Author complains these amendments cannot be passed because of political polarisation. That polarisation is the very reason why those amendments shouldn't pass. You can only change the constitution if there is a consensus, by design. If you want to make a change that half the country is dead against, all the systems of balance of power will work against it (two chambers - one by headcount the other by states, filibuster, presidential veto, high threshold of consensus for changing the constitution), as it should. And the constitution should be the hardest of all paths, since it is senior to all others.
Population shifts mean an ever-shrinking minority of the population can block changes to the constitution. It’s barely even double digits at this point.
Constitutional amendments were supposed to be easier than right to rebellion. That’s not really the case any more. At the same time, the supreme court is just ignoring the law, over the objections of 66-75% of the population (depending on the ruling).
These are dark times for US democracy. There’s no evidence things are working as intended.
The Supreme Court is, in no sense of the word, ignoring the law. They are interpreting the laws in ways you disagree with and in ways which have historically not been how it was interpreted by the same court, but this is not what ignoring means.
Further, the objections of the population have nothing to do with the judicial branch and everything to do with the legislative branch. The courts are not and have never been democratically elected entities.
Watching this play out (as a non-US person), there’s very little comfort in the distinction between court ignoring the law and the court interpreting the law in a way that is different to historic precedent. The act of interpretation infers that the court is making some kind of justification – backing these changes up by explaining them. Typically this would happen via written decision or at least by stare decisis.
But then I saw Samuel Alito commenting just today about how the first amendment does not give Americans, and college students specifically, the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre. The fire in a crowded theatre standard was overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). So it’s a little odd to hear that the Schenck interpretation from fifty years earlier is back on the menu.
I find myself wondering how that happened. What’s the fine distinction between interpreting the law differently to precedent and ignoring settled law?
Almost, but not quite. Brandenburg created a softer standard than Schenck. The offending speech would have to incite or produce imminent unlawful conduct. But there's an exception for political speech in Brandenburg, which handed people back their right to protest against (and urge people not to comply with) the draft.
Alito claimed* that the 'fire in a crowded theatre' standard should be applied to today's college campuses, essentially because he has strong views on how free speech should/shouldn't be regulated at college. It seems to me that he's taking issue specifically with the right of students to engage in political speech and protest. The current court seems to have a particular distaste for case law from the civil rights era. I think he's deciding to bring this exact issue up because he wants to signal to any prospective plaintiff what rulings and precedents the court is likely to focus on in a hypothetical case. But he did that by deliberately misapplying the relevance of a widely-known and easily-misunderstood civil rights-era standard. It feels like he's doing that to taunt his political opponents and signal his preference for an earlier legal regime.
My point is that it's fair to question whether the court is actually behaving like a legislature: it's concentrating on case law that specifically affects social policy and it's doing that because it has a majority's muscle. As a foreigner, I can't explain how insane this looks from outside. Judges don't get to just show up to cocktail parties or speeches and single out the precedents they'd prefer to ignore or dispense with. That's a politician's job.
I would add that if you are a fan of courts protecting minority rights not subject to the whims and abuses of majorities, you should be grateful that judges are not democratically elected.
Abusing any population, is abusing a population. What you just argued is akin to walking into a room full of pregnant high school girls, and declaring one to be the "most" virgin.
Besides, the point of the Constitution, is to make it difficult for such things to happen in one direction or another in the political dimension. Which it does pretty well. If you want it to provide protections in the dimension of private economic activity, you can do that, just make an amendment and build a consensus.
If this new amendment which you draft to ostensibly protect this "majority", can't build the requisite consensus, then not only is it doubtful that it actually protects a majority, but it also shouldn't be an amendment. That's just democracy since the "majority" you claim to be serving doesn't seem to want the amendment.
There are twenty-three states where judges all the way up to the State Supreme Court are elected, rather than being appointed. These include partisan elections, nonpartisan elections, and legislative elections.
Their stay in Texas's HB-8 was clearly ignoring the law as it stood. The restrictions in HB-8 were unquestionably unconstitutional at the time it arrived at the supreme court.
Later the court changed the interpretation of constitution. The majority could not wait to overturn the law, so they ignored it.
> Constitutional amendments were supposed to be easier than right to rebellion.
I think they were more worried about entire _states_ going into rebellion and not factions of populations spread across them.
> These are dark times for US democracy.
I don't think that's warranted. I would say these are the growing pains of a country now fully entering the age of always available connectivity with a founding document created when horse travel was the only credible way to travel across it.
> There’s no evidence things are working as intended.
You could say this of many things. The highly monopolized state of our media in the face of this new era is definitely a baffling outcome, and I definitely spend a lot of time thinking about the connection between this and the previous statement.
Independent State Legislature theory potentially being concurred with by SC and the ability of state houses obtained through gerrymandering to overturn any election they disagree with says that indeed it IS dark times for US democracy.
Supreme Court rulings are not a popularity contest. It’s intended as an independent (as independent a nominated body can be) that interprets the laws the Congress passes within the confines of the Constitution.
I for one would fear living in a country where the courts were swayed by public sentiment.
The SCOTUS is "independent" in the sense that it does not have any person or institution they have to answer to, but I'm not sure if that's really all that relevant. The individual members have vastly different views on how to interpret the law, and are clearly put in place for political reasons.
And courts should be "swayed by public sentiment". A judge's job is "to judge", and general societal attitudes play part of that. This is why SCOTUS rulings from 1910 are not the same as today. Otherwise we might as well replace all courts with some AI that would interpret the law to the letter.
