I think very few people in the USA are prepared to admit just how bad it has gotten. I strongly suspect I can only see it because I don't live in the USA anymore.
Not so much with B. If you don't trust the government as it is right now to decide what is protected speech, or a protected assembly, then you do not trust the government to decide that.
For C, banning a Party is useless unless you also get rid of the people in that Party. Otherwise they just rename and move on under another name.
B) You can't yell fire in crowded theater. You can't call strangers on the street c*nts. We already have limits on free speech. Flying racist traitor flags can be construed as both a public safety hazard and a public nuisance. Germany isn't a bastion of fascism, but they manage.
C) Not only would a ban eliminate the institutional inertia, it would send a clear message that said party was not acceptable. Again, Germany banned the Nazi party, for similar reasons.
D) We almost had it, back when we had 90% top marginal income tax and healthy estate taxes. There is a reason wealth inequality has exploded from then to now, and that reason is tax policy. People in a democracy can vote for tax policy that is fair and is also linked with the greatest historical expansion of the American economy.
Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not the same as limiting freedom of expression. You certainly can call random strangers on the streets cunts, or anything else you want to. Don't threaten, don't incite, and that is protected.
This covers B and C. Germany banned the Nazi flag and the Nazi Party after a war the party directly caused. Not because they were a nuisance. That did not stop the German people from electing the AfD to 13% of the seats in Parliament last election. The AfD is trying to go full Nazi in all but name. The name is banned, the ideology is sort of banned, but a little rebranding, and they are coming back into power. Which is why banning a political party is useless without doing something about the people in that party. The donor lists, the money, the contacts, the political machinery is all still there if the party is banned. Change the header on official the official letterhead, and everything is as it was. Then you have to ban that party and all the successor parties after that. Then you have to worry about that power being turned on you and your chosen party.
A high tax rate is not Socialism. That high tax rate enacted no policies a socialist would be happy with. No health care for all, no safety net for all, nothing of the sort.
As for the changes you want to see, the mechanism is there to make them. Amend the Constitution. It;s not going to be easy, and people will fight you every single step of the way, but it can be done.
OK, you convinced me. There's nothing you can do to make my suggested changes happen. Every possible change will fail, it's all too hard, and anyway the system is as good as it gets.
If you're fine with that, I'm fine with that. I don't even live there anymore.
"Our recollection keeps changing" == "There are so many lies, it's hard to remember which ones have been debunked and which ones we're still sticking to. Nobody knew treason could be so complicated."
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what they believe is a legal masterstroke, lawyers for Donald J. Trump are now claiming that he cannot be impeached because he was never actually elected.In a lengthy memo sent to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, the lawyers pushed back vehemently against any allegation that Trump was legally elected President.“Because Russian interference made the election of Donald J. Trump wholly illegitimate, any attempt to remove him from an office that he does not legally hold is clearly impossible,” the memo asserted.The memo claimed that the Constitution contains “no provision for removing a person from office when that person was installed there by a foreign power.”The memo went on to argue that, if a subpoena is sent to the White House, it will be returned to Mueller and stamped “addressee unknown.”“A person referred to in a subpoena as ‘President’ Donald J. Trump simply does not exist,” the memo claimed. Minutes after the memo was leaked, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani appeared on “Fox & Friends” and proudly announced that he was its author. “Sometimes I have to just step back and say, ‘Damn it, Rudy, you’re good,’ ” he said, beaming.
All that glee the Republicans had after the legal precedents set in their pursuit of Bill Clinton are coming around to bite them in the ass--what goes around comes around
I think very few people in the USA are prepared to admit just how bad it has gotten. I strongly suspect I can only see it because I don't live in the USA anymore.
Good luck with any of that.
I'd be fine with A.
Not so much with B. If you don't trust the government as it is right now to decide what is protected speech, or a protected assembly, then you do not trust the government to decide that.
