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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Xopher001:
America was, more or less was founded with built-in party divides. As noted above, the only president who wasn't a member of any party was George Washington. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were leading figures on opposing parties, for example.
Leviticus 19:34And even Washington was leaning towards the Federalists by the end of his second term. The Constitution though was written with the assumption that their would be no political parties, the founders had seen what parties had done to England and didn't want that in the new nation. Needless to say the whole thing broke down after about 15 minutes.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.George Washington specifically warned against political parties in his Farewell Address, a comment made at a time when it was looking like the two parties Jefferson and Adams represented, the Democratic-Republicans and the Federalists. Very broadly, the Federalists wanted stronger federal institutions like a national bank and the D-Rs wanted more power in state control - basically Federalism vs Republicanisim. The Federalists were gone by 1815 (but were increasingly irrelevant since 1800), the Democratic-Republicans split in 1824. However, while the founders tried to write a lot of safeguards into the Constitution, political parties weren't one of them; they had George III as their main example of How Not To Run Government.
The man who tried to kill math in America.
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Pretty everything wrong with this country would have been solved had the Federalists taken power. In particular all these toxic ideas about individual liberty and "states rights" would have been crushed in their infancy. Jefferson is perhaps the most overrated President in American history.
edited 27th Jan '16 7:24:47 PM by JackOLantern1337
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.
I think he meant my stand on "individual liberties." For the record I meant things like the Second amendment and maybe the broadness of the First. A Federalist victory would have led to the US down a path to evolving down a path similar to Europe, but with none of the sissy leftism of course.
The strengths of both systems the weakness of neither. Of course that's one alt history scenario, maybe they would have turned the US into a police state to prevent themselves form being overthrown by the Democratic Republicans, we can never know what really would have happened, but it is fun to contemplate.
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Good point. Alternative history is fun like that. And I certainly doubt the Federalists, elitist snobs that they were, would have been able to generate enough passion in the North to enable them to absorb the kinds of losses it would take to retake the South.
edited 27th Jan '16 7:57:00 PM by JackOLantern1337
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.Jack, it's become really hard to tell when you're joking and when you're serious. You maybe should work on that.
Anyway, as a serious consideration I doubt that the Federalists winning would have eliminated the Second Amendment at that time. This was a time when they were pressing westwards and Indian raids and wild animal attacks were a genuine concern. As well as England invading again, given the War of 1812. And also a different conception of militias and standing armies. Basically the reason we need to rethink the Second Amendment is because we live in a very different culture from the Founding Fathers.
The United States is too diverse and big to work as anything other than a federal state; even if you ignore regional differences it would still be bureaucratic nightmare to run the place with one level of government. Its the level of centralization that needs to be tweaked a bit.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.I still think that the South should succeed already and be done with it. (Preferably in in relatively peaceful manner, of course. (Fat chance of that...)) Then again, that might mean Donald Trump could actually get elected as the President of the Confederate States of America, which is still a scary thought.
Really though, the North and the South are still as different as night and day, with one half being a progressive cornerstone of civilization, and the other still stuck in its' own little bubble. Sure, it's not as simple as that, but the fact is that a lot of the US' internal problems would probably be solved if we axed off the South and burnt all our various bridges.
That entire thing always falls on death ear to me when people act like the "North" is some giant monolith composing every state that isn't the "South". I mean, really, every non southern state is a "progressive cornerstone of civilization"?
That and the relocating of millions of people that would have to occur and be a nightmare always stick out as the most glaring problems with that little hypothetical.
edited 27th Jan '16 9:26:41 PM by LSBK
The Clinton campaign has been goading Sanders into an unsanctioned debate, which would disqualify him from participating in any further DNC-sanctioned debates.
In response, the Sanders campaign has counter-offered *three* more debates, with the conditions that they cannot be held on a Friday, Saturday, or holiday.
So, we're waiting on the Clinton campaign to respond before the DNC can amend their debate contract.
https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-calls-for-more-debates/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/democratic-debates-sanders-clinton-218312
edited 27th Jan '16 10:13:54 PM by SolipsistOwl
The reason they're considering an unsanctioned debate at all is apparently because all three thought the number of debates was ridiculously small. And the DNC can't exactly hold sanctioned debates with only one or even no candidates to attend, which makes the threat itself really kind of childishly ridiculous.
And hoo boy, I just saw a video clip of the guys that are still at the wildlife refuge. The guy on the camera is calling for people to come, and to kill (His exact words) anyone who stops them from getting to the refuge. I think they've finally crossed some sort of legal line there. I just do not get having that kind of venom and anger.

Trump is a comedy goldmine