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[Frumple]

... out of curiosity, has there been much comment on who they intend to sell to? Also according to that wiki article the whole shebang's only worth about 43 billion USD at recent-ish prices. It's like maybe 2-3 months of imports worth of oil. Half that at whatever price you can manage to get out of trying to offload a few hundred thousand barrels of oil is... not exactly going to be much, by US federal budget standpoints. Not entirely sure that could even offset a percent of our current budget... actually, checking, it looks like about a half a percent, if you assume the net cash from the sales came out to around 20 billion. Can't exactly say I'm sure that would open up all that much for cuts and spending.

Though I guess like many things trump, the proposal is just both stupid and ineffective. This is kinda' not even like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but stealing Peter's handkerchief and claiming wearing it as a hat is going to finance armies.

E: Maybe if you're a time traveling Helen of Troy wearing nothing but the handkerchief as a hat? I don't think we exactly have ship launchers heading our procurement efforts, though.

[smjjames]

Not to mention that we'd be breaking an international obligation, according to the wiki, we have an equivalent of between 140 and 150 days of oil imports in the reserves, international obligation requires that we have 90 days equivalent in storage. Remove half that and well, you do the math.

The IEA certainly has it's critics and I'm not sure what the full consequences of breaking that obligation would be, or if it's a hard and fast obligation.

As for selling the stuff, oil supplies are still pretty glutted right now.

[EnigmaticHat]

The chickenhawk draft-dodger crunchwrap supreme doesn't know how to manage strategic warfare. What a fucking shock. I can't believe it.

Really.


Yes.

Chickenhawk is the best description of Trump's foreign policy I have ever heard.

[Descan]

Except the reality is that the power hungry just eliminate the competition through murder in such arrangements.

That's why tribalism. People almost never murder their friends and family, and you tend to think twice about a murder that will start a blood feud. Of course, a little bit of that is okay. We need more checks on human population growth anyway. There is only a problem if the murder excessively removes necessary personelle. I don't have a perfect solution to that but it's to some degree a self-rectifying problem because the most competent can avoid murder through political acumen, which is necessary for diplomatic purposes anyway, and the least competent wouldn't rise to an important position in the first place when voting is done by the wise and educated, rather than the masses. A procedure for impeachment should allow alternate avenues of removal which don't necessitate murder for those of a more middling proficiency at the art of rule.

There are so many things wrong with this that I can't not think you're just fucking with us.

Assuming you aren't though, I'll pick one: Do you realize just *how many* monarchs in history got into power by killing their brother or father? Or were a close friend of the king, were appointed the general of a large army, and then coup'd the hell out of his close friend to sieze power?

[Starver]

Chickenhawk is the best description of Trump's foreign policy I have ever heard.

Spoiler: I'm sooo tempted to GIMP this with yellow plume and optional nose(/beak)flags... (click to show/hide)

[Cruxador]

Except the reality is that the power hungry just eliminate the competition through murder in such arrangements.

That's why tribalism. People almost never murder their friends and family, and you tend to think twice about a murder that will start a blood feud. Of course, a little bit of that is okay. We need more checks on human population growth anyway. There is only a problem if the murder excessively removes necessary personelle. I don't have a perfect solution to that but it's to some degree a self-rectifying problem because the most competent can avoid murder through political acumen, which is necessary for diplomatic purposes anyway, and the least competent wouldn't rise to an important position in the first place when voting is done by the wise and educated, rather than the masses. A procedure for impeachment should allow alternate avenues of removal which don't necessitate murder for those of a more middling proficiency at the art of rule.

There are so many things wrong with this that I can't not think you're just fucking with us.

Assuming you aren't though, I'll pick one: Do you realize just *how many* monarchs in history got into power by killing their brother or father? Or were a close friend of the king, were appointed the general of a large army, and then coup'd the hell out of his close friend to sieze power?

In an elective monarchy with a procedure for impeachment? I've honestly never heard of it happening. Please go ahead and share what examples you know of.

