My teacher in middle school did specifically call out that it would take a project over several decades to co-opt the system.
Well, they’ve been going after the judgeships for decades.
Yeah. That’s exactly what happened.
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When I was growing up, they told us the US was the greatest country in the world. Now that I’m older, I realize it’s one of the worst in the Western world in nearly every statistic.
So…the us is the greatest at being the worse!
Maybe it’s time you guys rewrote your constitution into something more modern instead of treating the old one as a holy scripture handed down from Olympus.
But I doubt that’ll ever happen.
The document is open to interpretation. It can mean anything you want it to mean. For example, the first amendment is used to guarantee that unlimited amounts of money can be spent on election campaigns. So I’m not sure rewriting the thing would accomplish anything other than forcing the oligarchs to figure out new legal loopholes.
I’d like the 1st amendment to be altered slightly. Sure, everyone should be free to speak without government sanction but that shouldn’t mean freedom to lie. Fox and the rightwing have been abusing the shit out of it for years.
This is a terrible, horrible idea. It would give the government the power to censor anyone and anything, and all they have to do is claim that the thing they are censoring is a lie.
Well treating lies to be as valid as fact has brought you half a population living in their own reality and Trump as president.
So basically you want to give trump the power to censor you because he says you’re lying?
How would you tackle the lies or are you happy that Fox is able to conjure up its own version of reality with no pushback?
Now is definitely not the time to rewrite the constitution. Could you imagine what the powers that be would do to it?
Subscription based rights.
Trump is about to rewrite our Constitution, just not the way it should be written.
If he does, at least it’ll show that it can be rewritten.
Like all those amendments did?
Turns out it only works if the population doesn’t believe they want that.
America was built on the ideas of freedom and equality by slave owners who didn’t think women should be allowed to vote.
I mean, they did give an earnest try at preventing a king from happening, and it did work for a couple hundred years.
Not exactly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
Most places wanted no slavery.
The original tryanny of the minority was the planation owners that would not join beyond the Articles of Confederation unless they could continue with the slavery.
Women were still held down as they had been hisrorically, damn near everywhere. Not realy unique here.
Don’t forget they were also terrified of democracy. The Senate is one of the most comically anti-democratic institutions ever concocted. Wyoming has as much power as California. I mean it beggars belief that anyone but a complete imbecile could agree to something like that.
It’s not democratic from a person level, but it is more democratic from a state level. At the time they hadn’t quite figured out if they wanted to be a country or a collection of states that sometimes work together.
Democracy is a system of government whose power is vested by the people (“demos”). Notice that the Senate does not legislate on behalf of people. Instead, it represents the interests of random land masses (clusters of zip codes). It is as stupid as it sounds and the exact opposite of democracy.
One of the main arguments by Senate proponents during the US founding was that democracy was unacceptable. “Government by the people for the people? What gives these people the right…” etcetera. If you want quotes I’ll dig them up, but that’s the vibe.
“Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. […]
No. In fact, two democracies have never gone to war with each other. Why would they?
Democracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes, and no man’s life or property will be secure." - John Adams (1807)
Ah, redistribution of wealth and moral progress, terrifying. In case it’s not obvious from these pathetic quotes, John Adams was a moron.
Guess I should have said, it’s not democratic it’s Republican. And the question being what should legislature represent. I’m curious how the EU works as a governing body, is there proportional representation? Or does each county get an equal vote. Sorry for my ignorance.
Also yeah John Adams is a bit of a baffoon there.
The EU uses the ‘d’Hondt method’ which is a mathematical formula for proportional representation systems.
This is the opposite of the US senate.
It’s important to note that there’s no distinction between a democracy and a republic: a republic just is a type of (representative) democracy.
The United States is a republic, true, but there are aspects of our government that are undemocratic and vulnerable to corruption. The Senate is one of these aspects. The Supreme Court is another, so is the electoral college, and the influence of money, and the enormous power of the chief executive.
The first two political parties were formed around that very debate.
Too bad Jefferson didn’t rap.
Just had that fever.
The founding fathers were correct. A pure democracy is also known as mob rule. Anytime you can get 51% to agree with you, you can do whatever you like.
If 51% vote to take the homes of black people, that’s decided and done.
Which is why modern democracies are all some form of representative democracy. Which in theory is supposed to act as a sort of check and balance on the system.
I’m not following your argument, though I am slightly drunk. The disproportionate representation that’s the focus of the post means that less than 51% of the populace could wield the levers of power in the Senate. That’s minority rule, which is even worse than mob rule.
I get that mob rule is bad, and that we need checks in place to curb the possibility of abuses of power, but I see that as necessitating laws for super majorities and ranked choice or other ways of ensuring less extreme representatives getting into power.
But they got it started and we changed some things. We just didn’t change enough, or perhaps changed the wrong things.
A lot of people are being shown that a lot of stuff that kept their country going was decorum, shame and tradition, not rule of law.
Interesting take on The Social Contract.
But basically when your entire socoety is disingenuous to some extent, shit falls apart eventually.
Regulatory capture and citizens united both exist to undo those checks and balances. No system is immune to corruption.
Interestingly the US system was always more vulnerable to corruption, and everyone knew it. Our executive branch is far too powerful. That’s why when the US has engaged in nation building they never install governments like ours. Germany, Japan, Iraq, etc. the pentagon always insists on a parliamentary system, because they’re better in every way (less prone to grid lock, less prone to tyranny of the minority, weaker executive, etc.).
Checks and balances wasn’t about avoiding fascism.
It was to make sure all three branches of governments stayed in power over the body politic.
And they still are in power.
I was sure that preventing tyranny was part of the deal?
To be fair we were lied to growing up. Be nice to others and santa.
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I’d believe it when I see it
Chink in that armor was allow people without education, attention, and just plain common sense to vote
That’s a slippery slope my friend. Who gets to decide who is qualified enough to vote? What happens when they decide only select few can vote?
Definitely is a sticky situation. But since democracy is already dead, it could be done via education monitoring. For instance, you get low grades often like D’s or worse or don’t even show up to class enough to pass, your activity is recorded and you don’t get to register to vote. Maintain a C across the board and you do. Do all this monitoring through elementary and secondary. If some go through college, they get auto-registered. Doing all this during younger formative years could vastly improve the voter pools.
Yeah, because only stupid people who barely are able to breathe voted your democracy away.🙄
Sounds like you agree with Plato. It makes sense.
Kinda why the Electoral College exists.
But it was too cool to hate on it.
Because the people running the game know without it the game becomes who has the best propaganda.
Well, as you have seen, the game of propaganda was won by the ignorant, dark visioned, loudmouthed clowns
Considering the power dynamic, is calling them the ignorant ones correct?
Very. The upcoming administration is a glaring example of that fact
