I'd vote for a candidate who campaigned to repeal the Second Amendment.
Even Jefferson surmised it should be radically updated every few decades. I think he'd and many others would be pissed to realized we're all held hostage by compromises that barely made sense at the time.
Not only did they guess it should be updated; they even left plenty of mechanisms directly in the constitution that allowed for it to be updated radically whenever situations changed so drastically that a supermajority agrees that it should be changed.
Unfortunately that too is the downfall; as those who want to exploit the status quo are also empowered to leverage their money and power to prevent such a majority from taking place. The constitution is far from perfect, and it absolutely should've been amended many hundreds of times over, not just the paltry less than 30 times we've managed to do so already.
George Washington was against political parties for the exact reason our country is being torn apart by partisan politics today.
Sounds like he should have put stronger protections in place, and definitely shouldn't have tied us to a FPTP voting style. Even the electoral college and the 270 vote requirements force us into a two party system.
Yup, as was said earlier, it was known that the system would have to be overthrown over time as it became bloated and corrupt.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
- Thomas Jefferson
When a book of fiction is considered perfect and the word of god by more than half the population that supports this model… well, your answer is obvious. This works, for the “right” people, even though it’s very wrong. And half the voting population want to make it worse.
I think its interesting how the grifting right has moved away from the "Founding Fathers" to the "Constitution" because they know the fathers would see how shit's being run and be outright mortified!
"We never should have left the monarchy..."
It certainly feels radically different than a few decades ago…
Woah! What are you? Some kind of Communist? The founding fathers were perfect in every way. Ain't no one more qualified on God's green flat Earth!
Pfft get a load of this guy who thinks the Earth is green.
Gestures broadly at the sky and oceans
I have always felt that freedom of press was one of the most fundamental aspects of a working democracy. Without a free press, you cannot have proper checks and balances. Unfortunately, while press is still ‘free’, actual unbiased news gets only a small fraction of the viewership. Mainstream ‘news’ is nearly completely opinion driven, and profit is the incentive rather than the dissemination of information. The free press no longer serves its necessary function, there is no accountability, and democracy is at risk.
We no longer have free press, not to any meaningful degree:
European version:
Given that the freedom of press is a requirement for a healthy democracy, and corporations owning all of these subsidiaries prevents that, I think it is well past time that we ban corporations from owning subsidiary companies.
Looking at the European version, I don't see any of the big serious journalistic outlets. Most of what's in there are just tabloids or lifestyle magazines. And even if a newspaper is part of a big conglomerate, doesn't mean that they are not free
And even if a newspaper is part of a big conglomerate, doesn’t mean that they are not free
Sure it does. If the CEO of a news organization doesn't want something published, it doesn't get published. That's why you never see articles on the Washington post that are critical of Bezos/Amazon/etc. And so when you get huge swaths of the media controlled by just a few people, it is no longer free.
I note a lack of NPR in the us version.... also seems like conspiracy bullshit.
At the very least, every product should be explicitly labeled as produced by the top parent company, right next to the actual name of the product.
Disney ate 21st Century Fox, so it's even worse now.
Yes, a functional democracy requires that users have real political agency to engage with political topics, and that requires a high bar for individual liberty including press and academic freedom. A ton of people here will try to argue an absurd absolutist case that freedoms don't matter because all governments engage in some curtailment of freedom, and that this all therefore reduces to preference.
The reality is that neither governments or institutions outside of government are perfect. Perfection is a vision which guides institutions, not a real endpoint. That's why you should always be very critical of anyone who is quick to engage in criticism of your institutions, but is unwilling to engage in criticism of their own. This is the surest sign that someone is not acting in good faith, be it in real life, or on a notoriously sensitive meme community.
What about public radio, NPR? Of all the crap news out there, the reports I get off NPR are usually well balanced
So yea, I hear you. I pretty much exclusively listen to NPR for news, and they are pretty balanced if not potentially a little left leaning from time to time, which I actually find refreshing.
But when a measurable percentage of the country thinks fox is fair and balanced, or that FB is a news source, the ability for our free press to safeguard democracy is severely threatened.
What good is free press when there are no longer facts and everything is opinion based?
Paraphrasing Asimov, ‘There is a cult of ignorance which operates under the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is as good as your knowledge.’
When trump took a play straight out of the dictators handbook and started shouting fake news, I began to fear that this was the beginning of the end. The real beginning however was probably a few decades back when news went from dry and factual to sensationalist infotainment.
It's when CNN went to a 24hour news cycle and they had to fill that time with a bunch of talking heads spouting opinions.
At least we got rid of that pesky national religion that controls what's legal and what's not.
Right?
Also, America was formed because a bunch of rich, old, white guys didn't want to pay their taxes.
More like a bunch of folk who were turfed out of Europe for being a bit too religiously weird
That takes some doing in the 16th century 😂
I mean, that was why the pilgrims left. There were a lot of other people that came for a lot of other reasons after.
Yeah but maybe look at a modern written constitution. At least the guys wrote the American one had some ideals. The Canadian Charter of Rights was written by a career politician in the late 70s to specifically guarantee governmental rights, not citizens.
I don’t think the problem is that the government “wasn’t the best ever,” I think it’s that it hasn’t changed. And the US hasn’t done a lot to enforce some of the groundwork beliefs of the framers.
I still think the idea and balance of power of the US government is one of the best—but it was created to change with the times and address practical flaws (amendments) and hasn’t.
The problem is that they're still largely perceived as being the best ever. The American founding fathers are pretty much deified, and it's still expected that important policy decisions will be made based on what these centuries-dead aristocrats thought rather than based on what's needed in the here and now. Other countries don't do this. I've never in my life heard a politician try to attack or defend a position based on what John A. Macdonald would have thought of it, but in the USA that sort of thing happens all the time.
Yeah, but that's a structural flaw inherit in the initial design. We were doomed to quickly end up in a two party system, despite the fact that they all thought they were better than parties. The federal government pretty much immediately became a two party affair, that that inherently stagnates change and limits the actual will of the people from being enacted in government.
We need to switch to Approval Voting and proportional representation if we want the government to actually represent the people.
What a random image to use!
Thanks! I knew I recognized it but not from where.
A rare example of a Japanese game being made better by localization. While the original is just a generic story about a guy rescuing a kidnapped girl, in the US version they made them Californian teenagers who speak in ridiculous surfer slang. "Jake, they're like stealing me or something. Help!"
It also had a great soundtrack!
Totally Rad!
It was "we have MegaMan at home."
Did you know it was called Magic John in Japan? If only it kept its name in the US...
Being mid was kinda Jaleco's thing.
I'd vote for a candidate who vowed to dismantle the entire system and replace it with anything with even a modicum of equity
How do constitutional alterations happen there? Is it by referendum like Australia (where everyone's opinion matters) or is it by some arbitrary majority in the houses of congress (where only the elite political class' opinion matters)?
An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both Houses of Congress, or, if two-thirds of the States request one, by a convention called for that purpose. The amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths of the State legislatures, or three-fourths of conventions called in each State for ratification.
So basically only the political and by extension the upper class get to decide the rules by which they play. Sounds really fair. FREEDOM!!!
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the genocide of indigenous peoples and the suppression of slave revolts, the right of the settler crakkkers to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Democracy in general is a good way to help distribute power to inhibit oligarchy, but the specifics need a lot of help after centuries of loophole exploitation and changing circumstances. But the problem now is that any replacement system is usually going to heavily favor those who set it up, so a transitional time is really dangerous for authoritarian power grabs. Working to reform the system is safer, but sometimes isn't possible, and is never easy.
