The Former President's Actions Constitute a Danger to Civilization.
His internal and external policies – from the attempted coup previously to current incursions and statements – erode not only national and global legal frameworks. The implications are broader.
They endanger the core idea of a civilized world.
The ethical foundation of any advanced culture is to prevent the more powerful from preying upon and using the vulnerable. Without this, we risk being permanently immersed in a conflict of all against all where only the fittest could survive.
This concept is central of the nation's founding texts. It’s also the heart of the global system established after WWII championed by the America, which stresses multilateralism, popular sovereignty, human rights, and the supremacy of law.
But, it is a delicate construct, frequently ignored by those who seek to abuse their authority. Preserving it requires that the influential have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility if they don't.
Unfettered might is not right. It makes for uncertainty, chaos, and conflict.
Whenever entities that are advantaged attack and exploit those that are less so, the framework of civilization weakens. Should such behavior are allowed to continue, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can plunge into instability and violence. It has happened before.
We now inhabit a international landscape with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in modern history. This encourages the powerful to take advantage of the weaker because they feel omnipotent.
The wealth of certain ultra-wealthy individuals is staggering. The reach of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace covers much of the globe. Artificial intelligence is likely to further concentrate wealth and power even more. The military might of the world's largest nations is without parallel in human history.
Supported by political allies and a pliant high court, the presidency has been made into the supreme and answerable-to-none agent of the state in recent memory.
Combine these factors and you grasp the looming crisis.
An unbroken thread ties earlier transgressions to ongoing threats. Both were based on the overconfidence of invincibility.
One observes a similar pattern in international affairs: in wars of aggression, in strategic threats, and in the worldwide exploitation by massive conglomerates.
But, raw power does not establish right. It produces instability, upended order, and armed conflict.
Historical evidence demonstrates that rules and conventions to check the powerful also protect them. If these guardrails are removed, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth eventually lead to their downfall – and with them their enterprises, countries, or domains. And threaten global conflict.
Such contempt for legal order will plague international stability – and indeed civilized conduct – for a long time.
