EPTUS Politics Mega-thread - Page 168
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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets. Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source. If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On May 04 2018 23:07 zlefin wrote: people definitely don't have the clarity of mind or moral standard; it's still the case that democracy sort of works anyways, as an empirical observation. there's just some known failure points; from my own impression, voters seem to be the least important part of a democracy working anyways. Pretty sure a well functioning democracy doesn't 'need' voters doing a good job. It's when it's starts to break down where a in a democracy they become the last line of defense against tyranny. People think a democracy by nature of it's nominal shape precludes tyrannical rulers, it doesn't. It can also be used for them to secure and maintain power. It is it's susceptibility to an informed and engaged electorate that gives it a potential to stave off tyrants before you have to remove them by force. | ||
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Acrofales
Spain18050 Posts
On May 04 2018 23:12 GreenHorizons wrote: Pretty sure a well functioning democracy doesn't 'need' voters doing a good job. It's when it's starts to break down where a in a democracy they become the last line of defense against tyranny. People think a democracy by nature of it's nominal shape precludes tyrannical rulers, it doesn't. It can also be used for them to secure and maintain power. It is it's susceptibility to an informed and engaged electorate that gives it a potential to stave off tyrants before you have to remove them by force. This has worked wonders in Russia and Turkey. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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Acrofales
Spain18050 Posts
On May 04 2018 23:29 Plansix wrote: The thing that holds off tyrants is checks and balances on government. It makes it impossible for a single person or entity gain totally control of the government. Even in dysfunction, the US system limits the executive’s power. The same irrational self interest that hamstrings democracy also prevents dictatorial elected officials from consolidating power due to the checks and balances. Agreed. Which is why autocratic leaders like Chaves, Putin or Erdogan slowly remove these checks and balances until they *can* consolidate power. It's not the people who are their enemy, it's the system. The people are usually cheering them on and vote overwhelmingly in favor for dismantling their own democratic system. | ||
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On_Slaught
United States12190 Posts
Shoddy reporting. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On May 04 2018 23:29 Plansix wrote: The thing that holds off tyrants is checks and balances on government. It makes it impossible for a single person or entity gain totally control of the government. Even in dysfunction, the US system limits the executive’s power. The same irrational self interest that hamstrings democracy also prevents dictatorial elected officials from consolidating power due to the checks and balances. That's what people believe, but it's not really true imo. Trump's doing a pretty good job showing one doesn't even have to be that bright to use democracy to get into a position to seize power. What checks that in the US is corporate control and the politicians don't really run the show in the first place. For instance, the VP if Trump wasn't elected is making headlines: Just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse with this Congress, a bipartisan pair of senators have teamed up to write the single most dangerous piece of unconstitutional legislation of this Congress. Last week, Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Tim Kaine (D-Va.) introduced S. Res. 59, which is a new Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). An AUMF is roughly the modern equivalent of a declaration of war, and the Corker-Kaine AUMF gives President Trump and lots of future presidents the authority to take the country to war against an endless list of groups and individuals in an endless list of countries. The result will be true global war without end. On May 04 2018 23:32 Acrofales wrote: Agreed. Which is why autocratic leaders like Chaves, Putin or Erdogan slowly remove these checks and balances until they *can* consolidate power. It's not the people who are their enemy, it's the system. The people are usually cheering them on and vote overwhelmingly in favor for dismantling their own democratic system. It's the people cheering them on or turning a blind eye that enables it. The institutional checks are worthless without a population that holds people accountable for not following them. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
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ShoCkeyy
7815 Posts
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On May 04 2018 23:40 Plansix wrote: Nixon and Andrew Jackson came before Trump. Both were terrible presidents that won by being a demagogue. We survived them too. Demagogues are ever present in Democratic systems. The system needs to be built to limit their impact. I have no idea how this relates to anything I was talking about other than Trump and a reference to "the system" are in both posts. They seem completely unrelated to each other otherwise. I wasn't forecasting the end of the republic and emperor Trump starting a dynasty. Just pointing out he's obviously a despicable conman who recently had his lawyer admit on national television to Trump committing a felony crime and people are still just hoping and wishing he might be held accountable, while simultaneously singing the praises of the reliability of those same institutions to stop a tyrant. My point is you guys aren't even sure they can stop a narcissistic idiot, but are unreasonably confident they can stop tyrants. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
