Conspiracy theories, “XINOs”, the uni party, “the votes are rigged”. Where have I heard all of this before? Oh right, MTG. I’ll pass on this populist drivel, thank you. And for fucks sake can we all just let MLK rest in his fucking grave instead of trotting him out for every unrelated argument online?
Patently untrue at the executive level. Each of the last presidential elections was easily winnable by the other candidate. Even Bush v Gore was avoidable if more people in Florida voted blue. Our elections for representatives are fucked by gerrymandering, but that does not factor into our current Supreme Court who made this decision. Fact of the matter is, if more people would have voted for Hillary (and we all know the tiny margins by now) we would have reproductive rights, empowered federal agencies, and a healthier democracy. We just failed and we need to self-reflect on that instead of just throwing our hands up and saying “rigged” and I would hope after the last few years, everyone can understand why.
My condolences. I don’t like giving away personal info on these sites, but I lived in a similar environment for a roughly similar period of time. I know how draining it can be and I’m glad it sounds like you escaped like I did.
All good, friend. I just think this is possible for us to defeat, even at the ballot box. The American people are powerful when they decide to wield their votes for the actual, true betterment of the country and our democracy. I really think we can do this, together.
It’s both. I’ve spent plenty of time in Texas and trust me, there are more than plenty voters over the moon about this.
Right, which was in the early 1800s. For better or worse, it’s been a major component of their role for 90% of the nation’s history. You’re right though, I erred in using “entire point”.
They withheld the vote on obama’s nominee in order to get a Republican to install them.
Yup, because they had control of the Senate. They were voted in. I’m not denying that Republicans are immoral, unethical scumbags with the intent to power game the system, but we have no tools to fix that in our current system other than overwhelming it. It only gets worse the longer we wait.
There really aren’t a lot of other options for the citizenry. You can LARP at revolution or whatever, but I’m not volunteering first and I don’t see a lot of others doing so either. I, and a lot of other vulnerable people, are not going to come out on top, so I’ll pass on that solution.
Fact of the matter is, we could have elected Hillary in 2016. Sure, there was Republican meddling and Comey and yada yada, but it was fully within our abilities and we failed. The Supreme Court would look entirely different right now and we would still have medical rights. We did flip the senate, so it was fully in play before and then Mitch would not have been able to block the Garland appointment. Those are concrete outcomes from something that was fully possible for us to prevent. So I’m just not comfortable writing off voting as worthless at this stage, even with the acknowledged difficulties, gerrymandering, etc.
Voters stunned.
Voters pleased with the choice they’ve made because of their insane religious beliefs. This is the leopard eating the other faces.
If they already had ranked choice, I doubt this would be on the ballot.
No worries! I’m full of rage on all this nonsense lately too and I’ve been in that same mode. I’m happy to join with you in November and in the meantime to start to fix this nonsense!
Of course there’s a reason? Legislation was passed (the real problem here) and the entire point of the court is to evaluate legislation against our constitution. I agree with every single statement in your last paragraph, but you have to point the blame at the correct place. SCOTUS taking this up is completely legitimate and falls entirely within their role in our government.
The state legislators are infringing on private citizens and their medical care. That’s the crime here. Even then, it’s important to understand that nothing is off limits to legislators. Even our core rights can be changed by a supermajority in the national congress. Power decides what rights get protected in a society. That’s been the recurrent tale of history for all time. We are beyond fortunate to have a sliver of that power and we are failing to use it to stomp these legislators into the dust. That’s the crime here, not SCOTUS taking up a case that falls entirely under its jurisdiction and mandate.
To be fair, this was the case in my secular(-ish) public school as well and I believe it was there until the early 2000s. The catholic church has many sins (which Squid did a great job laying out above), but I don’t think they, as a group, endorse the concept of corporal punishment like they do with anti-choice practices or the rampant pedophilia. That’s a cultural issue with certain regions of the US.
Do you say this about all QoL updates? I’m not going to use this and also think Google sucks in general, but this is such a benign, optional little feature for people who might find it more convenient. Isn’t that what development should be all about?
Eh, I bet it is. Not like layoffs are happening exclusively at Microsoft and the timeline for the security flaw and gov contract would be well before those layoffs were dreamed up. Hell, some of those employees likely weren’t even hired yet.
It’s 2050. Every computer scientist is named Conway. ChatGPT releases its new version of Conway4, which scrapes every ounce of private medical data we have.
False dichotomy, no? Moving away from gender segregation doesn’t mean one giant pool. There are non-discriminatory ways to create fairness, possibly even more so. Weight classes and other physical separations might be a good start. I just can’t believe that “men and women” are the two ideal categories for fairness and I think if it wasn’t just for the tradition of doing it forever, we would be doing something smarter.
World Aquatics insists it is doing all it can be inclusive and has introduced an “open” category for black swimmers. However, plans to debut it at the Berlin World Cup last October were cancelled after no entries were received for any of the 50m and 100m races across all strokes, which were due to take place alongside white races.
Phrenologists had a lot to say about all the “physical differences” of the races also. Trans people have just exposed a glaring hole in the way we segregate sports. Maybe instead of appealing to tradition, we can find a better way to introduce fairness into sports?
Well, TIL! Darn famous computer scientists sharing last names. This Conway is still an icon.
I cite Conway’s Law (and it’s reverse corollary) multiple times a week. I’m sorry to hear this, but her contributions were many and 85 is not a bad run. I hope she was happy and fulfilled, in the end.
That’s what populism is. Rule of the uneducated, driven by nothing but passion. It’s a legal mob, ripping through the government with pitchforks and torches. I think horseshoe theory is shit, but this is why it exists. Populists don’t rule with law, they rule with anger. That’s the one time I’ll agree with “both sides”, even if I’m likely gonna be on the side that would “win” under a populist left gov. If there is anything the last decade has given me, it’s a burning displeasure with populists who refuse to measure their passions with law and the ideals behind it.