🔗 Share this article

The national and international policies – ranging from the challenge to the democratic process five years ago to recent incursions and warnings – undermine both national and global legal frameworks. The implications are broader.

These actions endanger the fundamental meaning of a civilized world.

A guiding principle of civilized society is to stop the stronger from attacking and exploiting the less powerful. Otherwise, we would be locked in a state of nature where only the fittest could survive.

This ideal is central of the nation's founding texts. It is equally the foundation of the global system established after WWII supported by the United States, built on multilateralism, democracy, human rights, and the supremacy of law.

But, it is a vulnerable principle, often broken by those who seek to abuse their authority. Upholding it demands that the influential have enough integrity to refrain from seeking temporary advantages, and that the public demand responsibility if they don't.

Absolute power does not equal right. It results in instability, disruption, and conflict.

Whenever individuals, companies, or nations that are richer and more powerful prey upon those that are not, the structure of civilization weakens. If these actions are not contained, the fabric unravels. Without intervention, the world can fall into instability and violence. We have seen this pattern previously.

Today, we live in a society and world with deepening divides. Influence and wealth are increasingly centralized than in recent memory. This encourages the powerful to take advantage of the weaker because they feel above the law.

The resources of a handful of billionaires is difficult to fathom. The power of major corporations in technology, energy, and aerospace spans numerous countries. Advanced technology is likely to centralize economic and political clout even more. The offensive capability of the world's largest nations is unprecedented in recorded history.

Empowered by complicit legislators and an accommodating high court, the presidency has been transformed into the most dominant and unchecked agent of government in recent memory.

Combine these factors and you perceive the threat.

An unbroken thread links past transgressions to current provocations. Each were premised on the arrogance of absolute power.

One observes much the same in international affairs: in territorial invasions, in coercive diplomacy, and in the worldwide exploitation by industrial titans.

But, raw power does not establish right. It fosters fragility, upended order, and war.

Historical evidence demonstrates that frameworks designed to constrain the powerful also shield them. Without such constraints, their relentless pursuit for more power and wealth ultimately bring them down – along with their corporations, nations, or empires. And pave the way for global conflict.

This blatant contempt for legal order will cast a long shadow over the nation and the world – and indeed civilized conduct – for the foreseeable future.