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US Politics - The Liar in Winter


Larry of the Lawn

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31 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

But our system is obviously different than Putin's Russia, despite our flaws and despite votes being cast in Russia.

If you were in America at the time of the Revolution would you support the rich white land-owner rebels or King George?

The thing about the American revolution is that it really took off in the North, and especially New England, because land was most equitably distributed there, certainly far more than Europe. So lots of people who were not particularly rich nonetheless considered themselves entitled to the rights of landholding Englishmen. Notable here is that England had to be at least as formally democratic for the complaint to make sense. It wasn't really rich white land owners vs King George, but a society with a broad middle class objecting to control by a smaller middle class across an ocean.

The other thing about the American revolution is that the existence of slavery, particularly on the scale it existed in the South, and where it would be entrenched after the war rather than gradually abolished as it was in the North, made American rhetoric grossly hypocritical. 

It's interesting to wonder, with the benefit of hindsight, whether greater good would have been done for a greater number had the American revolution not occurred. Britain abolished slavery in its empire before the United States did, but perhaps they would not had done so if they perceived slavery in the American South to be too important. Clearly the United States would not have conquered the continent from sea to shining sea, but surely someone would have, maybe even Britain, and it's doubtful Native Americans would have been any better off. All in all I think the rebels had a decent point on the unfairness of Parliament imposing laws on them without their consent, but it was hardly an injustice that, in the scheme of things, and with hindsight, seems to have justified the bloodletting. Certainly, democracy, even imperfect democracy, didn't really hang in the balance.

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4 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

It really depends on where you set the limits.

I've said before that "democracy" can be seen as a spectrum, with "direct democracy" at one end and forms of totalitarianism at the other one.

And to be clear, what is called the "American Revolution" was a move toward democracy.
But it is not democracy.
If you want to be factual you can say it's a "democratic regime" because there is some measure of democracy in it. You can also try to be accurate and call it "representative democracy," though the expression is really something of an oxymoron.
But understanding that it is not literally democracy is the best way to make sense of... well, politics. When you understand that the majority has no actual political power, some things magically make sense.

Calling what we have "democracy" is accepting the argument that actual democracy is impossible. It is an ideological position.
I'm not certain we can have actual democracy, but I'm 200% convinced that it's possible to move further toward it.

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3 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I've said before that "democracy" can be seen as a spectrum, with "direct democracy" at one end and forms of totalitarianism at the other one.

And to be clear, what is called the "American Revolution" was a move toward democracy.
But it is not democracy.
If you want to be factual you can say it's a "democratic regime" because there is some measure of democracy in it. You can also try to be accurate and call it "representative democracy," though the expression is really something of an oxymoron.
But understanding that it is not literally democracy is the best way to make sense of... well, politics. When you understand that the majority has no actual political power, some things magically make sense.

Calling what we have "democracy" is accepting the argument that actual democracy is impossible. It is an ideological position.
I'm not certain we can have actual democracy, but I'm 200% convinced that it's possible to move further toward it.

Yeah, it does help though to get further along the spectrum of Democracy if you already have some of it accomplished. The U.S is a pretty bad democracy, I won't argue with that. I bet you can think of worse examples that aren't out-right autocracies, however. I have one in mind, but I need to get to work now.

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It was hammered into me growing up that we've never been a direct democracy and never aspired to be because while it can work on a smaller scale, it's damn near impossible to even manage on a large scale and is also deeply prone to lack of stability when it comes to Congress.

We've always been a representative democracy overall. Except when we've different types mixed in like voting for a referendum is a direct democracy, voting for a rep a rep democracy, but the electoral college is called a (heh) elite democracy if it functions in a way that SCOTUS says it can't but seems to have been intended to function early on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics/us-gov-foundations/us-gov-types-of-democracy/a/types-of-democracy

 

Adding: The electoral college seems to have been intended to function as an elite democracy which kind of makes sense for horse and buggy days when a fully educated electorate was very difficult as news traveled so slowly and then accuracy was another problem. Over time, it seems to have morphed more into a type of representative sort, and then SCOTUS and various state legislatures locked that in. What Trump is trying to do seems to be moving back more toward the elite form it was originally intended as, just very corrupted.

