Jack: You may not be politically partisan in the Republican or Democrat side, but political you are, we all have to be because politics determines laws and our alliwed and non allowed behaviour.
Below I say a few things about US, Russia, China, Europe and India. Furthet down I explain why the US Constitution needs an update, what that update is and how it can be made to happen
You are overlooking that China and Rusia have inherently unstable regimes because they are dictatorships dictatorships always look very stable, until they do not. You also overlook China and India are bitter rivals, they have unresolved border conflicts. Russia has to be very concerned about China’s economic ambitions and power and its military power regarding Russis’s soft, juicy and fat Suberian underbelly. The hard truth is that the people of Russia, never mind Putin, have a lot bigger things to fear from China than from the West and NATO. China is an existencial threat to Russia. Russia distracts itself with dreams of rebuilding the Russian empire in the Donbas, while keeping country industrially and economically weak. Russia-Putin seems to think its nukes keep it safe but forgets that as Russia becomes weaker and weaker economically and industrially with respect to Chins, at one point China will control Russia, economucally, financially, technologically , industrially and even by corrupting in China’s favour the already corrupt Russian national and local officials. In other words, in his deranged efforts to rebuild the Russian Empire Putin and his regime are endangering Russia itself. Putin is dealing with China’s totalitarian, industrially powerful with ambitions based on the belief of ethnic supremacy, like Stalin did with equally powerful dictatorship in Nazi Germany. If it weren’t because Hitler was stupid enough to be at war with the US the Russians would speak German now. For all its deffects, Putin and the Russians should know the US is not really a threat to Russia. Only Russia’s crazy action of invading Ukraine, that scared neutral countries like Finland into the Arms of NATO, has put the US under Biden and under Trump against Russia. Russia says it is scared of NATO but Russia’s stupid actions have expanded NATO. Russia needs to get rid of paranoid stupid Putin, become a democracy and ally itself wirh the West, with the EU and bring to Russians the peaceful prosperous life they want. India plays the Russia China card because of Trump’s stupud action of using economic sanctions against India to stop India from buying cheao Russian oil. India is not prosoerous enough to ignore opportunities to buy cheap oil. Besides, Europe imports lots of gas and oil, abd coal and uranium from Russia, but Trump does not threaten them with tariffs because they are allies. India has to be treated as an ally, in fact it us a strong ally of the US and the West against China, a democracy we need on our side. What other countries around China will do if the US treats India like that to help Ukraine? Trump is pusshing many other countries away from the US, even into China’s arms, you can not get much more stupid.
Then you have the deranged US system of government, so internally divided that nothing China could dream of would divide the US more. I do not know if the problem is that Trump, in his desperate attempts to fix the mess the Republican and Demicrat politicians and lobbying have created for the US economically, socially, financially and industrially, takes actions beyond his constitutional authority, or that the judges have become corrupt by partisan politics too, but seems so many things are not working in the US. If you read about the Weimar Republik you will see eerie similarities, including many highly educated and influencial Jews who, somehow, seem unable to help. I think the time has come for the American people to take to the streets, peacefully, like Martin Luther King and the black and whites and Hispanics of any religion, including Christians and Jewish supporters did when they felt the majority of Americans were ready to end discrimination against blacks. I know, from ending discrimination and letting the behaviour if blacks determine their lives, the demands evolved into irrational stuff, like DEI, entrance quotas, having blacks in imortant positions for being black, etc., and that is now another problem.
What I want to say is that I believe the American people, probably the majority, of any background or ideology, are disatisfied with politicians overall. Something like 80% of Americans are unhappy with Congress overall. With whoever is President the figures are not so bad because electing the President forces all voters to take sides in a very clear way; “Congress” is more anonymous mass.
Ordinary Americans who voted for Trump or Biden or Bush or Obama or any member of Congress recignize America is divided and not heading in the right direction. It is time for the people to take to the streets and repair US democracy. It is not that “democracy does not work” as fascists and communists really believe, although they have learned to use the word democracy as a big fig leave to hide their real goals. The problem is that the US Constitution needs an update, but the needed update is of no interest to the political establishment of either party, to lobbies or to ordinary Americans ideologically committed to being Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or conservatives. Only Americans who are not committed to being progressives or conservatives and who do not feel they have to align on every issue along political lines, will want to update US democracy. It is only they who have the ideological freedom to demand change.
What change is needed? Transfer ultimate authority in towns, cities, states and, this is decisive, the national level too, over any law, policy, budget, education, health, infrastructure and changes to the constitution to the people, to ordinary Americans, to that huge majority of Americans who are responsible citizens, pay their taxes, pay their mortgages and loans, are responsible parents, are good neighbours, are honest, are responsible workers, take care of themselves, maintain their houses and lawns, drive safely, etc. Those responsible, non partisan ordinary Americans will decide ANY issue or law more fairly and competently than politicians. How do I know? Because the Swiss have been doing it for more than 150 years. The Swiss had until the early 1800s a constitution inspired by the American Constitution but soon saw a flaw that over the years was slowly but steadily undermining democracy. The problem is that all democracies with the exception of Switzerland and Ancient Greece, place all final authority over any law, policy or changes to the constitution in the hands of the executive, the legislative or the judges and such groups can not resist accumulating more and more power in their hands and reducing the power in the hands of citizens. The lobbies soon saw that the way to advsnce their agendas was to cultivate ties with political candidates and politicians because they decide, the laws, the policies, everything and they even appoint the judges to the Supreme Court. The people see that laws and policies increasily disregard the interests of the ordinary responsible citizen, and even harm them, as we see with globalization, the growing displacement of wealth to the rich, their stagnant salaries, the loss of good jobs to other countries, the depression of wages by legal and illegal immigrants, the rise in crime in their neighborhoods, the enrichment of politicians, the practically total control of political campaigns by the two parties and the “donors”, etc. Americans still have fairly robust freedom of speech but without the power and authority to be the final decision makers on any issue 1% of Americans sign up to send to binding referendum, America is fucked. The Swiss system is more friendly to business and entrepreneurs, which might surprise you and, of course, to the people because they hold key powers. If you got the ball rolling and help others educate Americans in the Swiss system you would make an even bigger contribution to America and the World than with Strike.
Freedom of expression without the power to decide is a dead end.