But the one thing I will say for sure is people are not going to become less pissed off than they currently are. The change in government may not come in November, but there is no way that we can go back to the status quo. The comfortable dynamic between the two parties has been broken, even if the parties and political talking heads don’t want to admit it. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On May 05 2018 00:18 Plansix wrote: Ok, that is clearer. We can’t stop presidents like Trump, Nixon and Jackson from being in office, but we can keep them from destroying the nation as we know it. You are correct that Trump could and more than likely will serve out his entire term unless there is an extraordinary change in public perception. The big X factor is the 2018 elections and the makeup of congress after that, which is impossible to predict. But the one thing I will say for sure is people are not going to become less pissed off than they currently are. The change in government may not come in November, but there is no way that we can go back to the status quo. The comfortable dynamic between the two parties has been broken, even if the parties and political talking heads don’t want to admit it. The main things stopping Trump from destroying the nation as we know it (in the tyrant sense anyway, we can't really stop him when it comes to potentially destroying political and FP norms) are big money influence and the threat of military coup. You've already abandoned the institutions as your last line of defense and are dependent on voters holding Trump accountable where the institutions failed. Maybe the institutions you guys think would definitely stop an intelligent and effective tyrant would do just that if confronted, but if they fail to even hold Trump accountable to any significant degree, I think you guys have to abandon the dream that they could stop a tyrant bent on using them to secure their own power. Ironically (or maybe you guys did this on purpose) this was the point I was making about the minutia of the legal proceedings before. I do hope you're right that all that stuff about the party dynamics and the status quo I had to endure for the last couple years can't continue anymore though. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
A reporter at NPR put it best during the election. The voting public wants to punch Washington DC, Trump was the fist. Trump is now part of the Washington DC, so the voting public is going to find another fist. | ||
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On_Slaught
United States12190 Posts
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TheTenthDoc
United States9561 Posts
On May 04 2018 23:35 GreenHorizons wrote: That's what people believe, but it's not really true imo. Trump's doing a pretty good job showing one doesn't even have to be that bright to use democracy to get into a position to seize power. What checks that in the US is corporate control and the politicians don't really run the show in the first place. For instance, the VP if Trump wasn't elected is making headlines: Isn't the point of this AUMF that the war against these forces has already been initiated but Congress has literally no oversight over it because it's an opaque shadow-war that is already implementing everything in the AUMF but with no Congressional oversight whatsoever? I'm not sure whether I'm surprised or not that the ACLU article you quote omits that from their piece on the issue. I'm also not sure the ACLU counts as "headlines" but that's another story. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States23295 Posts
On May 05 2018 00:51 TheTenthDoc wrote: Isn't the point of this AUMF that the war against these forces has already been initiated but Congress has literally no oversight over it because it's an opaque shadow-war that is already implementing everything in the AUMF but with no Congressional oversight whatsoever? I'm not sure whether I'm surprised or not that the ACLU article you quote omits that from their piece on the issue. I'm also not sure the ACLU counts as "headlines" but that's another story. A fair critique on it's own, but does it undermine the point or their critiques? It immediately authorizes war against eight groups. With literally no strategic or operational restrictions, the Corker-Kaine AUMF authorizes immediate war against eight groups in six countries. The American military could be sent into battle in countries such as Libya, Somalia, or Yemen to fight groups that most Americans have never even heard of. This could lead to the immediate deployment of tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of American military service members to fight if Congress passes and Trump signs this AUMF. The U.S. could declare war on a person. The president — not just President Trump, but likely every president for the next generation or longer — will be able to add new groups or new countries to the AUMF by simply sending a one-paragraph note to Congress. Absurdly, the Corker-Kaine AUMF even gives the commander-in-chief the option of going to war against a “person.” The president would not even have to explain why the new group or person is an enemy or what kind of danger awaits from military action in a newly added country. Congress abdicates its war-making powers. In a stunningly unconstitutional move, the Corker-Kaine AUMF takes the most important power that the Constitution gives to Congress alone — the power to declare war — and turns it almost entirely over to this president and every future president. The only way that Congress would be able to stop a determined president from going to war everywhere and against anyone the commander-in-chief chooses would be to get a two-thirds majority of both houses of Congress to override the president's veto. | ||
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Howie_Dewitt
United States1416 Posts
On May 05 2018 01:03 GreenHorizons wrote: A fair critique on it's own, but does it undermine the point or their critiques? This is truly terrifying. That part about the power to declare war essentially being transferred from Congress to the President is destroying part of what has made America the longest-running continuous democracy in the world, and doesn't sit well with me at all. Not for a president of any party. Also, @GH, I recently created a proposal about what to do about policing in America as part of my final in a class on policing; disregarding political feasibility, can you tell me what you think of this plan? I tried to bridge the gap of reforming the police and abolishing them, albeit staying towards the "reform" side. To everyone else, although some of you may go "not this rancid garbage heap of a discussion again," I think it will help you all understand GH's position much better than you did before, where you guys made him want to slam his head into a wall with how much the word "abolish" stuck in your head instead of recognizing it as a hyperbole and simplification of his plan. Essentially, the plan is to replicate the accountability system present in British policing from the beginning. Sir Robert