What’s needed to stop an American dictatorship?

Ajay

I’m confused this implies that no deviations have been made (no action of departing from an established course or accepted standard)

But then in the next line you say

What ‘deviations’ do you think have taken place?

But the Senate didn’t impeach and the Supreme Court is packed with politically biased judges. Do you see no problems with that?

A media owned and directed by wealth

A judiciary that is been packed with right wingers that are considered unqualified by the American Bar Association.

An educated civil society in which “one adult in five believes the sun revolves around the earth; only 26% accept that evolution takes place by means of natural selection; two-thirds of young adults are unable to find Iraq on a map; two-thirds of US voters cannot name the three branches of government; the maths skills of 15 year-olds in the US are ranked 24th out of the 29 countries of the OECD”

Try reading The Age of American Unreason By Susan Jacoby

 

What’s needed to stop an American dictatorship?
A Good supply of Bodybags

 

The beheading of King Charles in the end of the English Civil War, the French and Russian revolutions which wiped out their callous aristocracies, all showcases that misgovernance in aristocratic governments will be followed by chaotic revolutions.

But this is not the case in a functional democracy where enough checks and balances are in place to prevent callous dictatorships from coming into being. The theory of civil disobedience by Thoreau and put into implementation by Gandhi and Martin Luther King nonviolently can ensure highlighting of injustices without resorting to anarchy and chaos which will only destroy public and private property and livelihoods.

The Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan was able to detect water molecules in the Moon's polar regions and water vapour through the instruments Nasa had given for the Mission. The discovery of water on the moon has now shown that establishing living habitats in the moon is technically feasible.

This successful discovery is a great example of international cooperation between two countries who are fellow republics and democracies, and hopefully more such projects will be on the line.

Imo, American democracy is resilient enough to overcome the challenges facing it at this point of time as it has done so in the past.

 

Ajay

LOL – so let’s say the ‘modern’ English monarch began in say 1066 and the beheading was I think in 1645,and I think the French and Russian monarchies had an even longer runs

Not exactly a great example of cause and effect

Oh and of course the English morarchy was reestablished with Charles son another Charles

Cough Wierman Republic cough

Oh I fucking hope so

But I do think this would be a good time to look at the weaknesses highlighted by Trumps time in office

 

Ajay

I’m also not a great fan of ‘violent revolution’ because even if the intentions are noble you cannot be sure of what direction it might take the ideals of the French revolution were great but it led to the terror and the dictatorship of Napoleon.

The English Civil War could have gone well (look up Putney Debates) but it got highjacked by the landed/property classes and it took another couple of centuries before men got the vote and even longer for the interests of ‘common’ folk to be acknowledged, so the long game can be a long game.

What is needed is proper education the type that makes you think and question but it often seems to me that many right wingers are dead set against that….

 

And to me it seems as if PROPER education means think like YOU (collective) not be a free thinker, not entitled to have a differing opinion or thought. As you have shown again and again if someone does not agree with you they are wrong.

 

Wrat

What was the Electoral College intended for?

Is it a good thing in your view that two of the last three U.S. Presidents — Donald Trump and George W. Bush — were elected to their position without winning the popular vote.

 

"purpose of the Electoral College was to reconcile differing state and federal interests, provide a degree of popular participation in the election, give the less populous states some additional leverage in the process by providing “senatorial” electors, preserve the presidency as independent of Congress and generally insulate the election process from political manipulation"

its a good thing IMO that the EC worked, outcome is as it was supposed to be

 

Wrat

LOL for someone that is on record as saying they would have no objection to slavery as long as it was advantageous to them, I’m not sure if you know what is morally right or wrong … but leaving that aside…

The thing is do the arguments been presented stand up to scrutiny and are people seeing things in certain ways to fit in with their own views rather than been led by the information to an objective conclusion.

For example take your Social Darwinist thinking it doesn’t stand up to criticism yet you carry on holding on to it because it fits in with how you want to see things.

 

Wrat

Are fraudulent voters undermining U.S. elections? The simple answer is no. Rather, the threat comes from the myth of voter fraud used to justify rules that restrict full and equal voting rights.

Why are you in favour of voter suppression?

