They don’t need to expose shit, we all know they’re corrupt. The trick is to prove it and then figure out a way to get those assholes out of their jobs, preferably without inciting a civil war.
I guess if our populace has become this damn stupid, then democracy can't work here anymore. Democracy requires a certain minimum level of education and knowledge in the voting population. The number of comments I see online where people think the POTUS is some kind of emperor who just has to decree something and it happens (even in other countries!), and that Congress and SCOTUS have nothing to do with anything, is astounding.
Do they not teach government and civics in schools any more? Not to mention history. The ignorance of history is a huge part of the problem as well, not knowing about anything that happened more than 10-20 years ago, let alone the past century or two.
Gen Z’er here. I graduated high school without ever even having the option of a civics class. Everything I’ve learned about civics has been from history class and independent reading of wikipedia/books.
Same here, Zoomer. My time in high school was filled with AP classes in the normal subjects all meant to prepare me for college. No time left for finance, civics, or other basic life stuff.
And I wonder why I struggle with this stuff as an adult now.
I'm glad to hear you took it upon yourself to learn, kudos to you! And that you mention books, not (just) the internet as a source. Your library should have lots of great books on these subjects. I thought history was kind of boring in high school, but later I found out it's really fascinating (was it me/my youth, or the school that made it seem boring? :D).
One thing I definitely remember being drilled into us back then was that we must be constantly vigilant to protect our rights, or we'll lose them. How true that turned out to be! We're on the verge of losing so much right now. :(
And that you mention books, not (just) the internet as a source
Yeah it took be forever to start actually reading, I feel like only ever really reading when being forced to throughout all of school makes a lot of people wanna avoid it after they’ve graduated. Eventually I got sick of having only a wikipedia level depth of knowledge on cold war poverty in the U.S., so I bought Michael Harringtons “The Other America” and my library has grown exponentially since.
(was it me/my youth, or the school that made it seem boring? :D)
Almost definitely school lol, I feel like the whole learning through “Great history man did ____ on ____ day remember it for the test” really alienates people and makes it super hard to feel connected to or interested in any of it.
One thing I definitely remember being drilled into us back then was that we must be constantly vigilant to protect our rights, or we’ll lose them. How true that turned out to be! We’re on the verge of losing so much right now. :(
Maybe this was something else that changed or the deep south is just different, but I never really heard the importance of defending our rights as a kid (Unless that meant allegedly defending them from random groups in the Middle East).
Down here it was much more of a “Our country is the greatest and the free-est and everyone is jealous of us for our unexstinguishable freedoms” type of thing, and then most of us woke up in 2016 and realized that wasn’t true.
That's great! I have to alternate non-fiction with fiction to "cleanse my palette", lol.
I'd forgotten how they would put more emphasis on memorizing dates than on why the events were important. Yes, it's definitely the school's fault. :)
I think there's always been that teaching to school kids that "we're the greatest and bestest country!" (gotta get that indoctrination well-embedded). When I was in school during the Cold war it was mostly about all the reasons why we were better than the Soviet Union (many of which either had unmentioned exceptions, or sadly no longer apply, especially post 9/11).
It’s almost like it is in the best interests of one of the political parties to have a less informed populace and that party tends to limit or dismantle that educational infrastructure
She writes that many Democratic voters are “demoralized” about the Supreme Court and blame President Joe Biden for the abortion decision since it happened on his watch.
What kind of moron thinks the sitting President has any say in how the supreme court decides? I mean maybe a bit if that President has appointed a new Justice, but even then, not really.
It is unfortunately extremely common for the average American to think that the current president has direct and immediate control over quite a lot of things which they do not. Like inflation and gas prices. Or who the DOJ prosecutes and for what. And on and on.
Sadly, most of them are adults who are beyond education because they are too stuck in the team-based mentality. Hopefully the younger ones can still learn.
Presidents can push to have decrepit old justices from their own party retire so he/she can replace them with a younger model before the next election.
It was literally in his power to expand the court and appoint uncorrupt judges before Dobbs happened.
There had been almost 30 years of warnings that right wing activist judges wanted to overturn Roe and several years of people suggesting ways within the power of him and the Congressional majority he leads to prevent it.
It was literally in his power to expand the court and appoint uncorrupt judges before Dobbs happened.
