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Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
81–90 of 108 posts
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#82Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right, China is interesting. Still, it does not have a monarch, it has a parliament that elects a president (for all intent and purposes) who is the head of state. The legitimacy of the president comes from the community, and he does not own the state or the land. Citizens are not subjects. It’s a bit blurred because of its single-party nature, but it has all of the attributes of a republic.
In general Chinese system is quite different from Western one. First being single party and second being layered, with population only having vote on lowest layer which then subsequently votes upwards until the top. For all intents and purposes it is republic. After all republic is quite meaningless term, specially when we consider some constitutional monarchies or dictatorial leaders that don't have hereditary power…
> After all republic is quite meaningless term, specially when we consider some constitutional monarchies or dictatorial leaders that don't have hereditary power
It's a fuzzy term. As usual, not everything falls nicely in neat little boxes.
In constitutional monarchies, the monarch is still associated with "the crown" and is personally an integral part of the State, and it is almost always hereditary. Sweden and the UK are unarguably monarchies with some democratic legitimacy. I was going to write "always", but actually I'd be curious to know if there is an example of non-hereditary constitutional monarchy nowadays.
I would think that non-hereditary dictatorships tend to be republics, even if the parliament plays a purely nominal role (Azerbaijan, Russia, several African republics, etc), or just military dictatorship, doing away with any pretence and not bothering with a parliament and rigged elections (lots of them have been around; these days Myanmar is a good example). North Korea is also interesting, being a hereditary republican dictatorship.
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Voting right should be earned. The problem you run into is that someone has to define how it should be earned. Several criteria have been tried (wealth, tax paid, military service, etc), and all of them have been found inadequate in one or several respects. Several revolutions have been fought over this. Still, assuming that a perfect criterion would exist, what would be yours?
Mine would be qualified service to society. 2 years of public service, with no option to bypass. Service being tailored for your particular skills and abilities.
This is already much more sensible than paying above a threshold in taxes, or owning a certain surface area of land, or coming from the right families. We'd have to define "public service" in such a way that absolutely everyone could perform it, including for example disabled people. Otherwise, it's just a requirement to have been fit (and male, in most cases) at some point in your life.
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see how the tyranny by a large minority is better than the tyranny by a majority. In either case you can find yourself in disagreement with the government. That's the very nature of government- enforcing policy, hopefully for the common good. How is the republic protecting people against that?
They could, you know, actually work out their differences and legislate, instead of acting to the CPAN camera and following whatever their party says.
I agree that they should, but that doesn't actually address my point.
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed. The last time Republican senators represented more than half the population was 1996. Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable. Spending insane amounts of money like that is not sustainable. We are already looking at greater than 10 percent annua…
In a system that nominally purports to represent the will of the people it is not relevant that you are opposed to the spending. You are not the dictator of the country. The will of the majority is being thwarted consistently by a minority. This is not a sustainable way to run a representative form of government.
Everyone hides behind Majority rules right up until the Majority wants something they don't agree with.
Be careful what you wish for hombre. You just might get it.
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The French are on their fifth attempt at a republic. Some of them ended...badly. The Germans are on their second or third (depending on how you count... I don't consider DDR to have been a real republic). The first one ended...badly. The United States is still on its first republic. If it weren't for some degree of independence for the individual states the United States would never have been formed in the first plac…
Europe has been under stresses that are not really comparable with what the US underwent in 2 centuries. The only really existential crisis was the civil war, whereas most European countries have been invaded a couple of times, and almost all of them had battles on their soil. It is true that some compromises were needed because of its federalist character. In this it is much closer to Germany than to France. > It's…
> Were there no highly educated and intelligent people in Europe for 2 centuries?
Their mistake was generally adding Rousseau and Marx into the mix, rather than stopping with Locke.
> As in “the enemy is a 2 hours drive away from the capital”, not “let’s bomb another country on the other side of the world”. It’s not because of its immutable constitution that these things did not happen in the US.
Err... before Canada became quasi-independent, the United States had a very long border with the British Empire, which was (in)famous for its penchant for grabbing territory. They even burned Washington DC at one point.
The story was the same with Mexico. In the early years of the United States, Mexico was part of the Spanish Empire, another entity noted for wars of conquest on the grand scale. And yes, after Mexican independence, the United States launched a war of conquest of its own across that border. But it could have gone the other way in the early days.
The French (another colonial power) also had massive holdings in North America.
Sorry, the "United States didn't have any war-like neighbors" theory doesn't hold.
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#88Democratic senators represent 40 million more people than Republican senators and their agenda can't be passed. The last time Republican senators represented more than half the population was 1996. Rural, low population states have far too much power in the present system. This is not sustainable. I know Manchin is nominally a Democrat but it's not him that is blocking the legislation it is him and all 50 Republican…
Gerrymandering is completely out of control. Mostly R's are locking-in their wins for the foreseeable future. I don't think it's a D/R thing in particular. He's completely corrupt by WV coal and other corporate interests paying him to be an insurgent DINO to do their bidding. Sinema is clearly a nutter and possibly corrupt too. The D's and R's also contain too many corrupt, plutocrat sycophants to name individually h…
> He's completely corrupt by WV coal and other corporate interests
Or is he just representing the interests of the people of WV, as he is supposed to? Remember, his job is to represent WV, not to fall in line with Democrat party policy.
And according to a poll in November: "Nearly 74 percent of [West Virginia] voters also said Manchin should oppose the president’s Build Back Better plan."
https://wvmetronews.com/2021/11/15/wv-voters-slam-biden-appr...
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a system that nominally purports to represent the will of the people it is not relevant that you are opposed to the spending. You are not the dictator of the country. The will of the majority is being thwarted consistently by a minority. This is not a sustainable way to run a representative form of government.
Everyone hides behind Majority rules right up until the Majority wants something they don't agree with. Be careful what you wish for hombre. You just might get it.
I’m not a dictator and don’t want to live in a system where my minority view can consistently thwart the will of the majority. A reasonably mature person understands that their opinion, if in the minority, shouldn’t prevail upon the majority. Obviously I’m talking about legislation that doesn’t infringe the Constitutional rights of people.
Re: Sen. Joe Manchin says no to $2T bill: ‘I can’t vote for it’
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
what kind of bot even is this, gosh
I’m not even sure they’re a bot, I’ve seen low effort trolls pop up all over the site now, usually quickly killed off. The most curious case, was an [banned] account making comments like this with a 10 year tenure. I’m not sure if they were posting unhinged crap for 10 years, or if they at some point were relatively benign until losing it for some reason.
or the account owner isn't the person posting. HN doesn't have a captcha for login attempts and there are probably lots of shared user/pass combos (or just easy to guess passes).