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I think I have moved to hyper perplexed... Why do you keep doing this to yourselves?Here is what I found.
Edit: A little more info.
If we didn't intentionally nerf ourselves occasionally, we would be overpowered. Then nobody would want to be the other countries.
I think I have moved to hyper perplexed... Why do you keep doing this to yourselves?
There is no "ourselves", that's why it keeps happening.
America is, at best, based on local representation. No one except the president represents the interests of the entire country. So while it may not be in the best interests of the united states to invade another country, if your district makes the missiles they'll use then it's in your best interests, so thats how you vote: for the district, not the nation.
Given the ability of money to influence an election, whoever is in power is effectively chosen by people with money (or at least enough of them to pass a vote are). What these people want and what the people want aren't the same thing.
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Americans have suffered enough. They last thing they need to do is endure another election cycleI think I have moved to hyper perplexed... Why do you keep doing this to yourselves?Here is what I found.
Edit: A little more info.
When was the last time the US had a snap election?
When was the last time the US had a snap election?Americans have suffered enough. They last thing they need to do is endure another election cycleI think I have moved to hyper perplexed... Why do you keep doing this to yourselves?Here is what I found.
Edit: A little more info.
Never AFAIK. Our elections are hard coded into the constitution to occur on specific dates.
People said the same thing after Obama's first election.Who said that? No analyst I'm familiar with.
The reason things look like they might head in that direction is because Texas is going to shift blue within the next few years, rendering the concept of battleground states essentially non-existent; Democratic candidates will take the Presidency based purely on solidly blue states, with very little question of who will win in the general election. The Democrats would literally be able to ignore Nevada, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida completely (to say nothing of Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, and Iowa) and still hit the electoral vote threshold. The math simply does not support a Republican President without a massive shift in party affiliation on a nationwide level.
The only way for the Republican party to avoid this is by dramatically shifting their politics in such a way that they can scrape large percentages off of a number of solidly blue states.
Not only did analysts indeed say this, James Carville wrote a book about it...
You Americans have an odd system. In Australia shutting the government down would be political suicide. It nearly happened once (1974 I think) and the government fell. But the fallout was so bad no opposition has ever done it again.
Yet your parties just plough straight in.
Seems you don't need to reform the Republican party, you need to reform your system.
It's your country, but as they say if America catches a cold, thecrestvof the world sneezes.
Just an outsider looking in.
You Americans have an odd system. In Australia shutting the government down would be political suicide. It nearly happened once (1974 I think) and the government fell. But the fallout was so bad no opposition has ever done it again.
Yet your parties just plough straight in.
Seems you don't need to reform the Republican party, you need to reform your system.
It's your country, but as they say if America catches a cold, thecrestvof the world sneezes.
Just an outsider looking in.
Thats sort of like saying your car is busted because the angry chimpanzee driving it keeps crashing. ANY car with an angry chimpanzee driving driving it is going to crash. The solution is to not let angry chimpanzees drive, not try a new kind of car.
Changing american election processes are essentially impossible. They would take a constitutional amendment, and its not like other systems don't have their own eccentricities (like, you know, not getting to vote for the guy running the place)
Like said, it's version 1.0 and massively large chunks are run by rules that made sense in a rural, agrarian 18th century country but make things sorta difficult in the modern one.
There's also a decent sized group, who are very vocal, that somehow believe that dysfunction and gridlock was the intent of the framers, not consequence of several changes in idealism and structure not accounted for.
Lots of those folks forget who officially won the US Civil War and the supremacy of the Federal government over the States.
I would say 1.5..... Parliamentary democracy/constitutional monarchy was well under way and Great Britain had already deposed (chopped his head off) a king and experimented with a republic under Cromwell.
I would say 1.5..... Parliamentary democracy/constitutional monarchy was well under way and Great Britain had already deposed (chopped his head off) a king and experimented with a republic under Cromwell.Like said, it's version 1.0 and massively large chunks are run by rules that made sense in a rural, agrarian 18th century country but make things sorta difficult in the modern one.
There's also a decent sized group, who are very vocal, that somehow believe that dysfunction and gridlock was the intent of the framers, not consequence of several changes in idealism and structure not accounted for.