There are very few universal beliefs among humans, as such, any position of power is going to have a political aspect to it. It's unavoidable.
Suffice to say, both parties' presidents have nominated Supreme Court justices that never made it past confirmation. Despite the voting procedure, both parties need to find nominees that are at least palatable to some portion of both parties. Extremes in either direction are generally dropped pretty quickly.
And courts are swayed by public sentiment, but it generally takes a long time for such social sentiment to filter up to the courts. And that's a good thing. The last thing we need is a court that decides cases on the whim's and fancies of the average voter.
> And courts should be "swayed by public sentiment".
That's problematic.
Part of the function of courts and judges is to convince people not to "take the law into their own hands", and mete-out punishment by mob. That incentivizes courts to hand-down more severe sentences, especially in scandalous cases. Another part is to interpret the law fairly (Justice as Fairness), a function that is often at odds with the former function.
I don't think it's at all the business of courts to try to appease the mob; that leads inevitably to trial-by-tabloid, which is no kind of justice.
Well, you turned "general societal attitudes" in to "appease the mob", which is a very different thing.
In 1986 the SCOTUS rules that consensual homosexual sex in private could be banned (Bowers v. Hardwick). Such a ruling would be almost unthinkable today, and was already overturned in 2003 (Lawrence v. Texas). All the arguments used in 1986 and 2003 could still be used today because the constitution hasn't changed, but what is and isn't societally acceptable on this front very much has.
I'm not talking about whatever was in the papers this week, or the opinion polls this year, or whatever Biden or Trump or whomever said last week, I'm talking about broad and general shifts in attitudes that take place over years and decades.
It’s hardly an independent body when 67% of members are lifetime political appointees from a party that hasn’t represented a national majority in several decades.
> On October 26, the Senate confirmed Barrett to the Supreme Court by a vote of 52–48, 30 days after her nomination and 8 days before the 2020 presidential election. *Every Republican senator except Susan Collins voted to confirm her, whereas every member of the Senate Democratic Caucus voted in opposition.* Barrett is the first justice since 1870 to be confirmed without a single vote from the Senate minority party.
A strict reading of the rules says that but the meta behavior of how the political parties interact with those rules means that the scotus judges are de facto chosen by one party or the other.
In my opinion the unacceptable, repetitive, fundamentalist-led attacks on the very institution of voting itself would take far more precedence than the social issues you listed, although I know social media leans hard on them.
If you truly feel those are the most pressing issues in your mind/spheres, I would urge you to remember that social media is largely an echo chamber designed to distract from the actual issues, like the aforementioned sustained assault on the very basis of American society.
> In my opinion the unacceptable, repetitive, fundamentalist-led attacks on the very institution of voting itself would take far more precedence than the social issues you listed
How are they attacked? From what I've seen, all the "voter suppression" stories coming from the US are all things we have in place in other modern democracies like in Canada. We have voter ID, we have to make sure we are registered, we can only ask for mail ballots for certain circumstances, voting machines are banned and we have move of the results before midnight.
That doesn’t surprise me, honestly, because the reporting around this is often hard to parse. I suspect that difficulty is on purpose, at least in North Carolina where I am based.
If you would like to understand more about what I’m talking about, which goes far beyond the things like voter ID that you have mentioned, I would suggest beginning with stolen ballots in North Carolina during the 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as gerrymandering policies during the same.
I would then go and examine the statements given by the leadership of each side when such criminal acts are discovered. How do they respond? That can often give you an idea of what a party’s intentions truly are.
Be advised: there is a strong conservative media push to keep the conversation centered around things like voter ID laws, which I agree with you are entirely acceptable. In the same way that they seek to focus on bathroom policies instead of focusing on women dying for their religious beliefs, they hope to muddy the voting issue until it is too late.
I appreciate your interest in understanding what’s going on, and I hope you will add your voice to mine in the future!
If you would like me to do the work of providing you with additional sources addressing any of the other events, please let me know specifically which events you're curious about. I am happy to inform, but do prefer such requests to present in more limited scope, given that I’m doing a favor. Thank you!
Voter suppression in the US appears to take on other forms, reducing the number of polling places in urban centres such that it can take several hours to cast a vote, restricting their hours, making it illegal to provide water for those in the queue, that sort of thing.
Multi-pronged attacks which try to ensure only 'your' people get to participate.
As an Australian resident and a British citizen, it seems outrageous to me - I've never had to take more than about fifteen minutes out of my day to vote in the UK, and in Australia voting is fast, mandatory and always run on a weekend so that most people can get to it. They even usually have a charity barbecue outside the polling place!
Other, indirect attacks on the system include Trump's big lie, the stated intention of the republican candidate for the secretary of state of Arizona to return the state to republican control because he thinks it's what the people really want regardless of the outcome of the actual vote (because clearly the vote is rigged!), the various "alternative electors" that republicans attempted to send to congress during the aftermath of the last presidential election etc etc. The US right is currently mounting an attack on US democracy itself in various ways, to try and work around the system and usurp democratic mandate.
Thanks, it's fascinating and a little scary to watch! The US has a huge influence on the world, particularly on the other western, anglophone democracies, so it feels important. I also have family and friends in various states.
