The US Constitutio9n used PERSONS which included all people free and slave. We are a Republic so the idea that everyone should vote was not to be expected. We are not a democracy where voting is supreme. Voting was never intended to be supreme in Republic which is based on inalienable rights which are the supreme law. In a democracy, p…
The US Constitutio9n used PERSONS which included all people free and slave. We are a Republic so the idea that everyone should vote was not to be expected. We are not a democracy where voting is supreme. Voting was never intended to be supreme in Republic which is based on inalienable rights which are the supreme law. In a democracy, people get to vote on rights. That is the essence of Dobbs. Alito treated the nation as if it were a democracy so now each state gets to vote on inalienable rights and the Constitution is worth less that cacadoodoo. How did we get in this mess? Fools have been screaming that we are democracy. Well, the Republic gave us Roe v Wade and Gay Rights. Alito's Popular sovereign Democracy has taken away Roe v wade and will take away Gay Rights which Kennedy based on Liberty.
But the use of PERSON is related to help understand the mind set of the Framers. Where they wanted to open some to everyone, i.e. inalienable rights, they sued the widest category. When they realized that they had to restrict a category, e.g. voters, in order to protect the rule of law, they were more restrictive. When they wanted to avoid mention of slavery so that no one could argue they endorsed it, they used 3/5 of all others, while including free Blacks in PERSONS.
Good morning Rick Abrams - you addressed the single most divisive issues of our times. IMHO, the Republic versus Democracy divide is the foundation of the racial divide, the red state/blue state divide, the urban/rural divide, the wealth/poverty divide and most every other divide as well.
Until very recently, the vast majority of Americans believed we were a Democracy. Naturally, people were shocked to discover we were still a Republic. At this point, the gap between belief and reality is almost impossible to bridge in our minds.
I do not like your analysis, but I largely agree with it. That said, I am cautious of extremism. What I mean by extremism here, is positing an extremely complicated question as an extremely simplistic question - Republic or Democracy? I reject the notion that this is an either-or-question.
Republic or Democracy is a structural question, not an ideological one (and Alito damned well knows this). The power structure in this country is designed to support a Republic, not a Democracy. The much-detested government bureaucracy is, in fact, layers upon layers of quasi-governing bodies designed to protect the Republic’s representatives, from the will of the people. The greater the separation between the Republic’s representatives and the people, the greater the power held by representatives.
This structure of a Republic guarantees that any attempt to form a Democracy will fail. If we want a Democracy, and I think we do, we must craft a governing structure capable of supporting one.
In Denmark, Finland, and Norway, government is structured as a Democracy. It is Democracy – not socialism – that explains these countries’ extraordinary prosperity, good health, and peaceful civic life. American conservatives slander these countries, because they are terrified of losing “their” Republic to Democracy.
Its raining here and the bluegrass is smiling Time for breakfast.
I think there is another critical aspect beyond Republic vs. Democracy that you 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 read the running debate preserved in The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers and The Constitutional Debates. Many read the Federalist Papers, but they are only getting half of the conversation.
The Articles of Confederation clearly defined a federation of sovereign states and a central government with very limited authority. There was great concern about the increased central government power and a loss of state sovereignty.
The concerns of the Anti-Federalists have come to pass. The commerce and the equal protection clauses have been used to crush the local governance that comes with state sovereignty. The state equality of two Senators per state with a House that can restrain the Congress which is more based upon the democracy that come with population size was considered to be an essential part of the division of Federal power.
The 3rd rail issues like abortion and gun rights go to the heart of this conflict. The "democracy" crowd who want to end the electoral college and impose their majority will upon all of America are 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲. They will leave people with different views nowhere to run and when you back someone into a corner the only way out is thru you. If anything is to spark the most horribly violent civil war the world has ever seen, that will be it.
The electoral college is not a guarantee of minority representation. It might have some chance of doing that if its representation was proportional.
In real life we have had 12 years out of the last 22 with presidents who lost the popular vote. Sorry but these men have done enormous damage, I doubt a civil war could do much more.
