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Why ‘Might Makes Right’ Is Dangerous For All of Us
Jaqcues Baud, who was recently sanctioned by the European Union, is lamenting on Dialog Works that – The World Is Entering a Lawless Era (vid).
He is right of course, but late.
International law, developed over centuries, has been broken by the U.S. and other imperial forces ever since it was established.
But after World War II such breaches, even when obvious, were clad in propaganda which claimed that each of those was about the enforcement of higher values. Villains had to be fought, dictators opposed, evil communists had to be prevented from stealing from their people. The old and new neo-conservatives were masters in this. The blatant imperial attacks of Iraq and Afghanistan were sold as good men’s missions to bring democracy to the downtrodden and suppressed poor people in those countries. We had to liberate their women.
That propaganda that covered the brutal wars of conquest under the mantle of democracy promotion held up for a while. It served two purposes.
It allowed U.S. vassals to justify their co-operation with the imperialists. It also allowed a significant part of the ‘western’ populations to still feel good about their countries. When the wars went southward and losses increased they acknowledged that waging those wars were bad. But the consoling feeling was that at least “We Meant Well“, as one of those imperialists ransacking Iraq titled his memoir.
It worked for a while for some people. The Iraq war was protested against in Europe. Germany and France rejected the war and Congress renamed french fries into freedom fries.
But even their moral high ground has further deteriorated since.
The decade long dirty war against Syria was supported by all NATO countries. The 2014 Nazi-coup in Kiev and the following war against the people of Donbas were patched over. Western propaganda drowned out all protests. But the doubts about these wars lingered. The propaganda was becoming too obvious.
The ongoing genocidal war on Gaza marked a turning point. The Zionist propaganda that was used to justify it was no longer effective.
When that happened the powers-that-be turned to suppression. Protest against Israel mass-murder of Palestinians were criminalized.
Jacques Baud’s correct analysis of the Ukraine war, based solely on western sources, led to the EU absurd measure to censor him.
Joe Biden blew up the NordStream pipelines. Germany and EU did not even protest the blatant attack on their economies. The issue was covered by the German government with implausible stories of six Ukrainians in a sailing raft. No one ever believed those.
Donald Trump took the last step to free the imperialists of all laws.
He does not even try to justify his illegal attack on Venezuela with any propaganda. There is no talk of imposing democracy or any other moral justification. It is pure grab of oil – mafia style – with not a damn given about the consequences or how it looks. The indictment of Maduro is just laughable. It is not a legal case any sane jurist would bring.
The European wimps have failed to condemn this. That will correctly be interpreted as them being weak which, in consequence, will put them next on the menu. They could send troops to protect Greenland from a U.S. invasion. They won’t. Trump will take it without hesitation.
The total lack of moral justification and propaganda to hide blatant breaches of international law has two dangerous consequences.
The lack of lawfulness and moral clarity will creep from international relations into domestic issues.
As Thomas Fazi warns in The Telegraph: We will regret the dawn of a ‘might makes right’ world (archived):
As Western elites discard legal and moral restraints abroad, they will feel increasingly justified in doing so at home, accelerating the erosion of constitutional safeguards and civil liberties.
This process is already well underway. The question is no longer whether the so-called rules-based order has collapsed, but how much destruction will be wrought, abroad and at home, before Western societies are forced to reckon with consequences of the lawlessness unleashed by their elites.
Arnaud Bertrand warns of a second bad consequence – the loss of internal coherence.
What will be left of the Shiny City on the Hill – the ideal the U.S. people, in all their hypocrisy, still have of themselves – when its leaders are openly disregarding all morals and laws?
Bertrand asks how this, a total disregard of all your ideals, would feel if it would happen inside of your self:
You probably fall short – we all do – but the ideals still structure your behavior. They give you something to reach for, they provide the terms in which you can be criticized – including by your own internal dialogue. They make it possible for you to do better tomorrow.
The hypocrisy – the gap between ideal and reality – is not the problem. It’s the proof that the ideal still has a hold on you, that you can still be called back to it. As the saying goes, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue.
