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megarockman from The Sixth Borough (Experienced Trainee)
#127976: Jun 28th 2016 at 8:59:06 AM

American national identity (compared to identity with a given state) is a good deal stronger now than in 1860, I wager.

Re DC: Republicans don't want to give DC statehood because they've pretty much always voted Democrat since they were given Electoral College votes. If anything, my understanding is that they'd rather see the District (minus the White House-Washington Monument-Capitol axis) retroceded back to Maryland to limit the political damage to them.

The damned queen and the relentless knight.
Medinoc from France (Before Recorded History)
#127977: Jun 28th 2016 at 8:59:23 AM

[up][up]Isn't the reason that DC is Dem, and no one wants them to get two more senators?

[up][nja]

edited 28th Jun '16 8:59:38 AM by Medinoc

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."
TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#127978: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:00:06 AM

Sure, why not, just give those folks some self-rule.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:00:22 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#127979: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:00:15 AM

I suspect that the National Guard, which is what Texas would call on to defend itself against "Northern Aggression", would be as split as the rest of the state and would not cleanly accept a call to arm itself against the rest of the nation. It's important to remember that the professional national military of the United States post-dates the Civil War, and all soldiers are indoctrinated to place country over their birthplace or their state of residence.

To win a war of secession for real, Texas would first have to wage an internal civil war between its "patriot" units and units remaining loyal to the Federal government.

Also, D.C. has long been overdue for statehood, but it's just far too convenient for Congress to sit on its ass and maintain the status quo. Doing something requires positive effort, which is in short supply amid other national issues.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:01:37 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
TacticalFox88 from USA Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Dating the Doctor
#127980: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:01:28 AM

If I weren't a rational person, I'd be eating up the whole "Trump is a Clinton plant" conspiracy

[1]

edited 28th Jun '16 9:02:11 AM by TacticalFox88

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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#127981: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:02:45 AM

And that band of militant gun nuts would be shredded in a matter of days. It wouldn't even be a contest.

Yup. Fortunately, we can assume that in this unlikely hypothetical scenario, most of the reasonable folks would have already evacuated the state, as that's more or less a prerequisite for the secession vote even passing to begin with.

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TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#127982: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:05:42 AM

Is there no provision for lawfully seceding in US law? What about self-determination?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
megarockman from The Sixth Borough (Experienced Trainee)
#127983: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:07:25 AM

The Constitution itself says nothing about secession, but Texas v. White (1869) declared unilateral secession unconstitutional.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:08:34 AM by megarockman

The damned queen and the relentless knight.
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#127984: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:12:17 AM

@The Handle

The Civil War worked out as well as it did for the Confederacy because a huge portion of the officer class was drawn from the Southern (especially the Virginia) aristocracy. "America's Prussians" my dad (who taught history for 31 years, hence the reference) likes to call them. When the war happened, those aristocratic officers generally (with exceptions like George H. Tomas) sided with their states over their nation. This split the army, gave the South a corps of experienced officers, and even more importantly, deprived the Union of much of its experienced leadership. There's a reason why Lincoln spent so much time trying to find a general who could successfully lead the North's armies.

This is not a situation that can happen again. The officers are drawn from a much wider base nowadays, so that scenario cannot repeat. Even more importantly, there just isn't a basis of support for secession, be it within the US military or the US populace. Even your most rabid, gun-toting, neo-Confederate jackass tends to view himself as an American patriot first and foremost, which makes the idea of seceding a much harder one to sell. Contrast the Civil War era in which a lot of people bought into the notion that the US was simply an alliance of independent nations, not dissimilar from the modern EU, and that thusly, could be withdrawn from at any time.

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Lost in Space
#127985: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:12:47 AM

[up][up][up]Everyone in the U.S. has self-determination, save for some of the territories and Washington, D.C., because they have a direct say in voting for their political representation. That whole "self-determination" thing is both a windmill and a chimera.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:13:56 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#127986: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:15:20 AM

@Fighteer: Would be secessionists are almost certainly aware of that, which is why you'd be facing an insurgency rather than a civil war. As bad as the KKK was and is, if the CSA military as a whole opted to go to ground and fight a guerilla war, the Union would've been crippled in the long term.

