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Happy Birthday, Modern Democracy. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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Here’s the F. Murray Abraham anecdote from John Mulaney
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Happy Thanksgiving
Trivia: Believe it or not, the U.S. once celebrated two Thanksgivings because of politics. In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving up a week to spur retail sales during the Great Depression, according to the National Archives. Sixteen states refused to accept the change and Thanksgiving was celebrated for…
A note about the site
It appears that I may have lost all the Other Crap posts of the past six years. There may be some hope, but it doesn’t look good. That database was corrupted. As of now, I’m starting from scratch with a new host. I mention this for two reasons. 1. I’m…
Uh…America is a Republic. July 4th is not “democracy’s” birthday it’s America’s birthday.
And, the correct quote is: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
“The United States is a representative democracy. This means that our government is elected by citizens. Here, citizens vote for their government officials. These officials represent the citizens’ ideas and concerns in government.”
One can definitely argue re: how representative it is? đ¤
Have a lovely day and Happy 4th !!! đĽł
Hey, in Soviet Russia, everyone got a vote. We also need a free, fearless press, an informed electorate, checks and balances, and a better choice than Douche vs. Turd if we are going to remain the greatest country in the world.
Apologies to douches and turds. đ
I know cliches and tropes are en vogue, but “press” has pretty much always served as a propaganda arm of bourgeoisie, with few rare exceptions. A brief glance across the west demonstrates that’s the norm – most are either owned by, or funded by, billionaires. And this has only gotten worse, as their influence has massively expanded through NGOs. Certainly, for many this is what “democracy” is.
Conversely, social media – think Twitter, Telegram, Substack – is far more “free” for an average person than press has ever been, which is precisely why liberals, conservatives, and press itself seek its censorship in form of “anti-semitism,” “hate speech,” “disinformation,” and other meme concepts serving as a means to an end.
Social media is why people think someone was jailed for spreading memes or that liberals want post-birth abortions.
Social media is responsible for widespread disinformation and flat out lies because anyone can post anything they feel like without any basis in fact and gullible rubes will spread it around, treating it like gospel.
Case in point ^ Most fervent believes in “free press” are very well aware of what press is, and whom it serves, and it’s precisely what they support. They’ll certainly wax lyrical about free speech and “democracy,” but they’ll immediately follow it up with meme concepts that serve to justify mass censorship of populace. Because for them, “democracy” is but a different word for oligarchy.
A lot of people believe in astrology, flat earth and that ghosts and aliens walk amongst us. Some people believe that their religion is the right one and everyone else is going to hell. A lot of people believe in a lot of things. None of these are good reasons to take away people’s free speech. I don’t really care what some people post on social media. There’s a good reason why very intelligent people have fought for and protected freedom of speech for centuries. People should respect that especially on this day.
I know that dumb guys always repeat that. That’s like saying, “that isn’t a car, it’s a Chevy.” There are many forms of democracy, of which one is a republic. There are also many forms of republic, one of which is a democratic republic, which is America’s form.
The USA was the first modern democratic republic, but was not the first modern republic.
Technically, I suppose the USA became a democratic republic not in 1776 or 1787, but in 1920, after the passage of the 17th and 19th Amendments, so I suppose we should support the real birth of America on August 26th (effective date of 19th Amendment in 1920) rather than July 4th. July 4th was just the day when we told the English that their services were no longer needed.
As I’ve noted before, it was popular for many decades to declare January 8th to be the real baptism of America, the day in 1815 when the country was born again. At the time (pre Civil War), it was believed that was the day when America finally won freedom from England, as opposed to just talking about it.
If this article is any measure of the future, then those men behind the curtain only have to hope for the ‘ignorant, unwashed masses’ to keep staying ignorant for them to keep manipulating policy and the judiciary to their whims.
The only takeaway from that article is for those in ignorance to educate themselves, empower themselves with knowledge and take back what these thieves have stolen from them (and all of us) slowly and as quietly as they can. (sadly for them, they aren’t able to hide anymore)
Paraphrasing John Stuart Mill: âThe only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.â
It is my belief that any form of democracy or republic is, by its very nature, short-lived. The nature of the format requires everyone to play by the rules. Human history suggests that can’t be permanent because is not part of our nature. We can keep putting down the threats, but sooner or later, human nature will prevail and one of two things will happen: (1) complacency will set in, the country will become soft, and it will be conquered by some kind of iron-fisted, external, non-democratic force; or (2) somebody will come along who refuses to abide by the rule of law and is strong enough to arrogate power to himself.