Lots of those folks forget who officially won the US Civil War and the supremacy of the Federal government over the States.
And Sweden had been a constitutional parliamentarist state with the monarch relegated to a name-stamp during the Age of Liberty between 1721 and 1772 (and the fact that king Gustav III was able to carry out a military coup and end that had a lot to do with the two parties, the Hats and the Caps, behaved almost as irresponsible as today's Republicans - in addition to members of parliament taking bribes from foreign interests being considered a perk of the job).
That was more of a beta, with Cromwell being a horribly flawed alpha. ;)
If anything the Greeks ran the beta test for us, and the Romans were full on version 1.0 The US system is based on 'modern' political philosophy based on the histories of ancient and modern western Europe. The US system of democracy/representative government is really closer to version 3.
No matter what version the US democracy is, if a few handful of political high-risk gamblers can hold the whole nation hostage like that, it is flawed. As I´ve written elsewhere, gamble on like this and somebody will take the table away entirely sooner or later.
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The present American system is basically a mess because it has been haphazardly kludged together into what we think of as a "modern democracy" out of a system that was never intended to be such.
Wall of text time...
There have also been a number of significant changes to the Constitutional system that have combined into the extremely messy system that we have now:
- The 12th Amendment changed how the President and Vice President are elected, so that candidates now run as teams representing the political parties (though the original system definitely had some huge problems).
- The 17th Amendment made Senators elected by popular vote instead of by state legislatures. Originally, the idea was that the Senate would represent the state governments. Instead, we now have basically two chambers that both theoretically represent the populace, but with different rules and internal structures, which then fight each other over influence.
- Since the 1930s, the Supreme Court has started interpreting the Commerce Clause of the Constitution in such as way as to give Congress basically unlimited power to legislate on any subject. The court even ruled that food a farmer grows only for himself to eat, and never even sells, could be regulated by Congress due to "interstate commerce."
- The Supreme Court's interpretations have also completely transformed the meaning of the constitution in a whole lot of other ways: from discovering a "right to privacy" lurking in the "penumbras" of several amendments, to the concept of "executive privilege" for the Presidency, to an interpretation of the "separation of church and state" that would seem very strange to the Constitution's writers.
- Beyond the specific impact of these decisions, the bigger effect has been that the Supreme Court has become a major political actor, in a way that it was never intended to be. That's why nobody -- liberal or conservative -- tries to actually amend the Constitution anymore, but just waits for their opponents on the Court to die off in the hopes of replacing them with members of their own side.
- Not to mention the many, many extra-Constitutional ways in which the two major parties have thoroughly entrenched themselves into the entire electoral system.
So you could say that there are so many "house rules" in the American government that it doesn't really bear any resemblance to the "rules-as-written" anymore. Maybe we're due for an edition change to clear up the bloat. :)
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I love the house rule reference.
It seems to me that the US constitution is like the Holy Scripture to quite some US citizens, and changing it would amount to blasphemy to them. Is the real religion of the US the US itself? I mean, the fervor in defending it and the real or imagined rights granted by it, while basically a good thing, reminds me of religious zealots if taken to extremes. And for good measure, there are quite a few NIMBYs defending it IMO. (As I don´t want to start any old discussions over again, I refrain from giving examples for now).
While on one hand I see that changing something as fundamental as a constitution is a thing best done very cautious, OTOH I see that this 200+ year old body of laws and its haphazard additions is in serious need of renewing.
Page 1 rewrite.
Well to be fair there was an amendment passed in 1992 IIRC. It had to do with congressional salaries.
Amending the Constitution of the US is probably impossible anymore
If this is indeed true, the system will probably fail some day. The world changed a bit since the 18th century, and legislation needs to be able to adjust to the changed world and society. There is a legal way to change it, from what I understand, but it might be politically impossible.
Well to be fair there was an amendment passed in 1992 IIRC. It had to do with congressional salaries.Yeah, it was also sent to the states for ratification in 1789. I feel comfortable saying that doesn't count.
If we're cherry picking amendments to not count, I choose #2.
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Amending the Constitution of the US is probably impossible anymoreIf this is indeed true, the system will probably fail some day. The world changed a bit since the 18th century, and legislation needs to be able to adjust to the changed world and society. There is a legal way to change it, from what I understand, but it might be politically impossible.
