immigration, and I reject heavy handed policing especially by untrained wannabe-be tough guys. If you’re going to turn that into all of these other accusations you’re extremism is the actual problem, not me.

That is literally the stage we are in now. You sent it because you are in support of it and to cowardly to admit it. It's the same cowardice that motivated them to wear masks

>In context to my OP, none of this stuff or policy really affects most people's day to day lives

The fact that this doesn't bother you speaks volumes about the kind of person you are

No we're not, and when it started to look like we were heading that way in some limited fashion the public fought back and stopped it, people were fired, and the heavy-handed tactics mostly stopped. In true brown shirt regimes (Iran, China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, &c.) they don't stop the heavy handed tactics. In Iran they murdered over 30,000 people for it point blank with automatic weapons.

> You sent it because you are in support of it and to cowardly to admit it. It's the same cowardice that motivated them to wear masks

I don't support it. And I've said that multiple times. I also don't think they should wear masks.

I also have no cowardice about saying anything on the Internet. When you write things like that you sound silly. What's going to happen? Do you think I'm going to get in trouble like it's high school or something for saying an opinion that you happen to disagree with that the public by and large agrees with?

We should control our borders and deport people who violate our laws. Also we shouldn't do all these bad things and treat people inhumanely. The horror! The cowardice! Give me a break.

> The fact that this doesn't bother you speaks volumes about the kind of person you are

I didn't say it doesn't bother me, I said that it doesn't affect most people's day-to-day lives. There's a key difference and if you spent less time grandstanding and more time reading what I actually wrote you would realize that difference.

Many people lived their normal lives through communism with no issue. They ignored bad stuff and abuses just like your tv turning off person.

And yet, they were living in dictatorship. And found out if they tried to do something different.

"Pshhhtt, the regime isn't oppresive. Sure, there is the securitate, but it's much better now, see, they released the political prisoners. Yes, some people got killed, but they were stirring waves, going around saying shit. You got to mind your business and go to work and not mind all the political stuff and you're fine. Ez-pz. Not sure what the fuss is about we are a great country, look how much stuff we make!"

Anyone who has experienced anything like real suffering would tell you the United States is a wonderful country and is a land of freedom and prosperity, even if at times it is flawed and imperfect. Tell the Filipino bakery that just opened in my home town that they live in a dictatorship, go tell the Iranian dissidents in Los Angelas that they had more freedom under the Iranians, go tell the folks in Hong Kong that the US is a brutal dictatorship. You'll get laughed out of the parking lot.

Your dislike of Donald Trump or whatever (he should be in jail because of Jan 6 - uh oh I hope the gestapo doesn't come get me for insulting dear leader - interesting how they can't, isn't it?) doesn't change anything. Was it a dictatorship for the 4 years under Biden's term? Or only a dictatorship while Trump is the elected president? Not only is your characterization incorrect from a philosophical standpoint, it's functionally incorrect too. If we lived in a dictatorship we wouldn't even have elections let alone any number of other constitutional checks. Or have you not been paying attention when the Trump administration loses a court case and quietly accepts the consequences? What dictatorship is bound by the rule of law, can be removed from power by an election, and has to respect Constitutional rights?

Give me a break with this crap.

I think I failed to convey some critical parts with my post. The _feeling_ I describe is the actual outlook that most people had during that time. I am not saying that the US is at that point yet, what I am trying to say is people don't usually wake up one morning and just say "Ah, ok, now I'm living under an oppressive regime" things just change and many times they will defend said regime. Just sample asking a bunch of Chinese people what they think about their current regime. I bet many of them will be quite happy with the arrangement and how things are going although they are clearly living under authoritarianism.

Yes, in many ways the US has many institutions that still work, but they have been eroding at an astonishing speed under the cheers of 1/3 of the population. If I use the same logic of projecting into the future the rate of change that... AI proponents use for example... How free do you think the US will be in 5, 10 years? You're not there yet, but factoring all the things going on, your country has done a capital mistake.