The European Union is more likely to collapse the first way, as the Polish Republic collapsed in 1791, and America is more likely to collapse the second way, as the Roman Republic did after Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
So rather than saying, as Franklin did, “a Republic, if you can keep it,” I’d amend that to “a Republic, for as long as you can keep it, so fight to preserve it as long as you can.”
One of the other reasons is the tensions in a democracy.
The main one here is the tension between ‘free speech’ and believing that lies are part of this ‘free speech.’
1.We saw this with Trump in the debate, and all the people defending that ‘it’s not the role of the moderator to fact check.’
Meaning that lies have been ‘normalized’ as a campaign tactic (and not just with politicians) and that ‘objective truth’ is just one form of reality.
Where does this lead to? It encourages everybody involved in politics, including corporations engaging in rent seeking, to lie. Lying works and if everybody else is doing it, it’s necessary to lie to stay competitive.
2.This isn’t a static situation either. The acceptance of lies encourages the worst people. I don’t think it’s a surprise that Donald Trump followed shortly after George W Bush.
3.On the flip side, many who believe in the ideals of democracy still quote John Stuart Mill from nearly 200 years ago as if that’s the final word on free speech and not the actual evidence of the corrosive nature of lies. I don’t doubt the sincerity of these naive people, I think they and others who believe democracy isn’t under threat suffer from massive cases of normalcy bias.
Of course, as a practical matter I recognize that censoring lies has many challenges in a democracy but some conclusions and actions have to be made soon if it isn’t already too late. A dictator Trump isn’t going to have any problem with massive censorship.
Could have just gone with “Everything I like is free speech, everything I don’t like isn’t’ and saved yourself time.
Speaking of, you earlier said (in a reply to someone who replied to me): “The Trump cult is genuinely brain-dead.” As I’ve never even expressed support for Trump – I’m not even ‘merican in the first place – do you think you should be censored and punished for this lie? Maybe thrown into gulag? What do you think an appropriate punishment would be for someone that’s as awful as you are?
Are you familiar with the concepts of “projection” and “ressentiment”?
Yes, see the other part where I said that this requires a denial that objective truth exists. If this is simply a case that all sides are of equal merit and that the only problem here is people want to ban speech they don’t like, then let me ask you this: how many women have you raped and are you still raping women?
The issue isn’t whether or not objective truth exists (you keep doing this where you present things falsely – e.g., “free speech” vs “free speech (with lies)” when this is conflict between ruling class & people, and ideology vs human nature), the issue is that even if one was to apply such standard where people’s “lies” get censored and people get punished for it, someone would have to decide what is and isn’t a lie to begin with, and furthermore, whom would this benefit.
It’s rather obvious it wouldn’t benefit an average person – it’d lead to more self-censorship, which is kinda the opposite of what you’d expect in whatsoever “free” society – but it would benefit the ruling class which would be enacting the censorship to begin with. Why would I, or anyone, want that?
As for your point, I… don’t really care? For one, it’s internet, we’re relatively anon, I’ve heard worse, I’ve been around long before internet has been sanitized to adjust for influx of average people.
But even irl (or in non-anon cases) that’d be less of an issue with speech and more of an issue to harm of one’s reputation, if any.
I do have to notice, though, you’ve basically ignored my question? Which kinda answers it, if I’m honest – you clearly don’t believe your standards should apply to yourself. You don’t practice them, that’s for sure. Hell, you even called for Biden to assassinate Trump days back, and that already gets punished by law – some go to prison for it! Clearly, you don’t think it should apply to you, so I’m probably wasting my breath here.
That’s the point about this ruling. It places the President above the law so that they can assassinate political rivals (or anybody else) as an ‘official act.’
I may get some things wrong, but I do hold myself to the standard of posting factually accurate comments and that includes what I just said above.
Why should you be the one to decide how your statement should be interpreted? Given your general animosity towards Trump, why should one interpret it merely as your comment on the ruling – which could be framed in hundreds of different ways! – rather than a clear call for assassination under guise of “critique” of the ruling?
