I struggle to rationalize this for countries not already in armed conflict.

Legally, practically, or morally?

Practically, armed conflict is way more expensive, and it’s riskier. If you had two strategies for changing someone’s behavior: 1) Punch them until they agree to change, 2) Tell them they can’t borrow any more money from you until they agree to change… you would probably prefer number two because it’s less risky.

Legally… we only have 80 years of precedent for the USD being the world’s reserve currency, amd 50 years of weaponizing that power with the IEEPA. Rules for armed conflicts, on the other hand, are ancient. We have a lot of examples for acts of war in armed conflicts, and we can quickly define them and recognize them. For defining and regulating financial “attacks”… we have basically nothing.

Morally… you and I have different moral systems from the people in charge. People can rationalize some truly heinous shit.

We would need a LOT of new international guidelines for this.

It’s not clear to me where we would draw the line, since there’s not really an enforceable difference between, “Allowing you to use our financial system is causing us harm, so you can’t do that anymore,” and “You can’t use our financial system until you <insert demands here>.”

While a blockade is recognized as an act of war, an embargo is not. The US sanctions usually operate like a specific, services-based embargo, so there’s no interpretation of CURRENT international law rendering it an act of war. Again, we would need new guidelines to meet your goal.

I’d think that, since this conversation happened on public property, and the conversation was among public servants, the conversation is subject to the same standards as any other public conversation.

Maybe the legal system is too stupid for that, though.

The more the traffic gets slowed down by pedestrians crossing, the more the city planners will look at the design of their intersections to improve safety.

Always hit the button, even if you’re not going to wait for the light.

9th amendment.

It’s the best amendment, despite being, legally, the most useless.

I would argue that it was meant to cover the kind of situation where a private company is given government permission to gather surveillance data from the citizenry, in exchange for access to said data.

Me neither, but yeah, I’m making the same assumption.

So like, a bag of chicken frozen into a block… Thawing it in hot water WILL make it thaw faster, but it will also make the bacteria grow faster. Don’t do that.

… Isn’t the centerpiece the fact that you SHOULDN’T thaw food in hot water, because of bacteria?

Apes of the Nation.