The Former President's Policies Constitute a Risk to Civilized Society.
His internal and external initiatives – including the attempted coup five years ago to latest actions and warnings – undermine both national and global legal frameworks. However, the issue goes deeper.
They threaten the very concept of civilization itself.
The moral purpose of a functioning society is to stop the dominant from preying upon and using the weaker. Without this, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a state of nature where only the fittest prevails.
This concept lies at the center of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the core of the modern framework of international relations advocated by the America, emphasizing collective action, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the legal authority.
However, it is a delicate ideal, easily violated by those who would exploit their authority. Preserving it demands that the those in charge have enough integrity to refrain from seeking immediate gains, and that society ensure they answer for their actions should they falter.
Unfettered might does not equal right. It leads to instability, upheaval, and conflict.
Every time individuals, companies, or nations that are advantaged prey upon those that are weaker, the structure of our shared norms frays. Should such behavior are not contained, the system fails. Without intervention, the world can fall into chaos and war. It has happened before.
Today, we live in a international landscape with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are more concentrated than in recent memory. This invites the privileged to leverage their position against the weaker because they perceive themselves as omnipotent.
The wealth of a handful of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The power of big tech, big oil, and large defense contractors spans a vast portion of the world. Advanced technology is could centralize wealth and power further. The offensive capability of the leading countries is unprecedented in human history.
Enabled by complicit legislators and a sympathetic high court, the executive office has been turned into the supreme and answerable-to-none instrument of government in the modern era.
Combine these factors and you see the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread connects earlier transgressions to ongoing threats. Each were premised on the hubris of omnipotence.
There is a similar pattern in other global contexts: in territorial invasions, in expansive ambitions, and in the worldwide exploitation by massive conglomerates.
But, raw power does not create right. It makes for uncertainty, upended order, and war.
Historical evidence demonstrates that laws and norms to limit the powerful also safeguard them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for increased control and resources in time lead to their downfall – taking down their corporations, nations, or empires. And risk world war.
Such lawlessness will haunt the nation and the world – and the very idea of civilized conduct – for years to come.