[Culise]

Technically, a lot of elective monarchies had procedures for impeachment.  It's simply that these procedures involved a large number of noblemen - sorry, voters - with weapons charging in and declaring such-and-such would make a much better monarch, and it's not like the previous monarch really needed their head, anyways.  Or would rather enjoy a nice visit to some country palace; so much so, in fact, that they could spend the rest of their life there.  Or, for one particular case in Poland, that it would be much preferable for all concerned if they simply went back home and simply didn't bother with all that kingship business; does a number on one's personal life, don'tcha know, and the other guy brought this lovely nice new army two months back, would you care for an introduction?

I also like it when people argue for murder as a means of population control.  You'll notice that these are rarely the sorts of people who see themselves as being murdered; it's always some other poor sot.  Err, this is all just highly-advanced satire, right?  I'd have thought so, but Poe's Law, after all...

[origamiscienceguy]

Elective monarchy kind of sounds like Hitler.

[Descan]

Usually it's the event that signals the *end* of the elective part, and/or of the procedural part. Off the top of my head, the Polish monarchy turned hereditary due to similar circumstances, and we all know how the Roman Republic went down.

I mean, except for the Polish monarchy, there haven't really *been* many elective monarchies. Maaaaybe the Holy Roman Empire counts, but they weren't exactly a model of good governance, even if you wanted to argue they do count.

Not to mention you don't need that fellow to be the corrupt one to have a shitty state; You said "ruling families of member states." Not getting into the clusterfuck of shitty incestuous sewage that "ruling families" tend to become given any length of time, either those states are powerful enough that "ruling families" is a thing with any weight, in which case you just end up with Sengoku again and the head of state is a next-to-useless ceremonial head, or the ruling families don't really matter and within a generation or two, it'll become consolidated just like Japan did, with them doing away with the daimyo families to irrelevance or extinction.

AND finally, the main reason monarchies tend to be as stable as they are (read: not very stable) is because of the weight of tradition. Dictatorships are basically monarchies stripped of that tradition, and well... they haven't really lasted long in modernity, have they? A couple have, but they have a half-life measured in decades and most of them crumble in less than that. Your idea just slaps the label of "monarch!" on it without any of the traditions or weight of history that makes monarchy have at least *some* merit to the governance. Otherwise it's just a brute with a sword (or gun) (or army) bossing people around cuz he's got the sword.

AND that's not even getting into that the whole *point* of super-consolidated states like monarchies is because of communication speeds. You don't need to wait weeks for your message to get anywhere any more, there's no *point* in sending your information to the one person who you KNOW has the power (but maybe not the will, still) to do anything about it; You can send it ten thousand different places in a couple seconds. You don't need a known center of power for things to get done.

[Culise]

Almost all of them started as elective, technically speaking; it's simply that it's far enough back that it tends to be a touch difficult to piece together all the fine details.  For instance, there's the Saxon (and English) Witan, Nordic Things, or Bohemian Estates.  Even the Kings of France were elected in the days of Pepin and Charles the Great.  The Holy Roman Empire gradually dissolved rather than breaking in one dramatic event, but it too was always at least nominally elective, and its Early Modern weakness is largely due not to hereditary rule, but rather to the Thirty Years War and the victory of the Protestant princes over the Emperor.  Similarly, its medieval weakness largely came about due to the great interregnum where there simply was no Emperor, properly speaking.  Most often, succession in non-hereditary periods was more likely to come at point of sword than during hereditary periods, where as you note, ties of blood started to create their own tradition supplementing or replacing electoral traditions that effectively either disappeared entirely or was reduced to a rubber-stamp. 