Peel, after the arguing for the creation of the Metropolitan Police Department in 1829, which was the first modern police force and the one that Americans based their police force off of, fired over 78% of the first 2800 officers that were hired because they were not performing up to his standards. He created an accountability system and a culture of "do your job perfect or get fired." When American police departments were created in this model, the creators all systematically failed to recognize that Peel's harsh methods were the only method of accountability. The plan that I proposed is harsh to the point of unfairness to make police officers truly afraid of the law, just like any other citizen. Tell me what you think. + Show Spoiler + Abolishment of police unions. They are a disease and should be eradicated like one. Hey look, abolishment! Prohibit military gifts to police departments. No more rifles for regular officers. New federal oversight agency: Federal Law Enforcement Accountability and Oversight Agency (FLEAOA, needs a better acronym though) that collects records of all police-citizen interactions, can fire policemen from their jobs after an infraction with the same authority of a police chief, effective immediately (open to appeal by police chief, who can send case to review by the same committee with a reason for why the officer should not have been fired) Citizens can now file a complaint to the FLEAOA, who will investigate the matter; if the case goes to court, the citizen will be represented by an agent from the FLEAOA free of charge. Police officers’ claims of fear of a citizen justifying use of lethal force can be directly challenged by the FLEAOA agent in court and thrown out. Standards of claiming objective reasonableness raised, officer must appeal to the court and present footage of encounter for them to take the claim seriously if the suspect was unarmed. Body cameras, dash cams, and microphones cannot be turned off, covering/muffling one while interacting with a civilian results in disciplinary action, up to/including dismissal from police force. Police must appeal to FLEAOA if they believe they had a reason for covering the camera (an accident) Police records now open to the public, just like court records. New regulation preventing corporations from factoring police records that do not end in charges into their hiring process (i.e. being arrested and let go without being charged). Judges’ crime sentence habits will be analyzed; if a judge is found to give sentences to a race that are more than 2% longer on average than any other race for the same crime, the judge will have to appeal each and every case in the past year and explain the racial disparity before the FLEAOA. | ||
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Plansix
United States60190 Posts
https://lawfareblog.com/fast-track-nowhere-expedited-procedures-and-new-aumf-proposal Edit: Ok, so they are trying to modify the existing AUMF to allow for more oversight and transparency, but keeping the basic framework. I want the AUMF repealed, but that likely require a veto proof majority. Some oversight is better than the zero we have now. | ||
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zlefin
United States7689 Posts
On May 05 2018 00:51 TheTenthDoc wrote: Isn't the point of this AUMF that the war against these forces has already been initiated but Congress has literally no oversight over it because it's an opaque shadow-war that is already implementing everything in the AUMF but with no Congressional oversight whatsoever? I'm not sure whether I'm surprised or not that the ACLU article you quote omits that from their piece on the issue. I'm also not sure the ACLU counts as "headlines" but that's another story. congress has plenty of opportunity to oversee the existing AUMF (and actions taken as a result of it). and they do so to a fair degree from what I know; the main problem is that the AUMF is very old and wasn't really designed to be around for so long; also that it's been somewhat stretched beyond the original intent imho. [i'm not familiar with the proposed new aumf; just commenting on your notes on the old one] | ||
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iamthedave
England2814 Posts
On May 05 2018 00:32 GreenHorizons wrote: The main things stopping Trump from destroying the nation as we know it (in the tyrant sense anyway, we can't really stop him when it comes to potentially destroying political and FP norms) are big money influence and the threat of military coup. You've already abandoned the institutions as your last line of defense and are dependent on voters holding Trump accountable where the institutions failed. Maybe the institutions you guys think would definitely stop an intelligent and effective tyrant would do just that if confronted, but if they fail to even hold Trump accountable to any significant degree, I think you guys have to abandon the dream that they could stop a tyrant bent on using them to secure their own power. Ironically (or maybe you guys did this on purpose) this was the point I was making about the minutia of the legal proceedings before. I do hope you're right that all that stuff about the party dynamics and the status quo I had to endure for the last couple years can't continue anymore though. I think the main thing stopping Trump from destroying the nation is simpler: 1. He doesn't know how to. 2. He doesn't want to. I've always said that Trump's scary because of what he intimates, not what he is. A much cannier operator who was a genuine autocrat could do untold damage in Trump's position. Trump's Presidency is exposing that the systems and balances designed to restrain the President don't function correctly in an environment of total party partisanship; in other words, an actual autocrat who can unite their party behind them, could subvert those systems permanently, and effortlessly, and do it with public approval. Trump's relentless attacks on the media and justice departments demonstrate this (both are commonalities in autocratic regimes) In this regard I think I'm in complete agreement with you, GH. The US is on a dangerous, and very slippy, slope. It's no accident that the white supremacists were marching in the streets, and I guarantee you there's charismatic people in that movement now looking at office. Trump is how that starts. He is either a blip, or the doorman to the real danger. The direction of the Republican Party post-Trump is going to be a very, very important thing to keep an eye on. | ||
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