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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Ambar- Yeah. What I think is kind of getting lost in the discussion is the distinction between a state that is not a representative democracy (especially one in the past) that is a dictatorship (especially a modern one).
Because like historically basically every single country was not a representative democracy and even republics were pretty rare. I think a big reason why Julius Caesar and Napoleon weren't that bad is that besides their personal virtues, to some extent what they were offering was more like a return to monarchy than it was a replacement of republican government- and while maybe this is more arguable than I'm treating it, both were coming into what were not really functioning states.
But with modern dictatorships, what's at issue is the subversion of democracy or else a move from one side's dictatorship to another, and an underlying factor is the use of force against dissenters and suppression of civil rights. Dictatorships aren't necessarily that bad for people who are on the side of the Dictator's political and other views, but what makes them bad is how they treat people who aren't. And of course, defenders of dictatorships will minimize atrocities and/or argue that the victims "deserve it".
"Our friend Hamilton" is a good illustration of the difference between governments that aren't representative democracies and governments which are dictatorships, because while he and other Federalists were anti-democratic and really big on the idea of a President who was like a constitutional monarch (note the term constitutional), and even broached the idea of America inviting a foreign noble to be King, this is a really different kind of animal than the way in which power is concentrated in a dictatorship.
Edit- Which is a long way of saying I agree with you.
edited 29th Nov '16 3:33:23 PM by Hodor2
The Handle: A Gurren Lagann reference? Nice.
I wonder: What would today's GOP think of Abraham Lincoln, and vice-versa?
Do not obey in advance.Being a supporter of the regime doesn't make you safe if someone randomly makes up a reason to suspect you. You can be reported based on something completely false, and be tortured and interrogated on the possibility that you might be aiding "the enemy". This might be different if you're politically well-connected, but if you're just a run of the mill blackshirt, you're not safe from the fangs of your Glorious Leader.
Nobody is safe.
edited 29th Nov '16 3:46:21 PM by Draghinazzo
Only if something criminal or illegal comes up, if they ever manage to audit. But his full taxes are protected by law from being revealed unless he himself wishes to.
Democrats in Congress and via SuperPACS plan to hound Trump and his administration for conflict of interest issues
. Republicans seemed terrified of touching the issue and keep refusing to answer the question, deflect it as not being under their purview (including Ways and Means, which has oversight of the IRS), or deflecting it to other Republicans.
And insisting they're trying to give him time until Inauguration Day to deal with the issues.
It seems to me that Lincoln would be right at home among the Modern democrats.
I find that particular excuse to be encouraging, because it's an excuse with a built-in expiry date. It means that by Inauguration, either Trump will have put at least a nominal effort into avoiding conflicts of interest, or the GOP will lose their excuse for avoiding the issue. Sounds like a win-win.
There was a moment in the second debate where she quoted Lincoln and he said 'how dare you bring him into this'.
edited 29th Nov '16 4:06:20 PM by Gilphon
Trump Was Right. The Election Was Rigged. Here's What We Know.
Without the suppression efforts that were reported in pivotal swing states, it is unlikely that Trump would have been able to secure the votes needed to win Wisconsin, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida and Arizona. In fact, it would have arguably been impossible.
Without massive voter suppression, Trump could not have won the 2016 presidential election.
Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes would not have been secured by the Republican Party without the suppression of hundreds of thousands of minority voters. According to the Center for American Progress, "300,000 registered voters in the state lacked the strict forms of voter ID required. Wisconsin's voter turnout was at its lowest level in two decades." Approximately 27,000 votes separated Trump and Clinton.
While the race is still too close to call, Michigan's 20 electoral votes would not have been even put into question without the voter suppression tactics applied by the alt-right, its leaders and the organizations they operate under. While less than 20,000 votes still separate the two candidates, over half a million voters were prevented from voting through failures to comply with Americans with Disabilities Act requirements, record purging, a lack of early voting, and voter ID requirements.
Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes would also not have been secured by the Alt-right without the suppression and intimidation tactics applied by white supremacists. Trump himself called more than once for his supporters to monitor the voting behavior of Democrats. Politico reports that in an August rally in Altoona, PA Trump said, "I hope you people can ... not just vote on the 8th, [but] go around and look and watch other polling places and make sure that it's 100-percent fine. We're going to watch Pennsylvania—go down to certain areas and watch and study...."
Donald Trump was also quoted as saying, "You've got to get everybody to go out and watch, and go out and vote. And when [I] say 'watch,' you know what I'm talking about, right?" at a speech in Ohio 10 days later. These efforts were successful and Pennsylvania reported more incidences of voter intimidation than any other state. In addition to these applied voter intimidation tactics, the majority of polling places were inaccessible to voters with disabilities, no early voting or absentee ballots were allowed and there was misinformation being dispelled about voter ID requirements. The difference between candidates in Pennsylvania is approximately 62,000 votes.
The states being audited in the recount are not the only states that deserve another look. In light of the overwhelming success of voter suppression tactics, additional states prove themselves worthy of review and federal relief. Florida, North Carolina and Arizona serve as strong examples.
The difference in Florida was just under 120,000 votes. This may seem like an insurmountable number - until the fact that long lines and failures to meet ADA standards required to ensure voters with disabilities can vote alone accounts for over 200,000 suppressed votes is accounted for. Cuts to early voting, funding for early registration drives, additional requirements for voter with prior felony convictions, eliminating polling places, and failing to make voting accessible to voters with disabilities all contributed to the deprivation of voting rights of hundreds of thousands of minority and disabled voters in Florida alone. Trump could not have secured the state's 29 electoral college votes if the minority and disable votes had not been so successfully suppressed.