Now imagine you renounce all this. Imagine you stop being a hypocrite in the sense that you abandon your ideals entirely, that you start owning up to your worst self and become comfortable with your vices. You cheat on your spouse and stop pretending it bothers you. You neglect your children and make peace with it.
Have you thus become “refreshingly honest”? Maybe. But you’ve also died inside. You’ve become something deeply broken – beyond shame, beyond appeal. You’ve lost the internal architecture that makes moral life possible. The little light that said “this is not who I want to be” is extinguished.
That is what the United States just did [to itself].
The consequences of this are, frankly, terrifying. What happens when a nation stops telling itself it should be good?
When societies lose their own moral framing they dissolve into anarchy. When politicians no longer feel a need to justify their deeds the will rule by brutality. Western societies, with the U.S. in the lead, are now well on their paths towards that future.
What can be done to prevent that from happening?
There is an urgent need to call them out, to insist on moral clarity. To reject any inner impulse to walk down the same path. To live by the golden rule, to treat others as you would want to treated by them. To apply this to international relation just as down to this blogs comments.
If we don’t stick by this we won’t fare well.
@169 Funny
“Insisting that the answer is “more moral clarity” assumes we are still in a phase where norms constrain action. We are not. We are in an adjustment phase where power is shedding narrative ballast, not rediscovering conscience.”
To be critical it might be said your view is defeatist, but realist is as good a description.
However in the phrase above, ‘popular will’ or ‘social morality’ is being conflated with that of authority. In social settings, morality (of a kind) still guides the actions of most people, and so I understand the power shift as one of testing public acceptance, or persuading it, or of forcing acceptance.
Power does not have conscience, law codifies, confines, or defines its use, both in private and public sphere, based on moral and ethical precedent and understanding. That forms a ‘social contract’ of sorts, that could not be perfect or it would not be needed, but that has become increasingly unbalanced, corrupted, and arrogated by ‘a few’.
That society is misled or persuaded, is uninformed, misinformed or ignorant in that process, does call for greater clarity, explanation, accountability.
Norms no longer (or barely) constrain the actions of public power, that is true. It would also appear that that is wanted known, is projected, so as to attempt to force a choice of public alignment with the newer order.
The rest of your post is pragmatic or realistic, the removal of illusion is as much the overstepping of bounds as of revelation of a devious historical plan however, for law is only what it is allowed or believed to be, it does not exist without public recognition or cumplicity, would be no more than dictate if there was no public understanding of it.
The flipside of that of course, is that the public are able to decide what stands as law, in whatever way they go about making their position, acceptance or rejection, known. Human history is also one of conflict unfortunately.
The obvious incrementalism visible around the world would not appear to have a good destination.
I don’t know, though.
@ Peter
It is hard to know if they are testing, being forced into the light, being manipulative by causing distraction etc. What they try to make sure of though is that there is no workable opposition to whatever plans they have.
Posted by: Ornot | Jan 7 2026 0:58 utc | 239
Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 6 2026 22:57 utc | 191
“Bad, bad Donald Trump. Bad, bad Joe Biden. Shitty Republicans. Shitty Democrats.And yet, as guaranteed as that the sun will rise on November 7, 2028, at least 95 out of every 100 American voters will again elect one of these mass murdering hegemonic banker prostitutes into power that day. Guaranfucknteed. Same across most if not all NATO countries.”
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Here is a little statistics/math for you that is often only partially publicized regarding elections and voting in the US.
The one statistic that is often touted during an election is “voter turnout”. In most presidential elections, this is around 50%. An extremely high turnout can get up around 60%. Now- turnout of what, exactly? This is the part they leave out. You see, of adult citizens that could register to vote, only about 60% do so. So, let us be generous and use a big “voter turnout” number and do a little math (I am using round numbers that are very close to the reality to make the math easy to see without a calculator, but feel free to look this stuff up yourself). Let’s use a voter turnout of 60%. Now that we know that we are talking about a 60% that only includes eligible voters that have decided to register, let us now include those who have chosen to withhold their vote in the calculation. 60% of 60% is 36%. That’s right, in a HIGH TURNOUT presidential election, such as the most recent one, only 36% felt that the exercise of voting was worthy of their time. Now, most Presidential elections are squeakers, and the most recent one was no exception. The current pedo-in-chief won with roughly 50% of the vote. This is fairly normal for such exercises. The political scion of the previous pedo-in-chief followed behind with about 48% of the vote (again, fairly routine), and the remainder were either ballot abstainers (left line for president blank on the ballot) or third parties. So let’s continue our math—> 50% of 36% percent is 18%.