You said you hold yourself to standard of “posting factually accurate comments,” but I’ve already demonstrated you’ve lied, and verifiably so. So what gives? You can go through every comment I’ve made on this site, or elsewhere for that matter, and you’ll never find me stating I’m a Trump supporter or meaningfully expressing support for him, or basically anyone else. The best you’ll find is me saying something like “AOC is dumb but hot,” or me commenting on whether or not it’s worth betting on Biden given the current odds (I’d still say yes), which is hardly an endorsement.
Oh is that what you’re referring to. Yes, I meant that literally, why wouldn’t I be sincere? With this court ruling Biden should order the assassination of Trump and the fascist Federalist Society members of the Supreme Court.
Thank you. Was that so hard?
I don’t think people aspiring for assassination and mass murder should be listened to in regards to politics or speech, but I’ll certainly acknowledge that liberalism has originated through exactly such actions (and those in favor of it have continued enacting it globally, leaving piles of bodies behind them), which itself says enough about it, and those aligning with it.
In fact, since we’re speaking frankly, I don’t think people like you should be allowed to have any power to begin with. Voting included (as meaningless it might be, it does give illusion of power, and even that’s too much).
Funny thing is Adam, quoting Mill had nothing to do with being naive or any belief that democracy isn’t under attack. It was in direct response to how people like Leonard Leo, the Federalist Society, The Heritage Foundation and others of their vile ilk have used and manipulated laws and policy to twist and form the basis of our judiciary and the policies being formed or rolled back today. Using money that can’t be traced, dummy corporations that don’t have to be accountable, and placing people in strategic locations that answer only to them.
Sadly they want to improve everything, but effectively destroying what it is built upon and taking away the one thing the country was built on…freedom.
And if those things don’t scare everyone reading this, that the 1% are manipulating and pulling the strings, then you are in on it, already swallowed the pill, or evidently don’t care what happens to our country.
Scoopy was right, âa Republic, for as long as you can keep it, so fight to preserve it as long as you can.â If you let others abuse that power and not play fair based on the rules set in place, then we all lose, which is the worst possible outcome that the founding fathers could have envisioned, but then again, some of them were enlightened enough to see far enough ahead to understand this might be a matter of when, not if…
I noticed that you mentioned John Stuart Mill but I was genuinely not thinking of you. All the believers in absolute free speech keep going back to what John Stuart Mill said 200 years ago as if he were the final word on free speech despite all the evidence that he got many things wrong and despite him living in a world that had no internet or instantaneous communications.
I’m not fantasizing about anything, I’m recognizing the reality that Trump and this fascist Supreme Court are a clear and present danger to the United States and the world.
I would ask you what you would do about these things, but I don’t really care. Suffice it to say that it’s easy to virtue signal and claim moral superiority when you engage in trivia and nonsensical conspiracy theories and not with reality.
But, you know if it makes you feel better to claim moral superiority, have at it.
Sorry, Doorman, that was not meant for you đ
It wasn’t hard at all. I had no idea what you were asking me because you’re a whacked out conspiracy theorist who is barely comprehensible.
Uh-huh. That’s very compelling from someone who’s been expressing psychopathic tendencies. I’d take it more seriously if you jacked it to women more, rather than murder of people you dislike.
Nevertheless, I’d once again refer you to the concepts of “projection” and “ressentiment.”
Cheers.
It’s this fascist Supreme Court that has authorized the President (Trump) to assassinate whoever he likes. So, it hardly makes me a psychopath to recognize that this Supreme Court and President Trump are a clear and present danger to the United States and using the power now authorized by this Supreme Court is an absolutely reasonable position if not a requirement.
It’s very rare to see someone own themselves as hard as you’re doing currently.
If, as you say, the Supreme Court decided that the president is “above the law,” then it wouldn’t apply solely to murder. It’d apply to rape, pedophilia, and many other things.
In that case, the sensible position wouldn’t be to call for Biden to rape kids. You’re calling for murder because that’s what you fantasize about.
We’re done. Enjoy living with yourself.
Adam, I would suggest you stop caring about what people like mehboring and Trutherbob say. They are not here to have a discussion. They are here to make pronouncements about how right the Right is, and how everyone else is stupid. Maybe if they tell outright lies about actual facts, you should point that out, but otherwise talking to them or addressing what they say is pointless. They like it because they think they always win, no matter what lies and nonsense they are spouting. Just like Trump.