 

wrat

Was your quote from here

https://www.history.com/topics/us-presidents/electoral-college

The original purpose of the Electoral College was to reconcile differing state and federal interests, provide a degree of popular participation in the election, give the less populous states some additional leverage in the process by providing “senatorial” electors, preserve the presidency as independent of Congress and generally insulate the election process from political manipulation....Notwithstanding the founders’ efforts, the Electoral College system almost never functioned as they intended”[by bold]

 

And again your snide thinly veiled personal attack...if this were a moderated debate you would be out right there. so I will exit this convo

 

Wrat

It’s not an attack it is a fact which you said you were happy to stand by…. So I’m guessing you are just using this bit of faux righteous indignation to get out of debating.

 

The Senate needs reforming

The problem with any electoral system is that it can get out of whack with reality, as populations move and change.

In 1830’s Britain, fifty-six rotten boroughs elected two MPs each but had fewer than fifty voters, while Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Sheffield, with a combined population of more than 540,000, had not one MP between them.

In the US Senate the voting power of a citizen in Wyoming, the smallest state in terms of population, is about 67 times that of a citizen in the largest state of California, and the disparities among the states are only increasing.

In not as bad as it got in 19th century Britain but its obvious something has gone wrong.

 

Curious you should bring this up, since it's a favorite talking point of right wingers. No nation I'm aware of has an Athenian-style direct democracy, which would be difficult to engineer in a large population. Ross Perot proposed something like it, using computer technology, but inviting ordinary folks to vote on every issue of complex, boring policy would be a disaster. They do well trying to pick representatives to do that.

As you note in your somewhat convoluted discussion, Republic and Democracy are not mutually inconsistent terms.Republics (from res publica, a "public thing") originally distinguished government in the public interest from government that was considered the possession of the ruling class. "Democracy" (from demos (the people) and kratia (rule) was a government by the people. The most common definition of "republic" in American Government textbooks is "representative democracy", which means that instead of directly voting on policy issues, the people vote for elected officials to make those decisions. It's a little more complicated than that. Madison, in Federalist 10, warned against the danger of "factions", and tried to set up a system in which no faction could get the better of another and would have to compromise to get things done. He gave us the celebrated "checks and balances" that are such a distinctive part of our constitutional system, to which were added the protections for individual liberties in the Bill of Rights. Not long after the Constitution was ratified, the idea of democracy caught on in western nations. Philosopher and jurist Jeremy Bentham gave a spirited defense of representative democracy in utilitarian terms as serving the interest of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. He argued that if the good consists of the greatest happiness for the greatest number a majority of the people are in a better position to decide what it wants or who is likely to give it to them than some elite minority. The idea caught on in the United States, as reflected in popular election of the U.S Senate, for the first time, and in universal suffrage without poll taxes and literacy tests. These ideas have become widely accepted in the modern world, and right wing efforts to discredit them seem quaint. The author of the article that you link says that representative democracy is not "true" democracy. It certainly isn't pure or indirect democracy, but in relative terms (which is the best we can do in the modern world) it is still meaningful to describe systems that have fair and frequent elections and the freedom to express and exchange ideas as more democratic than those that don't.

Why then do right wing radicals make a big deal about the "republic" versus democracy distinction? The notion that the United States is a republic, not a democracy goes back at least to the 1950s, when the right wing John Birch Society made it a favorite talking point. The Birchers saw (and still see) communists under every bed, and agreed with Hitler that democracy is " the foul and filthy avenue to communism." Or they go along with Mussolini's assessment: "The people do not know what they want, they do not know what is best for them." Republic sounds like Republican, and Democracy sounds like Democrat, so they can use the words to score partisan political points. That right wingers raise it now, though, is ironic, given the fact that they also typically back the populist demagogue who currently occupies the Oval Office. Democracy is a safety valve that provides a peaceful outlet for popular discontents that could otherwise erupt into violence and revolution. Neither democracies nor republics do well in environments of partisan polarization where people think the outcome of elections is tanatamount to the end of the world. Our Demagogue in Chief perpetuates this atmosphere for a reason

 

I read an essay today that said if trump is reelected, then the experiment that is American democracy has failed. The author goes on to say that because of trump's nepotism there may be a succession of authoritarian governments to come; and since Americans don't like change any opposing views fail. Add to the fact that American society is not interested in how government works. For example, how many Americans knew that racism existed in this country?
I have my own theory as to why the George Floyd death was an impetus for change, but won't go into it here.

I have one other thought. If Obama had been white, Hillary would now be president.

 

I couldn't get the quote function to accept all of the quote for some reason. It does that once in a while.
Strange how almost all of the ones removed from voter rolls are either Dems, black, or Hispanic, Asian, or other non-white, non-northern European heritage folks. I'd love to see the number of inactive Repubs that get cut from the voting rolls. I'll wager it's a miniscule number - if any.