My generation in the UK grew up with America being this shiny, free, wonderful, aspirational land over the sea, the land of Baywatch and Miami Vice and Disneyland and CocaCola all the other things. It really did appear to be the mythical shining light on the hill. I love visiting the US and have spent over a year there now, on and off. It is a varied land of contradictions and of very different values and lifestyles, a land of opulence, but also of left behind little places. But the politics ... it seems to have become pathological, and the population increasingly cynical about politicians, about the media and sources of information, to the extent that most trust seems gone and consensus reality seems to be frequently called into question (I'm not claiming this is unreasonable! Just observing).
These tropes are definitely present in the two countries I've called home, but to a much lesser extent, the poison doesn't seem to have permeated quite so far.
You do see stuff get thrown around on social media like "Make sure to take a pen to the voting booth so that they can't change your vote!" but it's fringe whackos. Even if the politicians themselves are disliked, the mechanics of democracy are usually pretty well trusted. IIRC in the last general election here one of the tiny right-wing parties tried some voter-fraud type rabble-rousing ahead of the poll, but they were largely ignored and pretty quickly contradicted by the Australian Election Commission.
Finchem promotes the big lie and says he will use his prospective position (which AFAICT includes responsibility for administering the election) to "make sure that Arizona is the Red State it REALLY is!" - https://twitter.com/derekwillis/status/1403143345132781569
It's true, that last one is perhaps not as cut-and-dried as it could be, there's some wiggle room in there, but to me the intention looks clear. It's fecking crazy to me that a partisan, elected official has anything to do with running the elections in the first place... but there we are.
I'm sure you can find more stuff like this if you look. Of course I'm sure that there are all sorts of excuses and justifications out there for why this is all totally reasonable, or why the 'other side' are just as bad. It's not clear to me they are though, at least, not when it comes to trying to actually undermine democracy itself.
I’m interested to hear your take on how voting machines are “less secure” than by-hand tallying. I’m unfamiliar with the process, so this goes contrary to what my intuition would tell me goes on
In the same way that email is easier to silently spoof/alter/discard than a handwritten letter. Voting machines without paper backup suffer the same vulnerabilities, with much greater cost, and significantly less money being put toward securing them.
A better question is: “what do digital only voting machines do BETTER than paper ballots?” I’m interested to hear your take!
Don’t really have one, I’m more interested in a study of which protocol is more secure, higher integrity. Gut instinct is that voting machines have a longer/stronger audit chain, are automated & don’t get tired. But of course, auditors get tired and aren’t automated, then again, is voting software “really that hard?”. But then again that audit chain could be stupid and expensive and outweigh the benefit.
In either case, machine or human, I hope that there is some kind of consensus algorithm at play.
I understand your points and concerns but I believe you are operating under the assumption that paper ballots must be counted by human auditors. This is not the case. The issue lies not with automated systems, but in a total reliance upon them, without paper fallback.
The system functions ideally like a scantron system for tests — that is , a standardized bubble form (like a ballot), is read by a machine, which tallies the results automatically.
Crucially, however: if the programming or capability of the tallying machine is ever called into question, a paper ballot allows for referencing a physical, inked record of the voter’s original intent, far more immutably than any *purely* digital record could ever be.
Part of this equation is the fact that current systems are all fractured, with control spread across private industry at the state level, and levels of oversight varying wildly (often from election cycle to election cycle). A paper record is helpful to avoid rogue counties/townships/states etc from simply rewriting history as they see fit. On paper? A significant effort to conceal and alter. Digitally? One script. It just depends on who is in control at any given time.
Also: the trouble with a centralized, verifiable database of voter records is that unsavory entities will inevitably figure out how to look people up themselves, leading also inevitably to voter intimidation and suppression, not to mention violence.
So your points are all correct, but the need for a paper record remains, in my opinion. Testing as you suggest would be nice, but I’m also uncertain what it would further prove, given what to me appears to be an obvious logical extrapolation based on present realities.
Thank you for engaging so rigorously, I really do appreciate you taking the time and hope you feel respected in this conversation. I recognize that this is a contentious arena of issues and I have no wish to batter anyone, although I feel strongly about my position.
EDIT: the point I was trying to make (somewhat glibly) with my prior comment was this: paper ballots work, have worked, and will continue to work for the foreseeable future, unchanged. And it’s critical they function as unimpeachably as possible. So why change the system without a clear, significant benefit for doing so? My understanding is that critical programs like nuclear weaponry don’t generally run on modern, connected platforms — older, offline tech is fully known, and often inherently presents less attack surface in a modern world. The same would seem to be true of individual paper ballots, to me.
Yeah I’m not educated on vote counting machines, but thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think I can imagine plenty of paper ballot systems that are fraud resistant, and so I think generally I’d be happy either way. Something that does seem concerning is the electoral college system, perhaps more specifically how the county votes annd state votes are ratified. It seems like a much smaller population than ballot counters (the people who ratify the election results), and if I understand correctly they’re straight up allowed to reject the will of the people. It shouldn’t matter if it’s a majority in favor of or against your candidate, it’s a majority and that needs to be respected. That all needs amending in my opinion. And frankly, I think popular vote should be the decider and well. I get that it would change campaign strategy, but it would also keep parties more middle of the road.
Please say what about voting has been fundamentally attacked at its core that rises to the level of amending the Constitution? That voters are required to (gasp) verify their identification, once every 4 years, if certain conditions aren't met? That drop boxes for ballots were reduced in number?
Gerrymandering? Just look at some of the district designs in New York.
