News Article: The balkanization of America...

92tide

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hell, talk radio (+ fox news, etc) has been spending long hours every day for the past 25+ years brainwashing people that anything besides "conservatism" is illegitimate. and large numbers of folks in our country are perfectly fine with that.
 

Crimson1967

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hell, talk radio (+ fox news, etc) has been spending long hours every day for the past 25+ years brainwashing people that anything besides "conservatism" is illegitimate. and large numbers of folks in our country are perfectly fine with that.
It pretty much started with Rush during the Clinton years.

The Republicans changing the rules out the door is dirty pool. But it is probably not the only time an outgoing administration (of either party) has done it. Doesn’t make it right, however.


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Its On A Slab

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It pretty much started with Rush during the Clinton years.

The Republicans changing the rules out the door is dirty pool. But it is probably not the only time an outgoing administration (of either party) has done it. Doesn’t make it right, however.


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What McConnell has done will resonate for decades to come. He pretty much destroyed any chance of bipartisanship, and collegiality.
 

Chukker Veteran

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The GOP has almost quit trying to pretend to show respect for how our electoral system is supposed to work. It's more an in-your-face, what are you going to do about it?

After constant whining about corrupted voting that didn't exist, they are now demonstrating how the electoral system can be manipulated in a House race in North Carolina.

They are confident that Dems are too timid and fair-minded to return the favor when the Dems have the chance.
 

Jon

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hell, talk radio (+ fox news, etc) has been spending long hours every day for the past 25+ years brainwashing people that anything besides "conservatism" is illegitimate. and large numbers of folks in our country are perfectly fine with that.
I think this entire discussion is funny when we created an entire other nonsports for ultimately the same reason. These people are so brainwashed that they had to get their own board so they could effectively hide from reality even in this tiny little corner of the world
 

GrayTide

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It pretty much started with Rush during the Clinton years.

The Republicans changing the rules out the door is dirty pool. But it is probably not the only time an outgoing administration (of either party) has done it. Doesn’t make it right, however.


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While Limbaugh was an early devotee of the conservative movement, lying to the American public without fear of impunity, but he was only a minor player. This goes back to the person who planted the seeds of hatred of all things non-conservative in America, warned christian Evangelicals that any group or individuals who did not support the conservative cause was anti-christian and anti-American. Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham and others are merely disciples of Newt Gingrich, outside of Trump, the most despicable human in the recent history of our country.
 

92tide

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While Limbaugh was an early devotee of the conservative movement, lying to the American public without fear of impunity, but he was only a minor player. This goes back to the person who planted the seeds of hatred of all things non-conservative in America, warned christian Evangelicals that any group or individuals who did not support the conservative cause was anti-christian and anti-American. Limbaugh, Hannity, Ingraham and others are merely disciples of Newt Gingrich, outside of Trump, the most despicable human in the recent history of our country.
you can go back even further to falwell, pat robertson and a whole host of garbage human beings (many of them still cashing in) claiming to speak for the lord.
 

Tidewater

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If I might offer a dissenting view.
1. This is a constitutional republic, not a democracy, thank God. The Founders were pretty clear about that point. A democracy ordered Socrates to commit suicide. The Athenian democratic assembly sentenced all of the male citizens of Mytilene to death, and the women and children sold into slavery. Madison, whose prep for the constitutional convention of 1787 involved reading whatever he could about democracy and its failures knew this. “In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever characters composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. ... Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.”
2. Anything done by a legislature (that is not done through a constitutional amendment) can be undone by the next legislature. Everything done by an executive order can be undone by an executive order by the next executive.
3. Changing a constitution is a more serious matter than adopting a statute or issuing an executive order. This is as it should be. And until a constitution is amended, it is incumbent on the government ruled by that constitution to obey that constitution.

Jeffrey Rosen explains in greater detail.
America Is Living James Madison’s Nightmare
 

92tide

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constitutional republic and democracy are not mutually exclusive.

articles from mises and reason explain in greater detail

Stop Saying "We're a Republic, Not a Democracy"

In practice, the arguments boils down to this: "you can be for republican government, or you can be for mob rule, otherwise known as democracy."

Now, there are many good reasons to support the electoral college, and I have written about some of them myself. But, the claim that one must support the "republican" electoral college on the one hand, or be an advocate for "mob rule" on the other, is not one of them...

Consequently, in contemporary usage, there is no relevant difference between the words "republic" and "democracy." Thus, claiming a preference for a republic over a democracy communicates essentially zero information unless one precisely defines the two terms in a way that departs significantly from Madison's definitions.

Not surprisingly, of course, those who bring up the Founding Fathers and their republic-not-a-democracy claim rarely bother to define the actual difference between the two. If these modern republicans were to use Madison's definition, of course, they would quickly find that warnings about Madison's sort of democracy are irrelevant in the modern world.
The United States Is Both a Republic and a Democracy

To be sure, in addition to being a representative democracy, the United States is also a constitutional democracy, in which courts restrain in some measure the democratic will. And the United States is therefore also a constitutional republic. Indeed, the United States might be labeled a constitutional federal representative democracy.

But where one word is used, with all the oversimplification that this necessary entails, "democracy" and "republic" both work. Indeed, since direct democracy — again, a government in which all or most laws are made by direct popular vote — would be impractical given the number and complexity of laws that pretty much any state or national government is expected to enact, it's unsurprising that the qualifier "representative" would often be omitted. Practically speaking, representative democracy is the only democracy that's around at any state or national level. (State and even national referenda are sometimes used, but only for a very small part of the state's or nation's lawmaking.)
 