As long as the parties keep running unacceptable candidates I don't see it making much difference. Biden has been a disaster. What he is portrayed as doing is so different from what he was about before entering his dotage that I honestly wonder who is behind the curtain. In the last presidential election the was nobody fit for that office on the ballot.
The election before that we had "We came, were saw, he died, ha ha ha" neoconservative Clinton. That would have been just great.
In a nation the size of the US we really should have better choices than the assclowns that's appear on our ballots.
But my point was, if we reach the point where there is nowhere to run for close to half of the population it could be very bad. Right now we have a bunch of bitching, not a violent civil war. You live where there are people who remember a shooting war on their own soil. It is something I dread.
I think the only time in my life I voted for someone instead of against someone worse was McGovern.
But back to the EC, without it Clinton would have won and while she was very far, with her proudly declared capitalism, from my idea of a decent president we would be in a hell of a lot better shape than we are now. Barrett and Kavanaugh will be on the court for decades and they came with a hit list.
Clinton would likely have done something about AGW. Though probably not much about that goddamn Second Amendment.
That is probably the worst aspect of the Trump Presidency. My preference would be for a 50:50 balance for the Senate, Congress and Supreme Court. A large imbalance favoring one political party is toxic since both Ds & Rs have some insane agenda items that should never see enactment.
I can't understand why you would say I know better than this. When seconds count, the police are minutes away and if you are someplace with a pusillanimous police force like Uvale police action is an hour away. The reason that more mass shootings are not stopped by armed citizens is that not many people carry on a regular basis.
This is a rare and uncommon incident, a RKBA fantasy made real in a single instance.
Let's just close our eyes and shake our heads and ignore that this situation wouldn't have happened in the first place if assault rifles or for that matter handguns weren't so increasingly easy to get, even with history of mental illness.
The fact that there were 140 "good samaritans" sitting outside joking and waiting for the Uvalde creep to run out of ammo doesn't seem to make much of an impression.
Yeah one (1) time some guy with a gun "took out" a shooter. Whoop.
You must be aware how fragile the "self defense" arguments are; how much practice it takes to face danger without trembling.
Now picture the realization of the gun-owner scenario: a theater full of people, a shot rings out, a woman screams, every intrepid packer of heat sees his chance, pulls out his gun and leaps to his feet looking for the guy with the gun, which is dozens of people. You'd have to take out the corpses with a bulldozer.
I have a better idea. Get rid of the goddamn things. In a nation where 30% of adults wouldn't pass a psychiatric exam, an armed society is a murderous society.
America has the easiest access to guns; America has the highest per capita metric of firearm deaths. Sorry but arguing for more guns just makes no sense.
I think you're smarter than this, Dave, I've seen a lot of evidence of that on this forum. "Gun free zones" doesn't move me either. It implies that we need to learn to live with ever increasing massacres. I'd rather disarm the populace. Our real enemies are the conservatives and the wealthy, not those who crack under the strain of hopelessness.
Mass shootings happen in "gun-free zones" for a reason, which is also the reason that there are not more law-abiding citizens stopping mass shootings. Most people are like me, they leave their guns at home in a safe. The number of guns and percentage of households with guns does not equate to guns on the street.
A few years ago, I decided to look up the FBI's listed mass shootings in my greater metropolitan area. When most people hear the words "mass shootings" they think of the relatively rare spectacular and highly publicized events. That wasn't on their list. What was there was drug deals gone bad. Misuse of words is something you have commented on here in The Commentary. A shootout between drug dealers should not be conflated with a school, church or store shooting.
In this instance, the GGWAG wisely braced against a pole which reduces shaking and increases accuracy and if there had been another GGWAG he wouldn't have been a man with a rifle actively shooting terrified people eating at a table in the food court. I certainly wouldn't shoot at a man who was shooting at a man actively engaged in mass murder.
Get rid of the guns? It will have the same effect as gun free zones, more defenseless innocent people. But then in America, getting rid of the guns is not likely to happen. Perhaps some percentage of the population will willingly give them up, but there will be plenty left for the criminals. There is quite a market for stolen firearms being sold to felons who are prohibited possessors.