I might remind you that all the things that are criticized in Republican states for suppressing the vote, exist as rules in certain Democratic states as well.
It's easy, I might point out to you as well, to live in an echo chamber where issues get inflated in perceived importance, only because they hurt your side. Yet those same issues happening where it doesn't hurt the side, somehow fall from being a problem.
That's no way to come to what should be an amendment to our basic document.
> Gerrymandering? Just look at some of the district designs in New York.
Nobody said that this was a republican-led-state problem only. That doesn't stop it from being a major threat to democracy, nor does it a priori mean that the Democrats do it as much or to the extent that Republicans do.
> I might remind you that all the things that are criticized in Republican states for suppressing the vote, exist as rules in certain Democratic states as well.
Do tell. No food or drink supplies allowed while standing outside in line for hours? Where's that in the Democratic states?
> That voters are required to (gasp) verify their identification, once every 4 years, if certain conditions aren't met?
Until we give everyone an ID card, yes that is voter suppression because it prevents many citizens from voting.
> That drop boxes for ballots were reduced in number?
Drop boxes and polling locations. It's hard enough that voting day isn't a paid holiday. If it takes hours and hours or goes outside of the range someone can easily travel, that's a big problem.
When one side repeatedly accuses the process of being rigged, that has the effect of lowering overall belief in the system.
And when every objectively proven, convicted case is perpetrated by that SAME side, yet never condemned by said side, the only possible conclusion is that said side is operating in bad faith.
When one entire half of the political equation is no longer operating in good faith, it has a cascading effect throughout society. Civilization exists because the majority believe in it, no more, no less. All of recorded history would seem to support this theory.
And to put your mind at ease, I assure you I speak from my life experience rather than any internet talking points.
For a simple example, take gerrymandering in my home state of NC. A complex issue, but if one does the work to understand what’s going on, everything I’m saying is clear.
Research is required because the party in power would prefer it NOT be easy to comprehend the big picture — thus my patience with your high-handed-while-largely-misinformed statement of your understanding.
I am curious: how do you explain away the most recent former president demanding votes from Georgia? To continue to treat/request support from such an individual is, to me, an absolute signifier that one does not consider the right to vote to be a fundamental issue, in my opinion.
Not to mention the tomfoolery with ballots going missing, again in NC, due to the actions of an entrenched conservative “deep state” (for lack of a better term).
Nevertheless, I support your right to your opinion! I do wish conservative leadership felt the same way.
I hope this comment leaves you feeling more fully informed of the issues, so you don’t feel the need to bring up bathrooms in the context of rebellion again :).
And consensus failure means that we should codify into the basic law what you believe is the consensus on that topic? Or change the rules to reflect the lack of consensus? How odd.
A change to the Constitution isn't going to save you from people fundamentally disagreeing on things.
The US system has little d democratic aspects but it is not a democracy. It was intentionally setup to protect the minority from the majority in critical respects like constitutional amendments. Also, population shifts are ongoing and the coastal blue populations are the most rapidly aging in the country and the increasingly red US born Hispanic populations are the most rapidly growing. The future may contain some surprises.
> the coastal blue populations are the most rapidly aging in the country
No, they aren’t. [0]
> the increasingly red US born Hispanic populations are the most rapidly growing.
The Hispanic population isn’t clearly “increasingly red”. [1] It is also growing slower (between the 2010 and 2020 censuses, 23%) than the Asian (35.5%), American Indian (27.1%), and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (27.8%) groups, as well as various multiracial groups. [2]
While you're not wrong, the strongest interpretation of the OP claim is that they meant growing in absolute numbers. By that measure, Hispanic population grew roughly 3x as much as Asian, 10x more than Native American, and 30x more than Pacific Islander (using your census link).
You're own link seems to indicate that Hispanics are shifting to the away from the Democratic party. (In the article, it says they follow a muted version of national trajectory). While that's not the same as saying they are becoming "increasingly red", it is important to note they may be "increasingly less blue."
Amazing how California shifted from reliable Red (Ronald Reagan era) to reliable blue.
What was the factor in this seemingly quick shift - population shifts ???.
It’s a democratic republic. I have a distaste for conservative arguments to begin with but the wheedling pedantry of this one they always trout out to ignore the word “democratic” in the description to justify anti democratic measures always manages to annoy me just a little bit harder
Federal rebulic. It seems that Federal word is way too often forgotten. Maybe first amendment to constitution moving forward should be getting rid of it and just moving everything to single level, currently federal, but after not.
1. The 17th amendment (1912) - Electing senators by popular vote broke the state representation in the federal government. States no longer had representation to protect their sovereignty.
2. The federal reserve act (1913) - enables government to self-fund by printing money and enforces everyone onto a single, centrally controlled bank.
3. The 16th amendment (1913) - Federal income tax - allows the federal government to directly tax citizens for the first time.
Those three amendments, in effect, decimated the federal system and centralized power. After that, they could pass what ever they wanted.
IMO the internet is re-igniting a public debate and push towards populism -- that and that's why you saw the 2008 rise of Ron Paul, Occupy Wallstreet, Tea Party, Bernie Sandars and now MAGA.
(yes, it was coupled with a financial crisis, but the government response led to push back).
There's another critical date: 1971. That was the year that Nixon ended the Bretton Woods System. [1] Bretton Woods was a defacto global* monetary system. Other currencies were pegged to the dollar and the dollar was convertible to gold at a fixed rate. This created a sort of soft backing to the dollar.
