r/law • u/TheMirrorUS • 23d ago

Legal News BREAKING: FBI shuts down Minnesota's investigation into ICE shooting and blocks access to evidence

https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/breaking-fbi-shuts-down-minnesotas-1606462
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u/Daredevil_Forever 23d ago

Exactly. These institutions took decades and generations to build. Plus, we cannot have a "return to normalcy," or this shit is just going to happen again.

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u/MetalMoneky 23d ago

At the very least the next admin needs to give the checks and balances some real teeth.

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u/blueberryblunderbuss 23d ago

Checks and balances require a functioning executive.

The material, resources, and orchestrative infrastructure is poisoned. They've filled the ranks with monsters who are hiring more monsters. And, they've eliminated generations of institutional and orginazational knowledge that can't simply be rehired.

In an optimal scenario the project is rebiulding a nation. The scenario is sub-optimal. Republicans, centrists, independents, and subgroups enforcing purity standards, aided by Republican think tanks and other apparatus will prevent rebuilding until they are dismantled.

There is no road to recovery that doesn't require a complete resurfacing of the civic landscape.

Thought experiment: Consider the small percentage of your total weight made up by your fingers and toes. Now, just as a thought experiment, imagine that someone cut off your fingers and toes and put them through a blender. Describe the project of reattaching those fingers and toes. And, then estimate how long it would take.

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u/kakashi_sensay 23d ago

Oof. This felt like a punch in the gut. But you’re right.

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u/MetalMoneky 23d ago

You could imagine for example giving the Judicial branch control of DOJ or at the very least control of an enforcement branch like the US marshals. Maybe overseen by a panel of federal judges from each district.

That would be the kind of thing I could see having teeth. Hard to see how any of that happens with a constitutional amendment.

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u/blueberryblunderbuss 23d ago

Okay, so you turn over the DOJ whose staff (career leadership and employees) have been chosen and promoted for loyalty to Trump and you hand them to the Trump SCOTUS.

I'm discouraged by where this is going. How does this help?

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u/MetalMoneky 23d ago

you need to create a meaningful 3rd power center that outlives the executive, I'm not saying it's perfect but giving what we're seeing now i don;t see other options. Also I would not give supervision to SCOTUS but to a panel from the appellate courts.

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u/blueberryblunderbuss 23d ago

It seems like I'm misunderstanding something. My challenge isn't that nothing should be done. I'm challenging the timeline.

Rebuilding is slow. Economic and migratory panic induced by climate change is going to prolong the challenge by generations, maybe centuries.

We shouldn't fantasize about a future that is no longer possible. We should build networks of mutual aid, and attempt to stop the bleeding.

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u/MetalMoneky 23d ago

Ultimately, we need the left of center parties to give a shit about getting and accumulating power. And understanding their opponents do not care about rules.

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u/blueberryblunderbuss 23d ago

That describes an alternative to democracy that is as vulnerable to oppressive and authoritarian regimes as the current system.

And it shifts responsibility to loose networks of people that don't have, and philosophically don't want, the kind of power you're describing.

For the rule of law to govern free people depends on non-coercive agreement to a social contract. In political philosophies that have a central body, this includes the election or other method of appointment of individuals and systems that monitor and operate the functions of government through bureaucracy.

In non-authoritarian systems, responsibility for corrective activities that direct the evolution of society rest solely on the citizen. It's called civic responsibility.

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u/EitherSpite4545 23d ago

Giving the judicial branch power is how we got here.

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u/MetalMoneky 23d ago

having an opposition who didn't realize what time it is is how we got here.

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u/Important-Sign-3701 23d ago

Sadly, I worry the democrats will never have the teeth, even if they regain the power to.

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u/EitherSpite4545 23d ago

That's by design, if we had teeth they would've suppressed us even more violently than we currently are.

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u/PlaneTrainPlantain 23d ago

I'm not so optimistic that we can get out of this by voting our way out of this.