• BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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      2 days ago

      To be clear: MAGAs are traitors, by definition. Those who respect and honor the Constitution are the Patriots, and again, by definition, MAGAs do NOT respect nor honor the Constitution. Resisting the Fourth Reich is not treasonous, it is Patriotic.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          21 hours ago

          It’s amusing to hear people living in Democratic countries complaining about America, when it was America’s founding that inspired the shift to Democracy for every other country on the planet. Democratic nations didn’t exist before America did it first.

          America has done some terrible stuff since then, but the only reason that most humans on this planet don’t live under absolute slavery, is because America led humanity to a different way.

          Hate America all you want, but the unique promise that America brought to the world is still a valid one, and it is still what most people want - the simple freedom to choose their own path on life. Unfortunately, that promise is in danger even in America itself.

          • john_brown [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            21 hours ago

            It’s amusing to hear people living in Democratic countries complaining about America, when it was America’s founding that inspired the shift to Democracy for every other country on the planet. Democratic nations didn’t exist before America did it first.

            If democracy means one person, one vote, and those votes should all be equal, then America is not and has never been a democracy.

            Hate America all you want, but the unique promise that America brought to the world is still a valid one,

            You’re just huffing your own farts, that’s not healthy.

      • john_brown [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 days ago

        you must be lost, the constitution was written by a bunch of rich dickheads who owned people and thought owning people was good. I do not respect or honor that rag.

        • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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          21 hours ago

          As written, the Constitution has been one of the most influential documents in the history of mankind, and has inspired and influenced the entire Freedom movement of the 19th and 20th centuries.

          It may have been written by wealthy land and slaveowners, but they didn’t write it to only benefit them, like modern Sociopathic Oligarchs would, they created a country and a Constitution that would benefit all American citizens.

          There are two problems with that. One, obviously, is their disregard of both slavery, and the Native American genocide, which are indelible stains on our nation that we must acknowledge and bear for the remainder of this nation’s existence, no matter how it embarrasses us as a nation,

          And, secondly, from the moment this country was founded, there were bad people seeking to manipulate our freedoms for their own selfish benefit, and we have never done enough to suppress those jackals.

          Despite our definite issues, the promise of the Constitution - Liberty and Freedom, protected by a strong Democratic government - has always been a valid philosophy, and the one that offers the best defense against tyranny, when our elected officials do their jobs properly, which they have NOT been doing for several decades.

          Just because we’ve had poor leadership, doesn’t mean the FOUNDATION of the system is wrong. Freedom/Liberty will ALWAYS be the preferred system over tyranny, but it must be implemented properly, carefully monitored, and vigorously defended.

          • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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            21 hours ago

            That only means that the concept of a constitution is useful, not that the constitution was written well.

            The way elections are set up is designed to limit democracy as much as possible because the writers of the constitution feared “tyranny of the majority” i.e. poor people voting to take their wealth and property. It’s very easy to see between the way voting districts are drawn to the electoral college to the inability to lauch recall elections to there not being a runoff mechanism when no one gets a majority of the votes etc etc. The system was designed by rich and powerful people to keep themselves rich and powerful. The US is not and has never been a democracy.

            • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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              21 hours ago

              You are confusing the Promise of the Constitution with its implementation. The Promise - Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness - is amazing, but the government that is meant to defend that promise has to be strong enough to do the job. The problem is that there have always been those people who look at everything as an opportunity to manipulate for their own gain.

              Things like gerrymandering, the Electoral College, lobbying, campaign financing, etc., are all “improvements” to our system that were never meant to strengthen it, they were meant to build in advantages for one agenda or another.

              So once again, the primary problem isn’t the Constitution, nor the foundation of Liberty that America was founded on, the primary problem is that most American citizens are too polite to ruthlessly slap down evil people who have been trying to game our system from the very beginning.

              You don’t reject the Promise of Freedom/Liberty because it is being destroyed by bad people, that will just allow the bad people to win. The obvious move is to reject the bad people who are destroying Democracy.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                21 hours ago

                The promise of the constitution literally was to limit democracy, the Founders explicitly said it! John Adams is the one who coined the term “tyranny of the majority” and it was used as the basis for the existence of a mixed government which combines some elements of democracy with other non-democratic elements in different branches. James Madison warned of the destabilizing effects of a “an interested and overbearing majority” on the government and warned that constraints had to be placed on democracy.

                The first time the US actually ever experimented with democracy was during the Reconstruction Period, which was then quickly defeated. We never had a democracy since then. The rot is at the core of the system and we need an entirely new constitution.

                • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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                  21 hours ago

                  The only people who complain about the “tryranny of the majority” are those who support some ridiculous governmental system that would be terrible for everyone but a lucky few, usually the richest, but sometimes just the most ruthless, who then go on to become the richest. They need to demonize the majority, so they can implement their oppressive system.