After it ended the final constraint the 'government printing' (this is not an entirely accurate description of the process, but close enough for practical purposes) infinite money became a viable option; one which they have vigorously pursued since. The above link offers a number of fun graphs demonstrating the changes revolving about that date.
When a federal government can go tens of trillions of dollars in debt, that absolutely destroys any sort of economic normalcy. Because they can offer what's, from their perspective, monopoly money for real services while the rest of the economy is forced to use real money. This applies not only to businesses, but also states - which are constrained by financial realities.
I suspect when this current system we've created blows up, it's going to make 1929 look like a bull market.
> this is not an entirely accurate description of the process
This is an entirely inaccurate description of the process. Only countries were allowed to purchase gold for $35 an ounce, with the assumption that they would also "buy" $35 with an ounce of gold. This would ordinarily be considered a bad deal because the dollar had already drastically inflated since 1934, but Europe and Japan were desperate for liquidity to rebuild from WWII, so they were happy to trade physical gold for what was essentially slips of paper. When the US noticed that they were increasingly trying to trade these slips of paper into gold, the US ended the ability to do so. Saying that the end of Bretton Woods was a bad decision is really just saying that you want the US to instantly become bankrupt.
There is no reason to peg your currency to an arbitrary metal. If the government wanted to stop itself from printing money, it would simply stop printing money. Bretton Woods was actually a weaker protection against "printing money" than say a debt ceiling because Nixon was able to reverse kill Bretton Woods single handedly, whereas raising the debt ceiling requires an act from Congress.
> I suspect when this current system we've created blows up, it's going to make 1929 look like a bull market.
I don't think it will completely blow up, but there will be enough economic pain inflicted such that the ordinary person will be happy to accept a central bank digital currency.
At this point, I think the US would not accept it.
Half the country wants nothing to do with the federal government. If you visit places like South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Indiana, etc the people there are openly saying “prepare, the government is attacking us”
Driving around the country you’ll see upside down American flags (meaning country in distress), gadsden flags, etc you’re much more likely going to get people to accept ETH then take over the org or something.
> States no longer had representation to protect their sovereignty.
Huh? Previously, state representatives elected senators; after the 17th, the voters did. How does either of these things end "state representation" ? You're insisting that "state representation" can only mean "representation of the people already elected by the voters", which is unjustifiably narrow.
> enforces everyone onto a single, centrally controlled bank.
Do you recall the situation before this?
> allows the federal government to directly tax citizens for the first time.
tricky to fight international wars without this, which obviously you could view as a plus.
> Huh? Previously, state representatives elected senators; after the 17th, the voters did. How does either of these things end "state representation" ?
Who’s their boss? At the moment senators answer to the people of a state, previously they answered to state government.
This changes the reasoning of why we have laws at the federal level. The senators representing a state would be fired for giving up sovereignty; not so for those elected via popular vote. Those elected by popular vote are incentivized to give out goodies to the masses.
State legislators could easily fire and switch senators. Public opinion on the senators didn’t matter nearly as much. If a person of a state wanted influence over the senators they had to focus on local elections.
There’s a whole lot of changes, not really sure what’s being missed?
State reps have a much more informed and salient interest in maintaining their state’s sovereignty, as their power directly derives from it. Much of what the fœderal government does now to usurp state power is to simply bribe the states to change their policies (e.g. the drinking age, but many such examples). Would state reps willingly select senators who would bribe them to change their own policies?
> State reps have a much more informed and salient interest in maintaining their state’s sovereignty,
Bullshit.
The smaller the democratic unit, the more likely it is to be unduly influenced by local power and wealth. State reps are far more likely to represent the interests of the local power and wealth than they are "their state" (by which I mean "the people of their state")
> The federal reserve act (1913) - enables government to self-fund by printing money
The government was always able to do that. Independent central banking made it harder, not easier (that’s why independent central banking helps trust in the currency, because it divorces monetary from fiscal policy, and helping maintain trust in the currency is why you do it.)
the ussr and china both developed from feudalism without capitalism and lifted a huge number of people out of poverty. not advocating their system, (not not-advocating either), but they are counter examples.
China:Four Pests campaign, other madness... total deaths over 40 million.
Russia: purges, torture then murder of 'kulaks', Holodomor, Virgin Lands campaign, etc. Total deaths, estimate at least 30 million; Solzhenitsyn said 66 million.
None of those combined 70 million+ made it out of poverty.
Both the USSR and China both went through (at different times!) great famines due to their collectivization of agriculture. Further, their agricultural practices in general were learned from the capitalist countries and neither produced / produce enough. Both the USSR and China did / currently rely heavily on food imports.
Arguably, they only escaped feudalism because capitalistic countries provided enough cheap food to the global market to transition their economies off of mass labor in fields (the basis of feudalism).
That’s not entirely true and is mostly propaganda pushed to create a “Ukrainian identity”.
To put it simply, the famine was primarily impacting Cossacks, which were throughout southern Russia at the time. You can look up the famines and see it’s not specifically targeted.
Though I do grant you, collective farming was the issue and it did have an undue impact in Ukraine.
Didn't the Ukrainian famines happened because the URSS was also exporting grain at the same time to capitalist countries, in exchange for industrial development?