It was not.
Congress would first have to remove the cap set by the Judicial Act of 1969.
That was in congressional Democrats’ hands. But in order to pass the Senate, we would have needed 60 Democrats, all of whom would need to actually vote with their party. Or we would need to have a simple majority, at least 50 of whom would be willing to get rid of the filibuster forever. We had the majority. Just enough Democrats preferred the return of coat hanger abortions to relegating a procedural relic of Jim Crow to the shitpile of history where it has always belonged.
That cap was one supreme court judge per circuit court. As there are 13 circuits now, it’s precedent FOR expanding the court, not against.
in order to pass the Senate, we would have needed 60 Democrats
Ah, the eternal “we can’t do the obviously right thing because of the filibuster” Dem leadership excuse. Turns out that, like most of their other excuses, that’s complete hogwash
Or we would need to have a simple majority, at least 50 of whom would be willing to get rid of the filibuster forever.
Again, not true. That’s just another “we are powerless to change anything because the system won’t let us” copout from the party eternally protecting the status quo that is so lucrative for them.
To quote the article linked above:
Like Dorothy in Oz, they’ve always had the power to get home. Unlike Dorothy, they’ve always known. They’ve just chosen not to use it.
Again, not true. That’s just another “we are powerless to change anything because the system won’t let us” copout from the party eternally protecting the status quo that is so lucrative for them.
Yes, this is exactly what I’m saying. Democrats could have ended the filibuster with a simple majority, but they didn’t want to. They preferred allowing Republicans to win on abortion to getting rid of their procedural excuse for inaction.
And I’m saying that they didn’t even have to do THAT, they could just suspend it temporarily any time they want. They don’t need 50 votes to permanently dismantle it when they can already do it at will on a case by case basis.
And I’m saying that they didn’t even have to do THAT, they could just suspend it temporarily any time they want.
My reading of the law differs from yours on this, but I believe we agree more broadly that Democrats desperately need to stop making excuses and get out of their own way.
I see. So you live in Europe and your goal is not to learn how the US Constitution stipulates that Congress, not POTUS, determines the number of justices, but to spread misinformation in the US, presumably with the goal of creating political division.
Who decides how many Justices are on the Court? Have there always been nine?
The Constitution places the power to determine the number of Justices in the hands of Congress. The first Judiciary Act, passed in 1789, set the number of Justices at six, one Chief Justice and five Associates. Over the years Congress has passed various acts to change this number, fluctuating from a low of five to a high of ten. The Judiciary Act of 1869 fixed the number of Justices at nine and no subsequent change to the number of Justices has occurred.
So you live in Europe and your goal is (…) to spread misinformation in the US, presumably with the goal of creating political division
Absolutely not. Cool it with the bigoted snap judgments, please.
Congress, not POTUS, determines the number of justices
So when there’s something necessary that he refuses to do, you’re going to pretend that his urging does nothing, making him powerless to influence Congress?
I bet you don’t give him credit for any of his signature bills that Congress passed either, right? Right??
What "arguments"? This isn't a debate. I'm not trying to convince anyone of a political view like you are. I'm debunking your misinformation with the fact that only the Congress can change the number of Supreme Court justices, through legislation, including links to sources--but anyone can simply read Article 3 Section 1 of the Constitution and the history of how Congress set up the courts to understand that this is the case.
The fact that you keep insisting falsely that Biden could have done it himself shows that you have a political agenda. The fact that you aren't from the US and keep repeating a false, divisive talking point in spite of it being disproven shows that you have a political agenda. We aren't falling for it. Go back to twitter and FB where you'll find more gullible marks to buy your propaganda.
I’ve seen bothsideser clowns on Lemmy write this. With 100% certainty they know better, but I assume they continue writing it because it fools some idiots some of the time.
It’s mostly idiots in the flyover states whose votes literally have more power due to the vagaries of the us electoral system. If that wasn’t a thing, and gerrymandering was declared unequivocally illegal, we would have a much better chance of rational leadership now and in the long run. But, infuriatingly, our system is intentionally designed to be undemocratic in a few very important ways.
I mean, it really shouldn’t be off the table though. It’s genuinely not a bad idea to at least balance the court. But, it should be regarded as sort of a “Last Ditch Effort” to save the court if it comes to it.
Add comment