I personally am a bit frightened of what will happen in November since you have a president that has been consistently eroding the rule of law, put sycophants in positions of leadership, showed disdain for the rule of law, and elections and institutions, allies, general competency.

You might confuse my emotion with one of disdain or hatred for the US or, competitive aggression or impotent denial and projecting for dissatisfaction in my own country. ? But that's not it. My emotional state relative to the US is one of someone grieving after a personal hero I used to look up to who got brain damage and now goes down the street with a loaded gun yelling incoherent ramblings.

Overall as a country, undoubtedly. However, a vast majority of Americans are worse off than a decade ago.

A lot of wealth was created, relatively little went to the people though.

I'm pretty sure that barring shenanigans we'll get an D president next time. I'm also pretty sure that we're kicking many cans (economic and otherwise) down the road that are set to blow up during the next administration so that we'll likely be back here again in 2032 with an R. Remember, after Watergate Carter was able to win in 1976 because people were tired of corruption - at the time most people thought that another R administration wouldn't happen for a couple of decades at least. But Reagan(R) won just 4 years later in 1980.

I'm also pretty sure that given the goldfish memory that most American voters have that a hereditary Trump dynasty isn't at all off the table. Look at the Philippines: they have a Marcos in power again. Look at Peru: they've got a Fujimori in power again.

The USSR is a great example: it took 65 years to fall, and the collapse didn't bring it to anything particularly good.

I’ve mentioned it in the past as well - all actions look like a knee-jerk reactions and hail marys to try to regain the power.

It has already lost. America lost in Vietnam. Lost in Afghanistan. Turned Middle East into a humongous mess. Now losing badly in Iran. The only "wins" it had were against Countries where odds were already heavily in its favor (in other words invading tiny countries that did not have the technological wherewithal or the will necessary to fight back).

> 10y later they're richer than ever

The rich are richer than ever yes. Ask any common American citizen and he/she will come chasing after you for saying this.

> its companies have global dominance of the most world-changing technology of the last 20y. I just don't think "the collapse" is coming anytime soon.

That dominance is fast eroding. America itself has ended globalization. It is retreating from many crucial positions: like when it comes to cross-border payments, protecting freedom of navigation in high seas, deals that it had previously negotiated with all countries of the World, unable to protect allies in the Middle East and even in South East Asia, not delivering on defense commitments with partner nations... the list goes on and on.

> If anyone's interested in a friendly wager, my email is open. I'll happily go 1:1 odds that America will have a new president come 2029 and the country will still remain the world's richest and most powerful.

None of us believe America will collapse by 2029 and that there wouldn't be another President (unless Trump is really stupid enough to go down that route which I don't think he will). But by 2045? Yeah absolutely is possible.

You are undoubtedly correct that at some point there will be new leadership in the US.

Politics makes leadership change a possibility. Biology makes it an inevitability.

But I don't think the evidence is very strong that switching from one man to a different man, even if the new man wears a blue hat instead of a red hat, will make that much difference against capital and its surveillance state.

This isn't a false equivalence "both sides" argument. I'd greatly prefer the blue hat over the red hat.

But the blue hat only makes the underlying forces of late capitalism a little slower and a little less vicious, while simultaneously legitimizing that system.

But excuse me, Mr Masked Man, let me call the local police just in case you're not actually federal agents... is probably going to get the same reaction whether they're criminals or ICE agents.

Has it truly become widespread enough that you can safely assume that masked men in unmarked vans are federal agents? That’s absurd.

Sadly, in very many places, yes - if you see masked men piling out of a van odds are they're not there to rob a bank but to detain people they suspect of being undocumented or problematic to ICE.

The guy doesn't have the stomach for real totalitarianism. Just populism, corruption, and weakening the country.

And considering how right talks about Mandani, Biden, Harris ... it is ridiculous that the derogatory term goes only toward ... people who talk about Trump.

If only I could convey how ridiculous this sounds looking from outside in.