> Both the USSR and China both went through (at different times!) great famines due to their collectivization of agriculture.
didn't the ussr squeeze those farmers so tight to get industral equipment out of the capitalists by trading grain? yes, the capitalists graciously supported the ussr, the cold war was actually a big hug!
because they traded with capitalist nations they couldn't have existed without capitalism. sure, actually that was the theory at the time, that industrialized germany would join them in a mutually beneficial relationship. that didn't happen for some reason.
but what if we flip it? because capitalist nations traded with slave states and feudal nations, they couldn't have existed without slavery and feudalsim. because capitalist nations trade with violently repressive plutocracies, they can't exist without violently repressive plutocracy. seem fair?
how were china and the ussr organized is the actual question.
maybe you assume technological development was caused by capitalism. personally i think that's putting the cart before the horse.
How anyone in this day can still support such blatantly despotic nations is a mystery to me. Even if you believe capitalist nations are equally authoritarian, which they clearly aren’t, then you’d still have to admit that they at least have the decency to conceal it by not having concentration camps, political and religious persecution, dictators for life or just straight up starving their populace.
The current crop of über wealth are supporters of the Democratic party. Radical environmentalists are probably the most anti modern people out there at the moment. I wouldn’t bring “keeping blacks down” into this considering the track record of Democrat policies and their impact on the black community.
First one is def a tool you don't want to lose, especially if your party loses. Second sounds like both U.S. conservatives and liberals. Third like primitivists, and fourth like any status quo supporting bipartisan neo-con. As is,the probably attempted strawman does not work.
Indeed. When the Supreme Court rules that 6 MJ plants, grown and consumed on a homeowner’s property, falls under the power to regulate inter-state commerce, I think some of plot has been lost.
A conspiracy theory is, by definition, a secret. That the government routinely ignores the Constitution isn't a conspiracy, just a sad fact. How many wars have we been in over the last 70 years? Vietnam? Korea? Iraq? Afghanistan? Just to name a very few. Read Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution. How many times has the Congress voted to go to war? Is this just a conspiracy, or another example of our government's disregard for the document that purportedly grants them their legitimate legal authority? Congress actually voted against going to war against Libya in 2011, but Obama ignored them and destroyed Libya anyway. Conspiracy or disregard for the highest law in the land?
"Authorization for use of military force" is not a declaration of war, despite what the DC blob and their corporate media surrogates would suggest. The whole concept behind checks and balances is that the Congress would retain the power to declare war on foreign nations. Not that they would abdicate their responsibility and pass a bill that gave the executive branch unlimited, undefined warmaking powers.
Legally speaking, what is a war? Can an event look like a war, but is not a war? What are the thresholds for calling an event a war? Is every event involving military action a war?
Congratulations, you just summed up about 30% of Command and Staff College. /s
Professionally, we discuss a continuum of armed conflict, ranging from competition (at the "infrared" end of the spectrum) through limited contingency operations, small wars, hybrid threats, etc. to total war.
The Constitution has built into it certain assumptions about the world. Many of them either hold true or can be legally held true (e.g., there are inherent rights with inherent contours, such as for speech or keeping and bearing arms, that can be determined with historical analysis).
Many cannot hold, and become vestigial and almost meaningless (e.g., a $20 threshold for jury trials in civil cases).
Lastly, many cannot hold... and so the applicability of the provisions they implicate become open questions. It simply isn't the case that only nation-states can engage in armed conflict, or that they always make formal declarations of it (though I'd argue the AUMFs qualify for Constitutional purposes), or that all armed conflict will be at the level of total war.
The substance of the power to declare war is to ensure the President cannot act unilaterally to call up Reservists or engage in conflict; Congress governs. I think that substance continues to be met, given the weave of the statutory scheme (Title 10, Subtitle E; contingency operation appropriations by Congress; AUMFs; etc.).
Certainly not, which is why I only mentioned a few major foreign invasions that involved hundreds of thousands of our troops and killed millions of people.
>What are the thresholds for calling an event a war?
Reasonable people can argue over exactly what that threshold is, but nobody reasonable would deny that our invasions of Vietnam and Iraq qualify as wars.
Indeed! Breathing together in the literal, but breath also carries connotations, as often expressed in the Greek pneuma - the Bible, according to Paul, was "theospneustos", God breathed, the soul is the "pneuma", so conspiring implies an intermingling.
I think the implication is a bit more literal. When you conspire with someone you communicate secretly with them in order to plot and coordinate your actions. You do this by being in very close proximity to them and whispering, so close that you are sharing breath i.e. breathing together.
The author does not "complain these amendments cannot be passed because of political polarisation [sic]" - she points out that even prior to polarization most amendments couldnt be passed. There are many other important and nuanced points in the article as well, it's neither pro- nor anti- amendment.
Part of the problem in the last half century does appear to be that consensus is itself no longer desirable or possible - the two-party system in the US appears to have an element of adversarial behaviour which is purely for the sake of being against the other guy.
So it's not so much that half the country is dead against particular measures because of their merits or values, but they will be set against change it simply because the other side wants it.
> the two-party system in the US appears to have an element of adversarial behaviour which is purely for the sake of being against the other guy.
Because it serves to maintain a delicate balance: donors fill the coffers of both parties and offer cushy jobs after their term in office, and in return politicians don't pass any legislation that can meaningfully threaten the bottom line of those donors, even though that kind of legislation would actually help the most people and be quite popular. This is why large corporations donate almost equally to both parties, from defense contractors to pharma.