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28 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

It was hammered into me growing up that we've never been a direct democracy and never aspired to be because while it can work on a smaller scale, it's damn near impossible to even manage on a large scale and is also deeply prone to lack of stability when it comes to Congress.

We've always been a representative democracy overall. Except when we've different types mixed in like voting for a referendum is a direct democracy, voting for a rep a rep democracy, but the electoral college is called a (heh) elite democracy if it functions in a way that SCOTUS says it can't but seems to have been intended to function early on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_of_democracy

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-government-and-civics/us-gov-foundations/us-gov-types-of-democracy/a/types-of-democracy

 

Adding: The electoral college seems to have been intended to function as an elite democracy which kind of makes sense for horse and buggy days when a fully educated electorate was very difficult as news traveled so slowly and then accuracy was another problem. Over time, it seems to have morphed more into a type of representative sort, and then SCOTUS and various state legislatures locked that in. What Trump is trying to do seems to be moving back more toward the elite form it was originally intended as, just very corrupted.

Not until 1913-1914 were senators chosen by direct vote. Prior to that they were voted into office by the state's legislators.

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.htm

Quote

Voters have elected their senators in the privacy of the voting booth since 1913. The framers of the Constitution, however, did not intend senators to be elected in this way and included in Article I, section 3, "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote." The election of delegates to the Constitutional Convention established the precedent for state selection. The framers believed that in electing senators, state legislatures would cement their tie with the national government, which would increase the chances for ratifying the Constitution. They also expected that senators elected by state legislatures would be able to concentrate on the business at hand without pressure from the populace.

:rofl:   Translation for the non-US history specialists among us:  this way the already ruling power elite was ensured that slavery and other powerful economic and political interests would not be challenged by the non-ruling slaveholders, etc.  Thus, after 1850, They Said, "See? we toldja so -- look at those abolitionist fiends from hell trying to take over our gummit!" One of the many reasons for which many historians have come to see the original framers' Constitution as 'the slavery constitution.'

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More using primaries to put in more radical loyalists.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/21/trump-gop-elections-challenge-438938

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President Donald Trump has driven senators into retirement and tweeted wayward Republicans into primary defeat during four years leading the GOP. Now, as a lame duck, he’s launched a new campaign against GOP election officials who won’t bend to his will.

Trump’s drive to discredit the results of an election he lost has put him at odds with the Republican elected officials and administrators who oversaw the vote in key states — and called it what it was: a free and fair election. Being at odds with Trump doesn’t go over well in today’s Republican Party, and Trump has turned their political bases against them, even unleashing threats from his most rabid supporters.

No GOP official has caught more flak than Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fairly conventional Republican who won the job as Georgia’s top election official two years ago running as a rock-ribbed, anti-voter fraud conservative — with Trump’s endorsement. Now, after refusing strident calls from Trump and allies not to certify results that show President-elect Joe Biden carried Georgia, he’s facing down a potential primary challenge in 2022 and his family is dealing with death threats.

 

 

There seems to be a new awareness that Trump's takeover is failing because his cultists aren't widely dispersed enough at key positions nation-wide and they're moving to accelerate this...meaning they're building up Trump II whoever that may end up being. As they're also burrowing Trump loyalists into a Biden administration where he'll have difficulty extracting them, Trump is clearly not the one driving this. Appears their Deep State is yet another projection. Bannon is jacking around with Europe trying to get the same thing going there, so I'd guess he's part of that along with the Mercers, Murdoch, etc.

George Soros, trilateral commission, builderbergers, one-worlder globalists my ass.

 

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Adding - rumors going around that Jim Jordan will primary DeWine. Initially it was dismissed because Jordan has a guaranteed safe seat and hasn't expressed interest before, but now he seems to be putting out feelers.

 

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