Some of these muck-mouths don't care about well-researched, thorough, independent studies to get to the FACTS. I watched a report by an independent, fact-checking group led by a woman (whose name I can't recall) that showed only a couple hundred incidences of ACTUAL voter fraud over several election cycles spanning the last few decades. There haven't been "millions" of cases as Rump and the REPUBLICAN PARTY have claimed. That study agrees with almost EVERY such study done by independent fact-checking groups. Buuuuuttt ................. some DOLTS will listen to Rump, Alex Jones, or get their info from 4chan, 8chan, Hush Bimbo, or any one of the other hate & propaganda puking sources with pre-determined conclusions. FACTS are a bother to those of this class of sludge.

These sorry, SORRY days ...………. TRUTH itself is in question, with so-called "different versions", and as single-celled protozoan Kelly-Ann Conway vomited, "there are alternate facts" !!!!!! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ALTERNATE FACT !!!!!!!! A fact stands alone as absolute truth.

I'm sure some load-swallowers will STILL buy into Rump's claim that there are millions of fraudulent votes out there. Why doesn't someone or group file a lawsuit for slander of the election boards and force the lying muck-mouths to PROVE ALL THOSE SILLY-ASSED, NONSENSICAL CLAIMS???

I'd LOVE to see such lawsuits be filed against Rump and any others who make such dumb-assed claims. Sue for slander and defamation of character of the election boards.

 

I don't know if Hillary would be President, but there are SURELY a ton of U.S. citizens who are very racist, and HATE ………. H-A-T-E the fact that we even had a black President. Sadly - for many here in the U.S. - a candidate could be absolutely the best person for the position of President of The U.S.A. …………… but if that person is black ………………… it's NO DICE. They'll never vote for a black person - no matter what. I personally know some people like that. After Obama was elected, I heard with my own ears , "Look what happened. We put ONE in the White House!!! " Those people were purple in the face they were so pissed.

I have no doubt, that because Rump is so obviously racist, he gets the votes of people like that even if he manages to take away their health care, forces them and their children to give up their rights as workers, ruins the environment for future generations, & aligns his own view of U.S. government with COMMUNIST DICTATORS like Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jung Un, who he's praised repeatedly.

Many here can't see the forest for the trees. Long-term view stops at their eyelashes.

 

Lack of education in the U.S. is a H-U-G-E problem. And it isn't only the fault of teachers. Much blame falls on the parents who WILL NOT parent their children as they should, make their children do the homework and study before recreational activities (or hold them to it following after-school activities), or continually impress the importance of learning as much as possible for them to secure a good future for themselves. Many parents don't even know where their children are at any given time. What the HELL IS THAT??? Many parents establish no guidelines, set no curfews to be back in the house, don't check to see if studies are finished, and don't hold children accountable for failures. Absentee parents are a major problem - whether in the home with the kids - or out in bars or doing drugs themselves.

And as for the "adults" out there …………. why did you stop learning when you left school ??????? Like Balbus displayed examples above - many "adults" can't name our own states if pointed to on a map of the U.S. !!! I watched numerous episodes of "The Tonight Show", where Jay Leno on the streets of L.A. asked random people walking by things like, "Which state is an island?" (Rhode Island the most oft-given answer!), "What is our newest state?" (Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Alaska were named!), "Name the branches of our government ……" (Most folks couldn't name all three), "Who is our current President?" (George Bush commonly named - while Obama was in office!), or "How many justices are there on the Supreme Court?", and when asked to point to certain countries or continents on a globe, most could NOT identify the country or continent asked for. Witness how many "adults" don't know the difference between, or how to correctly use the words, there, their, and they're.

Is it any wonder these POORLY educated people so easily swallow the load of Rump?? If they don't even know how many states we have in the U.S., or how many branches of government we have - how can we expect them to differentiate fact from fiction??? This ENTIRE country needs to go back for Civics class again and stay there for several years. Sad commentary on U.S. education - of not just children - but "adults" as well.

 

Keep in mind ……………. The U.S. is an experiment in the history of the world. We're only 244 years old and teetering with rampant division. 244 years is a fart in a hurricane on the timeline of history. In terms of past civilizations' longevities, we're barely a fertilized egg, let alone in our infancy. Our apathy, lack of education, and arrogance may do us in.