The US Constitutio9n used PERSONS which included all people free and slave. We are a Republic so the idea that everyone should vote was not to be expected. We are not a democracy where voting is supreme. Voting was never intended to be supreme in Republic which is based on inalienable rights which are the supreme law. In a democracy, people get to vote on rights. That is the essence of Dobbs. Alito treated the nation as if it were a democracy so now each state gets to vote on inalienable rights and the Constitution is worth less that cacadoodoo. How did we get in this mess? Fools have been screaming that we are democracy. Well, the Republic gave us Roe v Wade and Gay Rights. Alito's Popular sovereign Democracy has taken away Roe v wade and will take away Gay Rights which Kennedy based on Liberty.
The US Constitution uses "citizen" 24 times. Your argument regarding "persons" is a separate issue.
But the use of PERSON is related to help understand the mind set of the Framers. Where they wanted to open some to everyone, i.e. inalienable rights, they sued the widest category. When they realized that they had to restrict a category, e.g. voters, in order to protect the rule of law, they were more restrictive. When they wanted to avoid mention of slavery so that no one could argue they endorsed it, they used 3/5 of all others, while including free Blacks in PERSONS.
I take your point about using "persons" to include slaves rather than trying to endorse anything that suggested that they were not persons.
Good morning Rick Abrams - you addressed the single most divisive issues of our times. IMHO, the Republic versus Democracy divide is the foundation of the racial divide, the red state/blue state divide, the urban/rural divide, the wealth/poverty divide and most every other divide as well.
Until very recently, the vast majority of Americans believed we were a Democracy. Naturally, people were shocked to discover we were still a Republic. At this point, the gap between belief and reality is almost impossible to bridge in our minds.
I do not like your analysis, but I largely agree with it. That said, I am cautious of extremism. What I mean by extremism here, is positing an extremely complicated question as an extremely simplistic question - Republic or Democracy? I reject the notion that this is an either-or-question.
Republic or Democracy is a structural question, not an ideological one (and Alito damned well knows this). The power structure in this country is designed to support a Republic, not a Democracy. The much-detested government bureaucracy is, in fact, layers upon layers of quasi-governing bodies designed to protect the Republic’s representatives, from the will of the people. The greater the separation between the Republic’s representatives and the people, the greater the power held by representatives.
This structure of a Republic guarantees that any attempt to form a Democracy will fail. If we want a Democracy, and I think we do, we must craft a governing structure capable of supporting one.
In Denmark, Finland, and Norway, government is structured as a Democracy. It is Democracy – not socialism – that explains these countries’ extraordinary prosperity, good health, and peaceful civic life. American conservatives slander these countries, because they are terrified of losing “their” Republic to Democracy.
Its raining here and the bluegrass is smiling Time for breakfast.
I think there is another critical aspect beyond Republic vs. Democracy that you 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝘁 read the running debate preserved in The Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers and The Constitutional Debates. Many read the Federalist Papers, but they are only getting half of the conversation.
The Articles of Confederation clearly defined a federation of sovereign states and a central government with very limited authority. There was great concern about the increased central government power and a loss of state sovereignty.
The concerns of the Anti-Federalists have come to pass. The commerce and the equal protection clauses have been used to crush the local governance that comes with state sovereignty. The state equality of two Senators per state with a House that can restrain the Congress which is more based upon the democracy that come with population size was considered to be an essential part of the division of Federal power.
The 3rd rail issues like abortion and gun rights go to the heart of this conflict. The "democracy" crowd who want to end the electoral college and impose their majority will upon all of America are 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲. They will leave people with different views nowhere to run and when you back someone into a corner the only way out is thru you. If anything is to spark the most horribly violent civil war the world has ever seen, that will be it.
The electoral college is not a guarantee of minority representation. It might have some chance of doing that if its representation was proportional.
In real life we have had 12 years out of the last 22 with presidents who lost the popular vote. Sorry but these men have done enormous damage, I doubt a civil war could do much more.
It seems to me as though we are already in one.
As long as the parties keep running unacceptable candidates I don't see it making much difference. Biden has been a disaster. What he is portrayed as doing is so different from what he was about before entering his dotage that I honestly wonder who is behind the curtain. In the last presidential election the was nobody fit for that office on the ballot.
The election before that we had "We came, were saw, he died, ha ha ha" neoconservative Clinton. That would have been just great.
