🔗 Share this article

His domestic and foreign strategies – including the challenge to the democratic process previously to latest moves and warnings – weaken not only domestic and international jurisprudence. The implications are broader.

These actions endanger the fundamental meaning of what we mean by.

The guiding principle of any advanced culture is to stop the more powerful from harming and taking advantage of the weaker. Without this, we could find ourselves permanently immersed in a state of nature where might makes right prevails.

This ideal is embedded of the Declaration and Constitution. It’s also the heart of the modern framework of international relations championed by the US, built on multilateralism, democracy, individual liberties, and the legal authority.

But, it is a fragile ideal, frequently ignored by those who choose to misuse their power. Preserving it demands that the influential have a sense of duty to refrain from seeking short-term wins, and that the rest of us ensure they answer for their actions if they don't.

Absolute power does not make right. It leads to uncertainty, disruption, and hostilities.

Whenever people or corporations or countries that are richer and more powerful attack and exploit those that are less so, the framework of society unravels. If such aggression are left unchecked, the fabric unravels. Allowing it to persist, the world can descend into chaos and war. We have seen this pattern previously.

Today, we live in a society and world with deepening divides. Authority and resources are more concentrated than ever before. This creates conditions for the privileged to exploit the disadvantaged because they feel untouchable.

The resources of a small group of tycoons is staggering. The power of global industrial giants covers numerous countries. AI is poised to centralize resources and influence even more. The military might of the leading countries is unmatched in human history.

Supported by complicit legislators and a sympathetic judicial body, the presidency has been turned into the most powerful and unaccountable entity of government in the modern era.

Consider this confluence and you perceive the looming crisis.

A direct line ties past lawless actions to ongoing threats. Each were premised on the overconfidence of omnipotence.

One observes parallel dynamics in other global contexts: in military conflicts, in coercive diplomacy, and in the worldwide exploitation by powerful corporate entities.

But, strength without restraint does not make right. It produces fragility, revolution, and bloodshed.

History shows that frameworks designed to limit the influential also shield them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for greater influence and riches ultimately lead to their downfall – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And pave the way for global conflict.

This blatant lawlessness will cast a long shadow over international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for years to come.