301–310 of 310 posts
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We are discussing the pardon power, an explicitly anti-democratic measure that is unilateral and unreviewable. The constitution defines a federal republic, not a democracy.
Not everything originally in the Constitution is a good idea, or at least isn't anymore. That's why it specifies an amendment process.
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The USA is a representative democracy, also known as a republic.
And regardless of whether the US government is a democracy or not, the frequent claim that it is a republic and (therefore) not a democracy is a non sequitur. It's like saying my suitcase is black and therefore not tall; the first has no bearing on the second. It's just a thought-stopping meme. Thought-stopping because it ends up derailing conversations about policy or governance with dictionary definition arguments.…
> A meme because the eye-rolling implication is that if our country is a republic and not a democracy, then naturally it's Republican and not Democrat(ic).
Who makes this argument?
“Bad terminology is the enemy of clear thinking,” per Charlie Munger. Yes, calling things what they are can be uncomfortable, and calling things what they are not is gaslighting. A republic is not a democracy. The mixed economy, dirigisme, and corporatism are not capitalism. Who benefits from the confusion that these introduce?
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The Democrats literally tried like 6 different ways to get Trump in jail, and arrested and jailed many of his supporters and even some of his administration. I highly doubt that the majority of the voting public which elected Trump will sit idle for any sort of unjust retribution to the current administration.
> I highly doubt that the majority of the voting public which elected Trump will sit idle for any sort of unjust retribution to the current administration. Is this a threat, or…? “Let our guy do whatever he wants or we’ll try to murder Congress and fuck up the economy and start some more wars”? “Don’t you dare jail us for insurrection or we’ll insurrect even harder”? What a stupid, silly post.
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It all comes back to needing to check the expanding power of the Executive.
Yup. This is why reining in Congress’s authority to delegate is so important.
What is needed is that voters need to hold congress accountable. People get royally pissed that "Government sucks and doesn't do what it needs to do" and then vote for people who openly say they will make the government suck.
The people who voted for Trump to do exactly what he is doing right now spent the past 50 years voting for Congress people who could legally and democratically do exactly what they wanted and just chose not to do it.
Clinton's admin cut the budget with a bipartisan congress back in the 90s. Suddenly supposedly that can't happen? Maybe that has something to do with the party that has expressly and openly declared bipartisanship to be verboten.
Instead, the voting public seems to be utterly ignorant of how our governments, big and small, work. This is insane, as I know each and every one of these people read the same chapter of a 6th grade Social Studies textbook and other people learned this through childrens songs. There's just no excuse.
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That's sort of like saying you're not sure if the earth is round or not-- says much more about you and your understanding than anything else.
The patronizing tone and use of totalizing moral claims gives me a much stronger hint of which side of this you're on.
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The patronizing tone and use of totalizing moral claims gives me a much stronger hint of which side of this you're on.
Yeah, the moral one. The one that wants a good life for all people. Or did you think there was some kind of third side?
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And regardless of whether the US government is a democracy or not, the frequent claim that it is a republic and (therefore) not a democracy is a non sequitur. It's like saying my suitcase is black and therefore not tall; the first has no bearing on the second. It's just a thought-stopping meme. Thought-stopping because it ends up derailing conversations about policy or governance with dictionary definition arguments.…
Your suitcase is black and therefore not seafoam green. A democracy, a republic, and a federal republic are all different forms of government. > A meme because the eye-rolling implication is that if our country is a republic and not a democracy, then naturally it's Republican and not Democrat(ic). Who makes this argument? “Bad terminology is the enemy of clear thinking,” per Charlie Munger. Yes, calling things what t…
> and calling things what they are not is gaslighting.
"[Gaslighting] is often used incorrectly to refer to conflicts and disagreements.[5][19][20] According to Robin Stern, PhD, co-founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, "Gaslighting is often used in an accusatory way when somebody may just be insistent on something, or somebody may be trying to influence you. That's not what gaslighting is."[19]"
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You would probably consider me to your right, but I'm right there with you. Prison should be protective: we lock up people from whom the rest of us will not be safe unless they are segregated. Ideally it is also rehabilitatative, and once (if!) prisoners will be safe and productive members of society there is no point to keeping them locked up. If there are other methods short of prison that can render law-breakers h…
(In fact, I may well be nearer to your position than my description implies. I use the term "leftist" because I hate the way the term is applied to anyone who isn't a Republican. My beliefs, in the Clinton/Obama range, are "leftist" only if one is dumb enough to believe what one hears on Fox News.)
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As long as our voting system is "first past the post", it will be nigh impossible for a third party to make any significant headway. IMO Citizens United and first past the post are the two main issues holding the US back from any kind of significant overhaul or change.
First past the post doesn't meaningfull affect primaries and that's where major change could happen. Hell, that's what trump did. He was a third outside party and won the republican primary. Bernie sanders came fairly close to doing the same thing.
That's not "third party" quite like you think it is
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It's wild that anyone doesn't know that. It's less surprising than the fact that disallowing someone with 34 felony convictions from being President would also require a Constitutional amendment. Both the pardon power and the qualifications for President are specified by the Constitution, so of course the Constitution must be amended to change them.
> It's wild that anyone doesn't know that. Lots of assumptions here, friend