If things get to the point where Texas is actually trying to secede rather than just making noise about it, that's a rather alarming prospect.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:17:43 AM by CaptainCapsase

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#127987: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:16:21 AM

Guerrilla warfare requires the ability to blend into a populace that at least tacitly supports you. Secessionists in the modern U.S. would enjoy no such privilege.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:16:34 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
CaptainCapsase from Orbiting Sagittarius A* Since: Jan, 2015
#127988: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:18:22 AM

[up] Which is why, for the foreseeable future, Texas isn't going to actually try seceding.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:18:50 AM by CaptainCapsase

NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#127989: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:18:37 AM

Regarding the SCOTUS domestic violence thing, there were two factors that made it less cut and dry than people have been talking about. One, the convictions were misdemeanors, rather than felonies (it's already settled law that you can bar felons from having guns). Two, the convictions were for reckless behavior rather than intentional harm. I'm not familiar with the specifics of the individual cases, but the example I've heard used is that if you were throwing things without intending to hit anybody, but accidentally hit them and hurt them anyway, then you could be convicted under that law as long as you knew that your actions carried the risk of causing harm.

That's why the car accident thing was brought up. You could be convicted under these laws (and thus barred from gun ownership) for something that was completely accidental. Note that I'm not saying that this is a bad decision, just trying to explain the opposing side a bit.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#127990: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:20:18 AM

One of the reasons the guys in question were on trial though is that they poached a bald eagle with an illegal gun. My sympathy is next to nil.

RhymeBeat True colors from Eastern Standard Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: In Lesbians with you
True colors
#127991: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:22:43 AM

I can see why reckless behavior should disqualify you from gun use regardless. A good chunk of accidental gun related deaths are related to carelessness.

The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#127992: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:27:46 AM

@The Handle: Most countries don't have provisions for parts of the country to legally secede. I don't know why you would think America would have one. In any case, to actually do that would require that the majority of people in Texas to ACTUALLY WANT TO DO THAT, not just a small minority of sovereign citizens that believe the federal government is evil. You've discussed this before and don't seem to be willing to realize how very small the "secessionist" group really is. They've got outsized volume, but no actual support for this idea. Not only is this illegal, the vast majority of people don't actually want to do it.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#127993: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:39:06 AM

I've never ascribed much merit to the argument that, "These guys were assholes, but the decision is bad because of this hypothetical future case I thought of that the precedent may influence."

Push comes to shove, that's the whole point of the trial system. No law or established precedent is absolute. They are all subject to the whims of judge and jury in both when and how they should be applied. They are enforced by people, not by machines.

If it seems obvious to you that, "X decision, if you turn your head and squint a bit, could be interpreted to mean that it's legally acceptable for police to rape black women, but that's a grievous miscarriage of justice!" then it seems to me that a judge and jury wouldn't have a very hard time recognizing that either.

Contrary to popular belief, most miscarriages of justice don't happen because of ironclad rules that must be obeyed, against which the judge and jury were helpless to oppose. They happen because of people and how those people choose to interpret the rules.

edited 28th Jun '16 9:40:47 AM by TobiasDrake

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Ogodei Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers from The front lines Since: Jan, 2011
Fuck you, Fascist sympathizers
#127994: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:40:11 AM

Thing is Maryland and Virginia don't want DC. The district proper is still very poor and crime-ridden, and they get all the benefits of having the metro area spill over into their states (the beltway being a center of high property values and government-related business) with none of the drawbacks, since the region's poorer populace is mostly ghettoed into DC proper.

Plus the Metro which is a literal trainwreck and needs $100 million just for basic maintenance, which would probably be shifted onto whichever state took it over.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#127995: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:42:08 AM

To put it simply: the law doesn't keep shooting black kids. People who pervert the law to their own ends do.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#127996: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:43:41 AM

The law sometimes helps, though. A lot of such police abuses are facilitated by laws that give too much discretion to police or more generally enforcement bodies. No problem if these bodies aren't biased, but if they are...

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
AceofSpades Since: Apr, 2009 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#127997: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:44:30 AM

I think there was an interview a few weeks ago with the DC mayor where she announced she was basically going to push for things like statehood and self rule for the city, since Congress keeps basically hog tying their ability to do anything at all.

optimusjamie Since: Jun, 2010
#127998: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:53:13 AM

@Deprivation in DC: Would statehood (or becoming part of a state) do anything to help?

edited 28th Jun '16 9:53:27 AM by optimusjamie

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TheHandle United Earth from Stockholm Since: Jan, 2012 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
United Earth
#127999: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:59:12 AM

Well, on Cessession, I come from the Spanish, Scottish, and North-Irish cases, as well as Norway. I'm sympathetic to narratives of regions being mistreated by centers. I don't believe Texas should or would leave, but I believe the option should be open to do so, simply for the principle of the thing.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#128000: Jun 28th 2016 at 9:59:13 AM

Maybe. Congress has been screwing them over, for political reasons (GOP House vs. Democratic DC). Technically they are not very different from the polities that members of the Progressive caucus and black caucuses come from, and these are deep blue and often deprived.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

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