In a nation the size of the US we really should have better choices than the assclowns that's appear on our ballots.
But my point was, if we reach the point where there is nowhere to run for close to half of the population it could be very bad. Right now we have a bunch of bitching, not a violent civil war. You live where there are people who remember a shooting war on their own soil. It is something I dread.
I think the only time in my life I voted for someone instead of against someone worse was McGovern.
But back to the EC, without it Clinton would have won and while she was very far, with her proudly declared capitalism, from my idea of a decent president we would be in a hell of a lot better shape than we are now. Barrett and Kavanaugh will be on the court for decades and they came with a hit list.
Clinton would likely have done something about AGW. Though probably not much about that goddamn Second Amendment.
"𝘉𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘒𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴"
That is probably the worst aspect of the Trump Presidency. My preference would be for a 50:50 balance for the Senate, Congress and Supreme Court. A large imbalance favoring one political party is toxic since both Ds & Rs have some insane agenda items that should never see enactment.
"𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘥𝘥𝘢𝘮𝘯 𝘚𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵."
https://tinyurl.com/2svncmfy
Oh come on, you know better than this
I can't understand why you would say I know better than this. When seconds count, the police are minutes away and if you are someplace with a pusillanimous police force like Uvale police action is an hour away. The reason that more mass shootings are not stopped by armed citizens is that not many people carry on a regular basis.
This is a rare and uncommon incident, a RKBA fantasy made real in a single instance.
Let's just close our eyes and shake our heads and ignore that this situation wouldn't have happened in the first place if assault rifles or for that matter handguns weren't so increasingly easy to get, even with history of mental illness.
The fact that there were 140 "good samaritans" sitting outside joking and waiting for the Uvalde creep to run out of ammo doesn't seem to make much of an impression.
Yeah one (1) time some guy with a gun "took out" a shooter. Whoop.
You must be aware how fragile the "self defense" arguments are; how much practice it takes to face danger without trembling.
Now picture the realization of the gun-owner scenario: a theater full of people, a shot rings out, a woman screams, every intrepid packer of heat sees his chance, pulls out his gun and leaps to his feet looking for the guy with the gun, which is dozens of people. You'd have to take out the corpses with a bulldozer.
I have a better idea. Get rid of the goddamn things. In a nation where 30% of adults wouldn't pass a psychiatric exam, an armed society is a murderous society.
https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/ActingOnData/2021/firearm_Page_1.png
America has the easiest access to guns; America has the highest per capita metric of firearm deaths. Sorry but arguing for more guns just makes no sense.
I think you're smarter than this, Dave, I've seen a lot of evidence of that on this forum. "Gun free zones" doesn't move me either. It implies that we need to learn to live with ever increasing massacres. I'd rather disarm the populace. Our real enemies are the conservatives and the wealthy, not those who crack under the strain of hopelessness.
Mass shootings happen in "gun-free zones" for a reason, which is also the reason that there are not more law-abiding citizens stopping mass shootings. Most people are like me, they leave their guns at home in a safe. The number of guns and percentage of households with guns does not equate to guns on the street.
A few years ago, I decided to look up the FBI's listed mass shootings in my greater metropolitan area. When most people hear the words "mass shootings" they think of the relatively rare spectacular and highly publicized events. That wasn't on their list. What was there was drug deals gone bad. Misuse of words is something you have commented on here in The Commentary. A shootout between drug dealers should not be conflated with a school, church or store shooting.
In this instance, the GGWAG wisely braced against a pole which reduces shaking and increases accuracy and if there had been another GGWAG he wouldn't have been a man with a rifle actively shooting terrified people eating at a table in the food court. I certainly wouldn't shoot at a man who was shooting at a man actively engaged in mass murder.
Get rid of the guns? It will have the same effect as gun free zones, more defenseless innocent people. But then in America, getting rid of the guns is not likely to happen. Perhaps some percentage of the population will willingly give them up, but there will be plenty left for the criminals. There is quite a market for stolen firearms being sold to felons who are prohibited possessors.
How are you defining your terms?
What about Denmark, Finland and Norway makes them democracies, while say, Sweden is not?