The domestic and foreign initiatives – including the effort to overturn the election in the past to current actions and warnings – weaken not only national and global law. However, the issue goes deeper.
They endanger the very concept of a civilized world.
The guiding principle of a functioning society is to prevent the stronger from attacking and exploiting the vulnerable. Failing that, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where might makes right could survive.
This ideal is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. This is also the foundation of the global system established after WWII supported by the America, which stresses international cooperation, democratic governance, individual liberties, and the supremacy of law.
However, it is a vulnerable ideal, easily violated by those who would exploit their influence. Preserving it requires that the powerful have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that society demand responsibility when they fail.
Unchecked strength is not right. It makes for instability, chaos, and war.
Whenever individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged prey upon those that are not, the fabric of civilization weakens. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. If not stopped, the world can descend into chaos and war. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a society and world marked by extreme inequality. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in modern history. This creates conditions for the powerful to take advantage of the weaker because they perceive themselves as above the law.
The wealth of a handful of ultra-wealthy individuals is difficult to fathom. The reach of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans much of the globe. AI is could centralize resources and influence further. The offensive capability of the major powers is without parallel in the annals of time.
Enabled by complicit legislators and a pliant supreme court, the highest office has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked instrument of government in the modern era.
Combine these factors and you perceive the looming crisis.
A clear connection connects previous transgressions to current threats. Each were based on the hubris of omnipotence.
One observes a similar pattern in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.
Yet, unfettered might does not establish right. It makes for fragility, upheaval, and armed conflict.
The lessons of the past reveal that rules and conventions to limit the influential also shield them. If these guardrails are removed, their endless appetite for increased control and resources ultimately lead to their downfall – taking down their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for global conflict.
This kind of disregard for rules will haunt international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for a long time.