For C, banning a Party is useless unless you also get rid of the people in that Party. Otherwise they just rename and move on under another name.
D? Show me a plan that could make it happen.
B) You can't yell fire in crowded theater. You can't call strangers on the street c*nts. We already have limits on free speech. Flying racist traitor flags can be construed as both a public safety hazard and a public nuisance. Germany isn't a bastion of fascism, but they manage.
C) Not only would a ban eliminate the institutional inertia, it would send a clear message that said party was not acceptable. Again, Germany banned the Nazi party, for similar reasons.
D) We almost had it, back when we had 90% top marginal income tax and healthy estate taxes. There is a reason wealth inequality has exploded from then to now, and that reason is tax policy. People in a democracy can vote for tax policy that is fair and is also linked with the greatest historical expansion of the American economy.
Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not the same as limiting freedom of expression. You certainly can call random strangers on the streets cunts, or anything else you want to. Don't threaten, don't incite, and that is protected.
This covers B and C. Germany banned the Nazi flag and the Nazi Party after a war the party directly caused. Not because they were a nuisance. That did not stop the German people from electing the AfD to 13% of the seats in Parliament last election. The AfD is trying to go full Nazi in all but name. The name is banned, the ideology is sort of banned, but a little rebranding, and they are coming back into power. Which is why banning a political party is useless without doing something about the people in that party. The donor lists, the money, the contacts, the political machinery is all still there if the party is banned. Change the header on official the official letterhead, and everything is as it was. Then you have to ban that party and all the successor parties after that. Then you have to worry about that power being turned on you and your chosen party.
A high tax rate is not Socialism. That high tax rate enacted no policies a socialist would be happy with. No health care for all, no safety net for all, nothing of the sort.
As for the changes you want to see, the mechanism is there to make them. Amend the Constitution. It;s not going to be easy, and people will fight you every single step of the way, but it can be done.
OK, you convinced me. There's nothing you can do to make my suggested changes happen. Every possible change will fail, it's all too hard, and anyway the system is as good as it gets.
If you're fine with that, I'm fine with that. I don't even live there anymore.
Which is not what I said. But OK.
"Front Row Seats to the Apocalypse"
Steve Buscemi, Armageddon
And woe to those who live in the Valley
"Our recollection keeps changing" == "There are so many lies, it's hard to remember which ones have been debunked and which ones we're still sticking to. Nobody knew treason could be so complicated."
https://pixel.nymag.com/img...
"our recollection keeps changing"
have the talking heads added this to their repertoire of euphemisms for big fat lie yet?
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what they believe is a legal masterstroke, lawyers for Donald J. Trump are now claiming that he cannot be impeached because he was never actually elected.In a lengthy memo sent to the special counsel, Robert Mueller, the lawyers pushed back vehemently against any allegation that Trump was legally elected President.“Because Russian interference made the election of Donald J. Trump wholly illegitimate, any attempt to remove him from an office that he does not legally hold is clearly impossible,” the memo asserted.The memo claimed that the Constitution contains “no provision for removing a person from office when that person was installed there by a foreign power.”The memo went on to argue that, if a subpoena is sent to the White House, it will be returned to Mueller and stamped “addressee unknown.”“A person referred to in a subpoena as ‘President’ Donald J. Trump simply does not exist,” the memo claimed. Minutes after the memo was leaked, the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani appeared on “Fox & Friends” and proudly announced that he was its author. “Sometimes I have to just step back and say, ‘Damn it, Rudy, you’re good,’ ” he said, beaming.
Say it with me, y'all:https://i.imgur.com/MGwMmEN...
Just remember, everything Rudy says on TV is probably 100% approved of, and possibly dictated by his boss.
No real pushback on any of this is a signal to Trump that he can get away with it.
Kate is practically blushing. It's fantastic.
All that glee the Republicans had after the legal precedents set in their pursuit of Bill Clinton are coming around to bite them in the ass--what goes around comes around