Interestingly, I would argue the converse for Poland in that it weakened once the hereditary dynasties (particularly the Jagiellonians) died out and they were reduced to a succession of elective monarchs who relied upon the great magnates for their power and authority, and said magnates conversely were more interested in electing weak monarchs who would not threaten their own authority.  At least one of the incidents I outlined actually took place well after the end of hereditary rule in Polish elections.  To wit, the one explicitly stated was the first ascension of Augustus the Strong at the expense of the then-Prince of Conti, François Louis (who was a bit of an inveterate philanderer; a particular affair of the heart is blamed for his lukewarm interest in the Polish crown as it would remove him from both France and his wife's sister-in-law's arms).  After the last great Jagiellonian king, you have a Valois (ran away for the French throne), a Bathory (elected due to his Jagiellonian wife and co-ruler), a few Vasas, and assorted others.  The only ones who came close to establish any sort of dynastic rule after that point were the Vasas and Wettins, and even the latter are kind of skating by on technicalities (non-consecutive rulers, and one of the two had to be restored to the throne by the Russians). 

This, by the bye, should be a corollary to the above, and suggest what happens when you give someone absolute rule, even by elective process.  Sooner or later, someone's going to pull a White Mountain and crush your puny estates like the Habsburgs did, or else your estates will become dominated by vested interests and fracture as in Poland.  Or worse, you will end up with a fratricidal war when a second son asks why he wasn't elected instead of a first son, or a first son passed over in favor of a second son, or a whole mess of cousins with competing claims.  Do remember that in World War 1, all of the dynastic rulers of Europe were related by blood, and many had the power to stop the war.  Albeit, not without cost, but that's another story...

[Descan]

Yeah, some of that I knew but was just glossing over, but some of that I was unaware of, thank you! <3

But yeah, the thing about "almost all of them started as elective" is what I meant about the event signalling the end of elective monarchy. Specifying Poland and the HRE was more about long-lasting and/or ones we have decent records about.

[redwallzyl]

Except the reality is that the power hungry just eliminate the competition through murder in such arrangements.

That's why tribalism. People almost never murder their friends and family, and you tend to think twice about a murder that will start a blood feud. Of course, a little bit of that is okay. We need more checks on human population growth anyway. There is only a problem if the murder excessively removes necessary personelle. I don't have a perfect solution to that but it's to some degree a self-rectifying problem because the most competent can avoid murder through political acumen, which is necessary for diplomatic purposes anyway, and the least competent wouldn't rise to an important position in the first place when voting is done by the wise and educated, rather than the masses. A procedure for impeachment should allow alternate avenues of removal which don't necessitate murder for those of a more middling proficiency at the art of rule.

You obviously haven't read enough about the history of dynastic politics, relative murder was really really common.

[EnigmaticHat]

Tribes become irrelevant once you have agriculture (because too many people) while monarchies become irrelevant once you have industry (because owning land loses its special significance).  Even if we wanted to go back the world has changed too much.

Also dividing the world into necassary and unnessecary personalle is a dangerous road.  Most people nowadays are only necassary to meet the needs of other people who are themselves not strictly useful to society.  The truth of the matter is that for most of us a stranger's death simply means nothing to our personal survival.  Modern society exists to prevent people from following that thought to its logical conclusion.

[MaximumZero]

Except the reality is that the power hungry just eliminate the competition through murder in such arrangements.

That's why tribalism. People almost never murder their friends and family, and you tend to think twice about a murder that will start a blood feud. Of course, a little bit of that is okay. We need more checks on human population growth anyway. There is only a problem if the murder excessively removes necessary personelle. I don't have a perfect solution to that but it's to some degree a self-rectifying problem because the most competent can avoid murder through political acumen, which is necessary for diplomatic purposes anyway, and the least competent wouldn't rise to an important position in the first place when voting is done by the wise and educated, rather than the masses. A procedure for impeachment should allow alternate avenues of removal which don't necessitate murder for those of a more middling proficiency at the art of rule.

You obviously haven't read enough about the history of dynastic politics, relative murder was really really common.

I mean, I haven't really, either, but Crusader Kings 2 has taught me that much.

[MrRoboto75]

Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.