Tidewater

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Nice to see you're reading Mises.

The Founders, in my view are not the men who assembled in Philadelphia to declare independence or those men who assembled to draft a constitution, but the peoples of the several state conventions that ratified the proposed constitution where, to quote Madison, "it received all the authority which it possesses."

The Vox author directly states that Republicans in Wisconsin are "attacking democracy," they are "nullifying the results of the 2018 election."

That is just a silly, hyperbolic argument. The current legislature of the state was elected, were they not? And they passed a bill. The next legislature can repeal that bill. Simple solution.

Lefties tend (in my view) to want to place way too much emphasis on the executive of the system (which I find kind of odd, given their professed belief in "democracy," but whatever). At the beginning of the republic, the executive could do nothing but what the legislative branch authorized him to do. In fact, the Whigs, in 1840 I believe, ran on a platform that the president would not veto any bill passed by the legislature, because such a bill had been approved by the more popular branches of the government. This imperial presidency, an executive no longer bound by bills passed by the legislature, is a twentieth century idea, put forth by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodie Wilson (and most presidents since).
 

92tide

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Nice to see you're reading Mises.

The Founders, in my view are not the men who assembled in Philadelphia to declare independence or those men who assembled to draft a constitution, but the peoples of the several state conventions that ratified the proposed constitution where, to quote Madison, "it received all the authority which it possesses."

The Vox author directly states that Republicans in Wisconsin are "attacking democracy," they are "nullifying the results of the 2018 election."

That is just a silly, hyperbolic argument. The current legislature of the state was elected, were they not? And they passed a bill. The next legislature can repeal that bill. Simple solution.

Lefties tend (in my view) to want to place way too much emphasis on the executive of the system (which I find kind of odd, given their professed belief in "democracy," but whatever). At the beginning of the republic, the executive could do nothing but what the legislative branch authorized him to do. In fact, the Whigs, in 1840 I believe, ran on a platform that the president would not veto any bill passed by the legislature, because such a bill had been approved by the more popular branches of the government. This imperial presidency, an executive no longer bound by bills passed by the legislature, is a twentieth century idea, put forth by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodie Wilson (and most presidents since).
if you say so. repubs are doing their level best around the country to make sure the "will" of certain people is not heard at the ballot box. and they have plenty of folks tacitly supporting them, stroking their chins and tut-tutting "well, too bad, this is how the "founders" intended things and besides we are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic, so there."

that woodie wilson sure was a dastardly fellow.

 
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Chukker Veteran

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if you say so. repubs are doing their level best around the country to make sure the "will" of certain people is not heard at the ballot box. and they have plenty of folks tacitly supporting them, stroking their chins and tut-tutting "well, too bad, this is how the "founders" intended things and besides we are not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic, so there."

that woodie wilson sure was a dastardly fellow.

It's almost like you are trying to get out of the quicksand you stepped in. Maybe one your filters needs cleaning :smile:.
 

jthomas666

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The Vox author directly states that Republicans in Wisconsin are "attacking democracy," they are "nullifying the results of the 2018 election."
That is just a silly, hyperbolic argument. The current legislature of the state was elected, were they not? And they passed a bill. The next legislature can repeal that bill. Simple solution.
I see you took your disingenuous pills this morning. The next legislature will be GOP-controlled. Somehow I don't see them repealing the bill.

What is silly in this situation is not acknowledging that the GOP legislature is attempting to sharply curb the powers of the governor and attorney general immediately before democrats assume control of those offices.
 

Tidewater

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I see you took your disingenuous pills this morning. The next legislature will be GOP-controlled. Somehow I don't see them repealing the bill.
So if they adopted the exact same bill the day the new legislature took office, you'd be okay with it? Maybe the Democrats should try harder and win the majority of the next legislature.
What is silly in this situation is not acknowledging that the GOP legislature is attempting to sharply curb the powers of the governor and attorney general immediately before democrats assume control of those offices.
Of course they are. So?

If, as the Vox author would have us believe, the issues of the governor's "ability to change state welfare policy and withdraw from a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act" were the only issues that mattered (and those issues resulted in the Democrat winning the governor's office, why did the good people of Wisconsin elect a Republican-majority legislature?

For all I know, the people of Wisconsin just got tired of the Republican or found the Democrat ruggedly handsome and elected the Democrat on that basis.

For the record, I have never been to Wisconsin, but I have been to the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Bill Murray said that was like going to Wisconsin.
 
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bamacpa

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you can go back even further to falwell, pat robertson and a whole host of garbage human beings (many of them still cashing in) claiming to speak for the lord.
But Falwell must like and approve of Hugh Freeze. I'm guessing if Hugh called a gay escort, Liberty wouldn't have hired him.


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twofbyc

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So if they adopted the exact same bill the day the new legislature took office, you'd be okay with it? Maybe the Democrats should try harder and win the majority of the next legislature.


Of course they are. So?

If, as the Vox author would have us believe, the issues of the governor's "ability to change state welfare policy and withdraw from a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act" were the only issues that mattered (and those issues resulted in the Democrat winning the governor's office, why did the good people of Wisconsin elect a Republican-majority legislature?

For all I know, the people of Wisconsin just got tired of the Republican or found the Democrat ruggedly handsome and elected the Democrat on that basis.

For the record, I have never been to Wisconsin, but I have been to the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Bill Murray said that was like going to Wisconsin.
As for Cheeseheads electing a Democratic legislature (and yes, I have been to Wisconsin), that problem was solved by gerrymandering. Maybe you shouldn’t be calling others disingenuous.
 

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