this post was submitted on 07 Dec 2023
1464 points (99.3% liked)

News

23014 readers
19 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago (5 children)

the country would function so much better if we just sent out ballots to everyone to vote on every bill if they want to

[–] [email protected] 82 points 11 months ago (3 children)

That's how Brexit happened in the UK.

I agree about not trusting the politicians, but not sure I trust the general public much more unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The founding fathers didn't either that's why they put a buffer in in case there was a nuance not under stood by the general public. The only problem is I don't think they envisioned a party hell bent on the country's destruction.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The greatest flaw in the founder's reasoning was that they trusted public servants to fight for what's best for the country. They expected public figures to always attempt to do what's best for the country and their constituents and built our systems based on a lot of trust.

They never expected there to be half the country that doesn't care about the rules and only works for their own benefit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

They didn't really... there are a LOT of check and balances in the US constitution.

There were a few holes though. FPTP is possibly the biggest one, yet the easiest to forgive them for because they literally didn't know any better, but FPTP causes bipartism which leads to line-toeing which necessarily weakens the "balance" part of check and balances.

Then there's the almost complete immovability of the US constitution which gives enormous power to the SCOTUS and led to a whole lot of gaps being filled with fragile "tradition" or nefariously repurposed (2nd amendment, citizens united, executive orders, yada yada). This isn't just on the founders for trusting states too much to continuously reform the constitution, but also lies squarely on this frankly insane cult around the revolutionary mythos which made it entirely taboo to reform anything the founding fathers ever did to the point that no meaningful amendment was passed in over a century.
Complain all you want about the founding fathers, but they aren't to blame if a vast majority of Americans would almost certainly, in a hypothetical referundum, vote against even the smallest constitutional reform on the grounds that "it ain't what the Almighty Fathers intended". The very fact that you're talking about the Founding Fathers' intent as is if it has ANY BEARING on today's politics shows just how deeply ingrained this personality cult is.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago

A two party system was one of George Washington's fear. It breeds division while both sides occupy themselves making us emotional about how much the other side does wrong. Then they get more donations and more power. They don't care if they aren't effective because they know we won't ever go to the other side.

... There's a great Freakonomics episode on the duopoly formed by the Democratic and Republican parties and how they both benefit while stifling the competition from other parties that could provide more varied perspective.

My takeaway - support rank choices voting and elimination of closed primaries (which encourage extremism in candidates).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Just look at your presidential race, sadly I agree

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Bad example, Trump lost the popular vote both times. Dang electoral college was responsible for that travesty. Also George W. Bush lost the popular vote in his first election too. Thanks again, electoral college.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

People voted for him, those people are fucking brain dead

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I don't disagree, just saying it's an instance where direct democracy would have been better than having this representative layer of the electoral college in between.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Well we're on the same page now

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That’s because we need a maximum age to vote too.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A maximum age to vote?

Wtf?

So old people should have no voice?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I kind of see what they're saying. If you're on your way out, you probably shouldn't have a ton of sway on how the world operates after you're gone.

But that is a suuuuper slippery slope.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

"The law abhors dead hand control."

Voting is a basic human right, though.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I non-sarcastically love your optimism. But part of me really believes that 50% of the country votes however their church tells them to. So I'm not sure it'd be better.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Mine doesn't have a mouth though, just a small opening

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

It's more like one fourth. Half the country doesn't vote at all.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

I would be very careful with that. US should try having a more representative government first.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

So long as you don't like a functioning economy, sure.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You'd get people voting for all the projects and none of the budget.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You are getting down voted for telling the truth.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

It happens. I'm not concerned about it. I've seen that happen first-hand. If people don't want to acknowledge it, they can learn it for themselves.