Instead of those meaningful changes which would unite the country, politicians set up culture war issues to set half the country against the other half, because culture war issues are semantic language games where nobody wins and everybody loses. It's bikeshedding writ large.
You say "should" and I think you're right that that is how the system is interpreted to work and has been for a while. But don't mistake that for a design choice by genius founding fathers OR for a good aspect or a way of achieving good government.
Relying on consensus to get things done AND designing a system to prevent consensus (party system, FPTP etc) is really just a recipe for deadlocked government. The result is the main failing of the US system: things are dictated by the craziest holdout.
I don't think this is a design choice (thinking so would be pretty damning for the founding fathers...). I don't think it serves the US well. I think it is only how the system "should" work in the sense that it is the natural failure mode of the system as written. If a bad, rushed coder fails to put divide by zero protection in, the program "should" crash when someone puts a 0 in. That doesn't mean that isn't a bug to fix though...
IMO "amendments" are made and also "ignored" via an unofficial process.
For example, I can read the second amendment --
> A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It is clear the national firearms act is outright unconstitutional by any sane reading, yet it was deemed "okay" by SCOTUS and passed by congress. The amendment was ignored for nearly 80 years and finally opinion seems to be shifting.
In a similar vein, the supreme court previously created a problematic "roe v wade" ruling. Regardless where you stand on the issue, SCOTUS effectively legislated that decision into existence. There was never any support in the constitution for their claims (the cut-off date in particular) or any laws passed (hence it was overturned and returned to the states). It's called "legislating from the bench".
In other words, our constitution is interpreted by a court which can just decide it means something that it doesn't.
It seems we can't repeal the amendments, but we sure can ignore them. And we can't create new amendments, but we sure can just implement them (Roe v Wade).
Personally, I'd like to see the constitution fully implemented to the furthest possible extent. We may disagree on issues, but to the point, we can amend them. A full implementation would also create more sovereign states which enable a diversity of ideas and plethora of ways to live.
The Supreme Court didn’t nullify the first clause of the second amendment until 2012. The thought that the right to bear arms was completely unrestricted didn’t exist for the first 200 years of the USA’s existence (including when the people who wrote it were still alive). That the Supreme Court was able to change the meaning of the amendment over time is a clear indication that literal interpretations of it really don’t exist.
^ clearly making my point that cultural opinions dictate more than amendments (particularly ones held by SCOTUS).
Just to be clear, you're incorrect. The bill of rights was extremely clear, the intent was that every citizen should be armed. Recall at the time, the states had to call on citizens to defend their towns, states and country regularly. They didn't have money and needed the citizens to have their own weapons. For both personal and collective defense.
> The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed. - Thomas Jefferson
That said, there has always been a push from various political groups (all the way back to John Adams) who pushed to regulate arms in one-way-or-another. The point is, the reading itself is clear. If you read the various diaries, letters, speeches and publications at the time it paints a picture much like today. There are those who want a disarmed population fearing rebellion and those who demand an armed population. The group that won out on the amendment were clear: "There shall be no law regulating arms and you should be proficient in their use"
> If you want to make a change that half the country is dead against, all the systems of balance of power will work against it (two chambers - one by headcount the other by states, filibuster, presidential veto, high threshold of consensus for changing the constitution), as it should.
Crime virtually disappeared after Prohibition was passed until the apparition of organized crime.
At the time (and still to this day) alcohol and drugs made and destroyed empires. The Dutch Empire was based on Gin. The British Empire on Opium and Rhum. Russia on Vodka. France had Bourbon.
Prohibition and the temperance movement in general enjoyed wide popular support, and many states had already introduced restrictions on alcohol before the constitution was amended.
If there is a strong enough popular support for taking more extreme actions, then there should be strong enough support to change the constitution the normal way.
For people who want the constitution changed, thats the dilemma they have to deal with. If they don't have enough support to do it the regular way, then maybe the more silly and extreme solutions aren't justified either.
The primary flaw in the constitution is that smaller states have disproportionate power (Senate and Electoral College) and will never give up or dilute this power.
Even worse, equal representation for each state in the Senate is literally the only part of the constitution that cannot be amended.
So even with overwhelming popular support there is an absolute barrier to reform.
Senatorial races were gerrymandered in the 19th century when they were converting territories into states. We are stuck with the results of those political battles forever.
The problem with the electoral college is not one with the constitution. The house of representatives could easily reapportion seats and expand it's size to be more in line with the populations of the states, and these readjust the electoral votes to be closer to the popular vote. But they don't. Why? Perhaps they give up more as individuals than they gain in doing so?
The Senate composition can be amended legally. It does require the consent of any state which would lose proportional representation, placing a strong practical hurdle but there is no absolute legal barring of that amendment.
I firmly believe it'll be a catalyst that reminds "The People" that they were MEANT to be the fourth check and balance, and that the check and balance system was NOT abstracted for just political institutions to provide leverage against each other's tension.
The founder of the idea of "checks and balances" themselves (Montesquieu, Secondat) said it, the Founding Fathers who were influenced by the two (Madison) wanted to charter it (Federalist n. 10), and Hobbes argued for it in Leviathan. The writing has been on the wall for CENTURIES to include The People as its own entity within the ontological power-struggle of American politics - we were just led to forget our own history.
As a big fan of Jean-Jacques myself I also dig the volonté générale/will of the People, the trouble is that it's quite difficult to say what that "will" really is, first, and second, and just as important, who the People actually is.