Maybe the article made some good points but I stopped reading it about half way through because it relied on poor poll questions. These sorts of abstract/broad poll questions are always poor because they expect absolutist answers when many people from any side of the political spectrum can easily think of concrete examples of exceptions. For example, should the President ‘acknowledge Congressional authority’? Well, a person is considered an ‘inconsistent supporter of democracy’ if they agreed with at least the necessity of something like President Obama’s DREAMERS executive order in the face of Congressional inaction.
While I agree, Adam, that the science is squishy, just read the whole thing as a fable. Its moral is that young people have good reasons to feel disenfranchised, powerless, in America’s so-called democracy.
The feelings of the young are the longterm trends in such systems.
It’s easy to advocate no change, as change is dangerous. But the status quo is a stacked deck. We need some things to change. We ought to prefer changes that help us broaden the base of freedoms over those that only serve to restrict freedoms to a privileged few. That is, tilting the playing field in favor of those already favored.
That’s the main problem with SCOTUS & conservatives in general. They want a powerful executive because they know their side will use those powers. At the same time, they want to erase internal impediments designed to spread prosperity around (safety, too).
That’s why Chevron had to go. Experts tend to respect Unamerican values that the constitution protects (equal protection clause) over “the will of the people,” ie, whoever’s in power. Today’s judiciary is heavily tilted in favor of an agenda that knocks down protections that are for the well-being of the country, just so “their side” wins.
I’ve always felt SCOTUS is too powerful. It was dangerous, & now the chickens are in their roost. Yes, the legislature is & has been busted, as far back as my political antennae were receiving. But, SCOTUS was unchecked. It was a mistake to fall back on it for so much of our collective wisdom. Today, I feel the shrink-wrap ruling on implied consent to contracts was a paradigm example of judicial overreach. Terms of Service are a nightmare. That our modern life is bound by. Court-enforced tyranny.
Think of it as America’s democracy in action.
I agree that the ârepublicâ thing is getting old, itâs a copy pasta at this point.
However, repeating the word âdemocracyâ in place of rational thought is also getting old. Imagine if politicians actually had to discuss policies instead of fear-mongering over ridiculous shit.
No one is getting sent to camps. Seal team six isnât coming for you. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world
Fred Hampton, Leonard Peltier, and Edward Snowden would like a word.
Douglass Mackey? A person sent to prison under Biden admin for posting memes online? Same type of memes you can see people both left and right posting even now?
Btw, is there a reason you left out Great Sedition Trial of 1944?
Regardless, pretty sure his point was about an average person, and he’s correct.
He wasnât jailed for posting memes you rube. He was jailed for knowingly lying to people about where and when an election was taking place, even making extremely realistic videos to try and deceive people. If youâre going to lie, at least try to be more clever about it
Trump doesn’t try to be clever, just sayin’. ok, Trump is incapable of being clever. đ Digressing …
Non-clever lying is the foundation of Trumpism. The strategy is in the endless repetition.
It’s literally over memes, just because you’re bothered by them doesn’t mean they are any less of a meme. And no, he was posting tweets.
Same type of tweets that countless others were posting. Certainly, there were people – other than him – posting videos. For example, Kristina Wong:
“The video came with a caption: ‘Skip poll lines at #Election2016 and TEXT in your vote!’ Wong said. ‘Text votes are legit. Or vote tomorrow on Super Wednesday!'”
How much prison time has she gotten?
mehboring do you enjoy inane trolling or maybe you just can’t help yourself? Rhetorical.
What do you expect? The Trump cult is genuinely brain-dead.
Everyone’s an average person until they come for you. I just picked the first three I thought of. Also conspicuous by their absence – everyone in Guantanamo.
Enjoyed all of the above. Scoop’s post title stands. Congrats, too, to Scoop for getting to where I got a lot more efficiently than me. Self-governance fails for unique reasons that Scoop neatly boils down into the dichotomy: inside job & outside job. Me, I had to figure it out the hard way. By seriously considering our dominant ideologies one by one trying to suss out why they failed. The fatal flaws were in hindsight always there from the start, at their root—in their core. Marx misunderstood history. Smith was a fantasist, but not nearly as much as his believers, blissfully unaware of his nuances & caveats, not that he more than scratched the surface of the problems.
In short, Marxists are idiots. People Soros calls market fundamentalists are either gullible or criminals. No, I don’t mean lawbreakers, I mean con artists, legal or not.
Adam is obviously not a crazy person. That perverse accusation won’t stick. It’s a desperation move by someone on the wrong side of a dispute. Adam’s suggestion was a rhetorical device in the honorable tradition of A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick.