What’s needed to stop an American dictatorship?

Discussion in 'Democracy' started by Balbus, Jun 11, 2020.

  1. Tyrsonswood

    Tyrsonswood Senior Moment Lifetime Supporter

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    It has begun...
     
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  2. Tishomingo

    Tishomingo Members

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    Not exactly an unbiased opinion, wouldn't you say? Most of your "research' and thinking is done by the Cato Institute.
     
  3. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I mail in payment for most of my bills and my taxes, and I used a mail in vote in the last election.
    The Post Office is protected and mandated by the Constitution and is required by law to serve all citizens, try reading it sometime.
    But, it's been set up by George W. Bush and the Republicans to lose money as they want private mail services. Why? The Post Office is non profit.
    And you do realize junk mail is not delivered for free? It's advertising. Same thing that pays for much of the internet?

    Mail Pick up boxes are required to be emptied once a day, but many are emptied two or more times a day depending on location and volume of traffic. They have a schedule of pick up printed on their side.
    This one is twice a day every day but Sunday.

    [​IMG]
     
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  4. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    As you seem to be clueless as to how tests of cognition, or any test for that matter, are developed and administered you may be surprised to find out that they may or may not be used for racist purposes, it depends.

    Look up how tests for something like I.Q. can be racially biased.
    I,Q. is one form of cognition test.

    Next, what do you suggest should be the cut off for preventing someone to vote?
    They can't read at an 8th grade level? What test will you use to evaluate that? How do the various test differ? If you pass the
    The National Assessment of Educational Progress but fail the Development Reading Assessment...do you still get to vote?

    Will it be a reading test? Multiple choice test, reading comprehension test, history test, test of knowledge of the Constitution, essay test, put the blocks in the hole test? Maybe a reasoning test would be good?

    Maybe you have some other test in mind. Tell me how that test will guarantee that a voter will be a good and wise voter and pick the best candidate?
    If two people score the same on the same test will they vote for the same person, as obviously they have equal cognition and thus must reach the same conclusion as to who is the best candidate.

    On and on.
    Think, please.
     
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  5. Tyrsonswood

    Tyrsonswood Senior Moment Lifetime Supporter

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    Don't ask too much of these people...
     
  6. Tishomingo

    Tishomingo Members

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    So I gather you think the reason the Postal Service was snatching up all the mail boxes in Eugene is that they're obsolete. People don't use them anymore. And you believe that? or expect the rest of us to believe it? And get insulted if people question your intelligence for believing such a thing. I have a life size picture of my telling my computer illiterate landlord:"from now on I'll be paying my rent electronically. click. click."
    Good news. In the face of a backlash, the USPS seems to have backed off--at least where mail box removal is concerned, for the time being. https://www.washingtonpost.com/
    USPS to Pause Removal of Mail Collection Boxes Until After 2020 Election Following Outcry
    But it seems to have been up to no good.
    USPS Removes Mailboxes, Shuts Down Letter-Sorting Machines As Mail-In Voting Looms
    Trump admits he is undermining USPS to make it harder to vote by mail
    Trump Admits He’s Starving the Postal Service to Sabotage Voting by Mail
    USPS Removes Mailboxes, Shuts Down Letter-Sorting Machines As Mail-In Voting Looms
    Trump Indicates He Wants to Block USPS Funding to Stop Mail-In Votes
    Trump Brags That He's Trying to Sabotage the Postal Service to Rig the Election
    'A Catastrophe': Postal Workers Warn Trump Sabotage of USPS Could Delay Mail-In Ballots and Distort Election
     
    Last edited: Aug 15, 2020
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  7. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    srgreene

    Oh you poor naive little soul – elections take place in Russia, Saddan used to win his election all the time even Hilter won an election.

    Sorry are you unable to see what is happening or is it that you don’t care because its all about favouring the right wing – but what if it wasn’t what if voter suppression and ballot rigging was been used by left wingers would you be so happy with the situation then?

    As i pointed out the these thing if left unchecked could put that very system in danger of being subverted.

    You seem to be saying you don't care

    What do you mean by intrusive?

    If you mean reducing regulations that favour big companies but not necessarily the majority of people the right wing have been successful at that.

    It seems to me that right wingers see any regulation that doesn’t favour the wealthy as been intrusive, even if that regulations is prudent and favourable to the majority of peoples lives.

    Exactly which policies would you find ‘intrusive’ ?

    Is not trying to rig the ballot not intrusion into the peoples right to vote?
     
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  8. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    ZenKarma

    Well it’s clear from this and other threads that some for purely partisan gain don’t care if the political system is trashed and moulded into something resembling Putin’s Russia.

    And amongst them there are those that are so fearful of progressive change that they are actively pushing for that kind of regime.

    It reminds me of the wealth sponsored communist paranoia in the US after WWII that resulted in America propping up so many bloody handed dictators because they had portrayed their left of centre leaning reformist opponents as out and out communists.

    The US wealth sponsored right wing machine has and is now doing the same thing to the Democrats.

    It reminds me of the quote from Vietnam – We had to burn the village to save the village

    Many on the right it would seem to be happy to burn America to the ground to ‘save’ it
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2020
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  9. TrudginAcrossTheTundra

    TrudginAcrossTheTundra Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Me lo dice!
    Bendiciones!
     
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  10. TrudginAcrossTheTundra

    TrudginAcrossTheTundra Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Power corrupts. The greater the power, the greater the facility to corrupt.

    We think we're somehow enlightened in current times but in fact we've forgotten much of the wisdom that had accrued in the times of the colonies declaring their Independence. Relearning it through new experience is almost certain to be more painful than studying the written messages they left for us.
     
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  11. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    I disagree. How many ballots are mailed is immaterial. I can received a hundred ballots, send them in for a hundred different candidates or send in one hundred for the same candidate. Only one ballot will be counted, the first one received, the rest are tossed.
     
  12. Piney

    Piney Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Remembering the outcry when the pay telephones were removed; and the cries of racism when the fire alarm call-boxes were removed.
    Thankfully the Obama phones put paid to those arguments.

    Can we get the USPS to deliver 4 days a week to residential addresses ?

    Yes. it is Republicians, living in exurbia who are driving up the delivery costs for USPS. Higher density Democratic cities have more effiicent distribution from walking mail carriers using handcarts.
     
  13. TrudginAcrossTheTundra

    TrudginAcrossTheTundra Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    Exactly, but it's precisely those half-thoughts that bite people in the ass! People believe themselves educated who've never actually set foot on a farm, and yet still think they're qualified to impose policy on farmers. (for just one example) They think they know what's best for the lesser educated masses from their little narrow educated view where they couldn't tell a box end from an open end wrench. "The vision of the anointed", as Thomas Sewell would call it. My antecedentes would quip "he's educated beyond his intelligence".

    You should check out Scott Adams' book "How to lose at almost everything and still win big". Thank me later. Everybody wants goals of societal bliss (it's a political trick to claim some group doesn't) - it's really about how to get there.
     
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  14. MeAgain

    MeAgain Dazed & Confused Lifetime Supporter Super Moderator

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    So part of your argument is that when environmentalists, such as biology majors, environmental scientists, chemists, and educated people like that, do research and experiments, gather data, consult with sister fields of study and sciences, draw the conclusion that the Chesapeake Bay is being polluted by nitrogen run off from farmers along it's watershed and then present those findings to politicians, who may or may not be "educated", and then the politicians make judgements, which may or may not benefit farms or a particular farmer along that watershed but save the bay and it's flora and fauna, and by extension the oceans, plus the livelihood of all those who rely on the bay and oceans for a living....., and they mandate that the farmers change their way of farming to stop the pollution........

    You blame any intellectual who has never been on a farm and or has a narrow field such as molecular biology or fisheries management and conservation because they don't know the correct terminology for a combination wrench or an Crescent Wrench. (Correct terminology an adjustable open end wrench.)

    Einstein was not educated becasue he never used a wrench or visited a farm, he was educated beyond his intelligence? (Although you said you can't be educated unless you have visited a farm or know the correct term for a certain wrench.)
     
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  15. Balbus

    Balbus Senior Member

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    Many argro-industrial companies (corporate farming), factories, chemical plants etc are only interested in profits often just short term profits

    It is not in their interests to accept policies that may lessen their profits but are actually good for the majority of people.

    Just hoping people in industry will put the public interest before profit can be detrimental to your health.

    I grow up in a farming community I worked on many farms I also know what industrial farming can do to the environment and what spill off can do to rivers because I’ve read up on it.

    I’ve also read up on other types of pollution and environmental damage by other process.
     
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  16. srgreene

    srgreene Members

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    I think this is the first or second time I have linked Cato on HP. I address the issues straight on- there are certainly plenty of sources more knowledgeable and articulate than I, so I reference them I don't see you addressing the issues- for instance, you have not addressed the issues that I raised. Rather, cutting personal comments are more up your alley.
     
  17. Tishomingo

    Tishomingo Members

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    I haven't considered the "issues" you've raised worth addressing. Obama was a dictator because he lost this or that court case. I could spend he rest of my life in that petty back and forth. Maybe somebody else will talk to you.
     
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  18. srgreene

    srgreene Members

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    It certainly is not in their interest to operate at a competitive disadvantage. It is the government's role to set the rules of the road. Defining that interface of where my fist ends and your nose begins is not always a simple task.

    I would say only over the course of my lifetime has the realization sunk in- to only a minority of people, I think- that we humans are capable of doing irreparable damage to the only planet we know that sustains life.
     
  19. srgreene

    srgreene Members

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    Of course- a government that infringes on the first amendment, that stifles individual morality and expects people to obey the party line by providing contraceptives in violation of religious beliefs is of no concern to you. Merely "petty back and forth" in your mind.

    I shall not miss interacting with you.
     
  20. Tyrsonswood

    Tyrsonswood Senior Moment Lifetime Supporter

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    So.. Trump, then?
     

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