The current resident of the Pedo House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue won the election with only 18% of adult US citizens casting a ballot to place him in the tyrant’s chair (again, this percentage is typical, or perhaps slightly higher than normal). Do people see the import of this? No modern US president has had real legitimacy. The false legitimacy of US presidential power is a fraud perpetrated by the media, who would have us all believe that the US is divided into two roughly equal camps, when the truth is that only about 15% of the people in this country supported any president enough to minutely inconvenience themselves to vote.
It gets even worse. There is no way to know the actual number here, because polls do not cover this (bad for the media narrative, I guess), but of that roughly 15% of the adult citizenry that bothers voting for any given pedo-in-chief, how many voted FOR the winning candidate, vs how many voted AGAINST the losing candidate while also holding their nose because they do not like the one they are voting for? I am talking about the “Lesser of Two Evils” voters. These people do not support the pedo they are voting for- they just think this pedo is little bit less bad than the other pedo (or pedo enabler). There is no way to know how big this block is, but it is statistically significant. I would not at all be surprised if we were to measure this, that we would find out that only about 10% of the US actually voted for any of these criminals because they like their policies (well, c’mon- let’s be real- most of these voters don’t GAF about policy. They are only voting for a candidate because their candidate does the best job of upsetting the members of the opposing party, and that’s it).
Anywhoo- All this is to say that our pedophile chief executives essentially have no substantial support. The media would have us believe that the US is “DEEPLY DIVIDED” (Say it with a deep voice and an simulated echo) and that our society is cut roughly in half. Completely false, but most people seem to believe this fiction. The reality is that most people withhold their votes because they know voting is a farce and that they despise the system that is crushing them. A few are complacent, but most get it. Nonvoters don’t discuss their decision not to vote, or their views, because the tiny minorities that do support these pedos put forth by the two criminal parties are all loudmouth idiots who immediately tell the abstainers that they forfeited their right to political free speech when they chose to withhold their votes. There is a silent majority in this US, and they hate the government. They hate the parties. They hate all of the pedos in the pedo house and pedo congress, and although they are typically not able to articulate it properly, they despise their capitalist oligarchic rulers.
There is an absolutely massive amount of popular power just laying on the ground in the US, just waiting for someone to pick it up, but nobody will speak to these people, or make a CREDIBLE claim that they wish to organize them and help them overthrow the current regime and set up something better. People are impatiently waiting though- the feeling is palpable.
Posted by: Arkady Bogdanov | Jan 7 2026 1:44 utc | 257
Americans will do this until enough of them are destitute and that day is approaching.
Posted by: Saint Jimmy | Jan 6 2026 23:09 utc | 195
Hmm, sounds about right. An utterly egocentric and self-absorbed population who won’t change their voting behavior because the two major party candidates are into killing foreigners by the thousands to steal their lands and resources, no, but will do so if these uniparty sadists have plundered the homeland enough to cause their own destitution.
Mind you, not really different in most other countries on this planet. People casting their vote based on “screw the rest, whats in it for me”. Which pretty much explains the world Bernhard describes above. None of these dastardly characters would be in control, be they bankers, oligarchs, generals, politicians or power tripping sheriffs, if the majority wouldn’t be either approving of this neo-feudal system or so sheepish to, whilst at times grumbling about it, ultimately accepting it.
[…] Much more honest when its out in the open and upfront. Trying to fight the bullshitters hiding behind the clownish words of democracy and human rights is like trying to fight smoke and mirrors.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 6 2026 23:16 utc | 197
True. Although, the hypocrisy these lying weasels have to adopt to sell their awful deeds is so blatant, it becomes the perfect tool to hit them over the head with.
what remedy do you recommend? thanks..