In North Carolina, a collaboration of GOP lawmakers and organizations were successful in eliminating same-day registration and pre-registration for teen voters, shortening the early voting period, and passed voter id requirements. The Court of Appeals struck down the ID requirement in 2016, citing that the rule was passed with the intent to discriminate on the basis of race; however, North Carolina has also been accused of purging thousands of black voters from the system and failing to comply with ADA standards. While the difference between Clinton and Trump is around 180,000 votes, the Democratic candidate was potentially illegally stripped of hundreds of thousands of votes from black and disabled constituents alone.
And in Arizona, the alt-right\white nationalist Republican candidate would not have been able to secure the state's 11 electoral votes without the suppression of hundreds of thousands of Latino and disabled voters. In efforts to suppress minority votes, and by refusing to comply with ADA requirements, a Republican coalition successfully passed legislation that limits mail in ballot collection and continues to require proof of citizenship to vote. The United States Supreme Court has already ruled against this practice, but Arizona continues to defy both the will of the court and the will of the people. Adding to the success of these suppression tactics, over 270,000 voters were allegedly purged from Arizona's voting system. The difference between candidates in this state is approximately 85,000.
Just as there is no question that the alt-right is a white nationalist network - there is also no question as to whether or not this network has engaged in strategic efforts to disenfranchise minority voters in efforts to take control of the White House.
Voter suppression is how the election was stolen. Voter suppression is how white power Trumped minority voters in the election. And contesting voter suppression is going to be the only way to prove Trump right - because the election was rigged. If we don't fight to prove him right, he and his white supremacist network just may take the White House.
Possibly the scariest part? With Fuhrer Trump in the white house, the GOP in control of the government, and the alt-right white supremacists being made mainstream, there's not much chance of this getting better. Voter suppression is only going to get worse and worse in the years to come, and I confess I'm scared that every election from now on will be nothing but an elaborate farce put on to give the appearance of democracy.
That should not stand at all.....
![]()
Oh good, so the new fascist regime will have even greater ability to violate the privacy of their own citizens.
That "some point" could take generations to get here, though. And looking at the direction this country and the world is headed in, we might not have generations.
It's hardly the first time laws were passed to disenfranchise large portions of the population, and the last time it happened, it took 100 years to overturn.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.![]()
Try to mount lawsuits and class actions against voter supression laws, participate in organizations to register people to vote, it should happen quicker than you expect.
BTW: I actually mean that for everyone here in the thread who actually is in the US, unless you have a strong reason to believe it could put your live (or that of people you care about) in danger.
edited 29th Nov '16 6:00:49 PM by IFwanderer
1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KVMoore surprised some of the Republican lawmakers assembled at their closed-door whip meeting last Tuesday when he told them they should no longer think of themselves as belonging to the conservative party of Ronald Reagan.
They now belong to Trump’s populist working-class party, he said. A source briefed on the House GOP whip meeting — which Moore attended as a guest of Majority Whip Steve Scalise — said several lawmakers told him they were taken aback by the economist’s comments.
“I think it’s going to take them a little time to process what does this all mean,” the source added of the lawmakers. “The vast majority of them were on the wrong side. They didn’t think this was going to happen.”
Asked about his comments to the GOP lawmakers, Moore told The Hill he was giving them a dose of reality.
“Just as Reagan converted the GOP into a conservative party, Trump has converted the GOP into a populist working-class party,” Moore said in an interview Wednesday. “In some ways this will be good for conservatives and in other ways possibly frustrating.”
Take those L s, republicans.
edited 29th Nov '16 6:11:38 PM by MadSkillz
So, the question now is: Will all these Reagan Republicans, be they Moral Conservatives or Ayn Rand Libertarians, become Democrats, Libertarians, or will they become the next group of unrepresented Americans who simply have to go with the flow with the Republicans?
I can't imagine the Libertarian/Tea Party wing just abandoning everything they believed in, everything they fought in congress for, everything they ran in government for, just because Trump says "I want to spend Millions on not changing Social Security and Medicare".
It took a long time for us to get voting rights and Civil Rights but I think there's a difference here. The first time these movements cropped up they were new things. American society never had them so it's possible people didn't realize what was missing. Now there's a large amount of the population that views them as normal and knows what it's like to live with them. Even if Trump and the Republicans remove these things people can recognize what was lost. I feel like that could motivate people to fight even harder than we did during the first Civil Rights era.
edited 29th Nov '16 6:23:02 PM by Kostya
look, you were all talking about establishing the NCR, well all I can say is what's wrong with the Neo-British Empire? I mean, you'd finally get proper beer, a functional health care system (well talk about the backdated tax...), a new appreciation from any ray of sunlight you can get... and did I mention decent beer?
advancing the front into TV Tropes

Look, lots of people have been telling me that I have the best space programs. They call me up and they say "donald, I love your space program. You should go the moon" and I gotta tell ya folks: those guys are right. The Chinese, they're crushing us on the moon. They're laughing at our little moon program. Obama killed our moons. But I'm gonna bring em back folks. The moon, the Saturn, the jupitar, all the best planets will have american steel on them!
Is using "Julian Assange is a Hillary butt plug" an acceptable signature quote?