To be honest I don't think that in these past ~250 years we've made that big of a progress in answering those two fundamental questions. I mean, the US Constitution starts with the very rousseau-ist "We the People of the United States", but a major part of the population living in said United States wasn't considered (fully) part of said People until the mid-19th century, some say that even now that process is an ongoing project.
The biggest issue in my mind is the potential for the election deniers to gain real power. If elections no longer work as intended, I don’t think anybody can predict what the outcome will be.
“Democracy” isn’t a one-dimensional issue. How you make decisions (majority vote) is one dimension. But who makes the decision—what group does the voting and is bound by the results of voting—is another dimension. Many countries balance these issues by having different levels of voting. Distinct communities wishing to govern themselves is a nearly universal phenomenon. My country exists because we didn’t want to be in a body politic with Pakistanis. It was our right to decide we should have our own government where we, and not they, voted on the laws that governed us. Dismissively comparing all such impulses to the Civil War is intellectually lazy.
Self determination is a widely recognized political right. If folks in Alabama don’t want folks in California to have a say in their affairs, they have that right. That must be balanced against other practicalities of course. But letting different groups govern themselves is conceptually part of “democracy” just as much as “one person one vote.”
If the secret of the dimensionality of reality was ever to seep out into the broad memeplex (particularly if the idea caught on with young people), I have a feeling our zoo keepers would have a bit of trouble on their hands.
Just because it was tried and "failed" once before doesn't mean that people don't still believe that it can be tried and made to work the next time.
The concept of a split US is not unattractive to a much larger number of people than you might be willing to give credit. There's also the people that will support a movement not because they fully support it, but mainly just because it's screwing the "system" and watching the chaos.
Back in the mid-90s, I was a video journalist covering the Republic of Texas[0] movement to secede (or in their words to recognize the illegality of Texas being annexed into the Union). It was very interesting how it was successfully progressing through the court system, but then went to crazy town with all of the liens, attempting to print their own money, and the kidnappings. However, there were the typical people denouncing their US citizenship and signing up to join to the Republic of Texas. The thing that surprised me was the governments of other countries signed up in recognition of the RoT as a legit government. I get that individual peoples wanting to see the world burn, but seeing governments sign up for it was what got me.
Could a state democratically elect to secede from the union? What if a National vote was held and a majority agreed to split up the USA? At what point could we democratically all agree we think the other side is crazy, and ask to peacefully take our ball and go home?
>Could a state democratically elect to secede from the union?
It was supposed to be part of the stipulations Texas had in the agreement to re-join the Union. At least that is part of Texas folklore. However, they were coming at it from a different direction in saying that the annexing was not done legally, so it should just naturally revert back to how it was before the illegal annexing.
We're actually seeing something similar but different currently in how part of Oregon wants to become part of Idaho.
>What if a National vote was held and a majority agreed to split up the USA?
It might not be a national vote, but a civil war ending in a stale mate would essentially do just that. Think Handmaid's Tale's Gilead.
> At what point could we democratically all agree we think the other side is crazy, and ask to peacefully take our ball and go home?
I gladly suggest donating Texas and Florida as the land of the new territory for the "crazy" for which you speak. Anyone not wanting to be part of there rules can move to the other states, and anyone wanting to be part of it can move in. Just let me move out of Texas before the mad rush
The 10th amendment basically says any power not granted to the federal government and not banned by the Constitution is left to the state. Secession is never mentioned in the Constitution and as such states have every right to vote to leave.
The Supreme Court has previously erroneously ruled that the federal government had the authority to stop it despite that power not having been granted to the federal government.
Texas v. White was a lot more complex than that; Specifically, the court claimed that the Constitution, in its effort to "form a more perfect union," precluded secession. Secession was inherently unconstitutional, because its foundations are that the "more perfect" union is imperfect and not salvageable by any action - short of divorce.
Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase in 1869, Chief Justice at the time:
"When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All the obligations of perpetual union, and all the guaranties of republican government in the Union, attached at once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union between Texas and the other States was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States. There was no place for reconsideration or revocation, except through revolution or through consent of the States."
I understand what the Supreme Court said. There are a few problems with it though.
1. The founders wholly rejected that notion. The Declaration of Independence says
>When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation
>That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
>But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
The Colonies were allowed to rid themselves of the British Government but the states aren't allowed to rid themselves of the American government? That makes no sense. The Founding Fathers would have had no issue with secession. Either the American Revolution was illegitimate or the southern one was legitimate. The British Empire made the same argument that the Supreme Court did. The British were wrong just like the Court.
2. If a state cannot leave, then how did the Southern States become military districts? Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to strip states of statehood?
3. There was consent of the states who left to leave. I'm not sure why another state needs to be involved since the 10th amendment doesn't require the consent of other states.
4. If you have a glass of water. You take a sip of water you still have a glass of water. If a state leaves the Union you still have a union. If changing the amount of state destroys the union then I am not sure how adding to the Union does not do the same.
The Supreme Court ruled this way to provide cover for the unconstitutional actions of the federal government. They banned actions that were both allowed and they themselves did. To use a word from the Deceleration of Independence, that is despotism.
>2. If a state cannot leave, then how did the Southern States become military districts? Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to strip states of statehood?
This was a key point that the 90s Republic of Texas movement keyed on, and they would tell anyone within earshot about why all Texas flags in courts are trimmed in gold fringe.