Posted by: james | Jan 6 2026 23:35 utc | 204
That, james, is a great question.
Lets start by acknowledging the ugly truth, that blaming the fox for eating the hens so as to absolve those who chose to make the fox guard the hen house of any responsibility for the dead chickens, is idiotic. That however is whats happening, including here at MoA. We need to stop pinning the shit happening on elected politicians and their lackeys, ie. Trump, ICE, US military and so on, and start addressing the root of it all: the population who puts these ghouls at the levers of power in the first place, and then tolerates their horrific exploits and machinations.
Once that is understood, it becomes clear what needs to change: Us. We. The People.
Politicians and the gangsters running the system are the symptom, not the cause. The cause is our collective failure to choose caring, wise and selfless leaders, instead of these narcissist slimeball characters for whom, to quote Lou Reed, an animal life is low on the totem pole, with human life not worth more than infected yeast.
So question becomes: how to change the attitude and mentality among the citizenry. It will take a million people movement, who will need to engage their fellow countrymen and women at every level and occasion, to foster an awakening and rethink, an understanding that looking after everyone else’s well-being is the best way to look after oneself.
In the U.S., one party who unequivocally stands for an end to this militaristic world domination bullshit, are Jill Stein’s Greens Party. So its not that there are no alternatives to the psycho uniparty. Do I support every thingle policy they stand for? No. I find that whole gender gaga nonsense way over the top. Same with some of their outlandish climate change stance. But you know what? These are minor issues compared to their position on stopping the genocide in Gaza and unhinged US militarism rampaging across our planet.
Anyhow, where there is a will, there generally is a way. Whats lacking is will, not ways.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 7 2026 1:50 utc | 261
Your postings (dare I say “rantings”?) here, blaming every single American, appears to be counterproductive. You are posting these rants on a small blog where the majority of Americans who post here are not the monsters that you describe. It serves to make some posters here, otherwise mostly on “your side”, resent you and your posts. Because it is a version of blood guilt. Anyway, no disrespect and I understand your frustration and anger.
Posted by: speculator | Jan 7 2026 0:25 utc | 227
Sure, call it rantings. We are dealing with people who tolerate the brutal slaying, head shots and all, of tens of thousands of children in Palestine. If passionately calling this f’d up behaviour out is called a rant, then shit yeah, I’m ranting.
I am not “blaming every single American”, I am blaming those who repeatedly bestow power onto known psychopaths, or sit idly by while these soulless savages finance, arm, unleash hell hounds on anyone not bowing to the empire.
“where the majority of Americans who post here are not the monsters that you describe.” – Okay. If the shoe doesn’t fit, no need to feel defensive. I rarely level assertions against individuals here, Trump toadies like tobias excepted. Fully aware that most fellow MoA visitors are as horrified by whats going on. That said, from my reading, there are plenty of folks hanging out at this bar who voted for Trump or Harris, or Biden, or Obama. Or Merz, Scholz, for the Germans here, or Albanese and Dutton for the Aussies among us.
“resent you and your posts. ” – No doubt. Won’t stop me though from calling a spade a spade. We are living in a world where genocide is being normalised, where the mass murder of innocent children is shrugged at by the majority of people, at least judging by their electoral behaviour. Whats happening is so insane, I don’t mind being disliked for pointing out the obvious.
[…] They hate the parties. They hate all of the pedos in the pedo house and pedo congress, and although they are typically not able to articulate it properly, they despise their capitalist oligarchic rulers. […]
Posted by: Arkady Bogdanov | Jan 7 2026 1:44 utc | 269
So. They hate it, but don’t do nothing about it. Way to go.
[…] There is an absolutely massive amount of popular power just laying on the ground in the US, just waiting for someone to pick it up, but nobody will speak to these people, or make a CREDIBLE claim that they wish to organize them and help them overthrow the current regime and set up something better. People are impatiently waiting though- the feeling is palpable.
They stand at the door with a hand on the key,
Dreaming of winds to set them free.
They speak of tomorrow, of fires and flame,
But wait for a spark with someone else’s name.
We want change! Now! If only others would bring it about.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Jan 7 2026 2:47 utc | 288
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