                  When Adams was talking about the “tyranny of the majority,” he was talking about the fact that while the majority would rule this nation, they had to do it benevolently, and remember that an elected representative represents ALL of his constituents, not just those who voted for him. Those who are in the minority deserve proper representation and support from their government just as much as those in the majority, perhaps more. He was warning against those in power abusing those out of power. He wasn’t saying that he didn’t want the majority to rule, otherwise they wouldn’t have put ELECTIONS into the Constitution.

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                    21 hours ago

                    He was saying that the majority can’t be trusted to rule on their own and they need to be controlled, otherwise they wouldn’t have put non-electoral branches into the Constitution.

                    The Senate wasn’t even elected until 1913! The Supreme Court still is an unelected body, and we still have an Electoral College. Even if we ignore the fact that slaves couldn’t vote (we shouldn’t ignore it, but even if we do) women couldn’t vote and they’re half the fucking country! In most states you had to own property to vote, which was only 6% of the fucking population! These mechanisms were put in by the Founders because they wanted to restrain democracy and you only deny this because you were trained this way by your own government-run schools. Try reading something that wasn’t assigned by the government. I recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me, The American Counterrevolution of 1776, and Black Reconstruction.

                    The only reason elections are in the Constitution is because they needed popular support for their independence from England. People wouldn’t have picked up guns to fight for independence unless they got something out of it, and so they promised rich land owners that they could have a say in the government. That’s it.

                    Face facts, the US is not a democracy and it never was and it wasn’t intended to be.

          • john_brown [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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            21 hours ago

            It may have been written by wealthy land and slaveowners, but they didn’t write it to only benefit them, like modern Sociopathic Oligarchs would, they created a country and a Constitution that would benefit all American citizens.

            Why did they do it in private then, hidden away from the people they supposedly wanted to benefit? Why did they structure the government to ensure that landowners and the wealthy would always have the largest say in politics? Surely you can understand that the entire purpose of the Senate is to weaken what little influence the average person has on politics?

            The american revolution was not actually a revolution, it was merely a change in ownership from the crown to the wealthy landowners in the colony. The rights and freedoms of the average person in America have never once been the concern of the founders or the people in our government at any point in our history.

            • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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              21 hours ago

              Why did they do it in private then, hidden away from the people they supposedly wanted to benefit?

              Right off the bat, you are wrong. You make it sound like the Constitution was handled in secrecy, and then just sprung on the new nation, but that’s not the case at all. The Constitutional Convention was widely known, completely open, with representatives from every state, and constant updates in the press. It wasn’t a spectator sport, but the citizens certainly knew it was being debated, and could make their opinions known to their representatives.

              And if they were so hot to keep any representation from the people, why did they include the House of Representatives, so all people, no matter how rural or isolated they were, could have a representative in their government?

              If they wanted to keep everything for the wealthy, they would have structured the government with the power concentrated in the Executive Branch, but they didn’t, they split the power so no single person or entity could dominate. The only reason it is falling apart now is because one group has decided to not respect the Constitution, not honor their responsibilities, and tear down the walls between branches.

              • john_brown [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                21 hours ago

                It wasn’t a spectator sport, but the citizens certainly knew it was being debated, and could make their opinions known to their representatives.

                Their representatives? So before the constitution, they had representatives who were worried about what the average person wanted? What need was there for the constitution then???

                And if they were so hot to keep any representation from the people, why did they include the House of Representatives, so all people, no matter how rural or isolated they were, could v have a representative in their government?

                That’s very simple, they included that to try to trick the people into thinking they had a stake in the government. Why else would they also create the Senate, which presides over the House and affords two Senators per state, gutting any kind of representative democratic ideal when there is no proportional representation. Giant states get two Senators and tiny states get two Senators. I have already addressed this and asked you about it, but you refuse to grapple with this basic and intentional limitation to actual democracy as written in the Constitution.

                If they wanted to keep everything for the wealthy, they would have structured the government with the power concentrated in the Executive Branch, but they didn’t, they split the power so no single person or entity could dominate. The only reason it is falling apart now is because one group has decided to not respect the Constitution, not honor their responsibilities, and tear down the walls between branches.

                If the document requires “respect” to work and does not have clear legal guidelines and punishments for failure to “respect” it, it’s a shitty and useless document. And not for nothing, “tearing down the walls between branches” is a process that has been enacted since day one on the signing of the Constitution. The House and Senate have spent hundreds of years handing off power to the Executive.

                You have a grade schooler’s idea of freedom and democracy.

                • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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                  21 hours ago

                  You have a grade schooler’s idea of freedom and democracy.

                  I have a degree in history. YOU are the one claiming that the Founding Fathers wrote “tricks” into the Constitution to fool the citizens. I don’t think I’m the one with childish ideas.

                  • john_brown [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                    21 hours ago

                    Oh my, a degree in history and yet you still refuse to even acknowledge the Senate and don’t seem to be willing to define “democracy”. You must know that if you dig into either of those questions you’ll be lost without a map trying to justify a definition of democracy that does not grant every person the same voting power.