Exactly. As I mentioned, instead of amending things, we now just fight in the Supreme Court to get them to torture the text into the meanings that we desire.
The recent fight in the Supreme Court over local gun control regulations is a good example. Though personally I'm rather opposed to gun control, it's pretty preposterous that the Court basically redefined the rights granted by the 2nd Amendment to include things that were assumed not to be rights for a really long time.
The wrangling over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was similarly casuistic. The Court found that the Individual Mandate was not constitutional under the Interstate Commerce Clause (which is fairly unusual, since they usually use that as a free pass for everything), but that it WAS constitutional under Congress's power to levy taxes -- even though the government's official position was the the mandate was explicitly NOT a tax.
Now, personally, I liked the first decision, and didn't like the second one -- but if I'm honest, that's only because of my political opinions on those issues, being against gun control and against the ACA (not against national healthcare, BTW; I just think the ACA is a terrible system that will make things even worse than they are now). If I held the opposite opinions, I'd probably be booing the first one and cheering the second -- all with very little regard for whatever the Constitution actually meant.
Decisions of constitutionality were supposed to be about limiting what the federal government is allowed to do. But now it's mostly just become a stick people can use to beat their political opponents with.
Having done significant research into it, I'm not at all convinced the ERA is 'moot' as you say. Granted, it will take a significant swing in some of the states that never amended...
Wow and Australians complain about how difficult it is to change our constitution.
To get a yes in a referendum you need majority of people and a majority of States.
So the majority of people (that is the sates of NSW and Victoria have more people than all the other states and territories combined) can say Yes but the other 4 smaller states will say no because they are arse hats, the last successful vote for constitutional change was in1977.
The wrangling over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was similarly casuistic. The Court found that the Individual Mandate was not constitutional under the Interstate Commerce Clause (which is fairly unusual, since they usually use that as a free pass for everything), but that it WAS constitutional under Congress's power to levy taxes -- even though the government's official position was the the mandate was explicitly NOT a tax.
I'm glad at least that "interstate commerce" finally reached a limit. If the federal government was supposed to be able to legislate everything it would have come with the power to legislate everything.
It's not moot. The issues are still very real and very there.
It's not still before the states though, the deadline passed in 1982.
I believe you are misinformed. I'm on my phone now but Im happy to link relevant literature. Basically you only need to amend the original bill to remove language re: deadlines.
The movement is spearheaded by Tammy Baldwin.
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Congratulations.
You've won, proving that if someone wishes to harm themselves, they only need to be persistant against everyone who tries to save them.
I think you have your analogy backwards. The teabaggers were the ones trying to harm the country, and the sane people rallied and wrestled the gun out of their hands.
I'm no tea bagger fan, but how is approving the funds to keep the government running "putting the government in jeopardy"?
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERYIGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
I'm no tea bagger fan, but how is approving the funds to keep the government running "putting the government in jeopardy"?I think you have your analogy backwards. The teabaggers were the ones trying to harm the country, and the sane people rallied and wrestled the gun out of their hands.Congratulations.
You've won, proving that if someone wishes to harm themselves, they only need to be persistant against everyone who tries to save them.
Wait, im confused. Wasn't the shutdown caused by the Houses refusal 3 weeks ago to approve funding of the Government?
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I'm not a Paizo fan. I just buy their products, and play their game, and read their message boards, and go to their conventions, and tell my friends how much I like their products. I'm actually entirely indifferent between Paizo's products and WotC's products, even though many people say that WotC's products are written on the skins of babies and cause cancer when you read them.
As per the Constitution, all bills regarding funding are to originate in the House.No. The House approved funding for the Government. The Senate refused to accept the House's approval.The Senate also approved funding for the Government. The House refused to accept the Senate's approval.
Which is precisely what the Senate passed: an amended version of a bill that originated in the House.
The House majority leadership declined to allow the amended bill to be heard on the floor, despite significant evidence there were sufficient votes to pass the amended bill (though not a majority of the majority party), because they didn't like the amendment the Senate added.
But that's okay. It's still the liberal 'mericuh haters' fault.
House Joint Resolution 59 was introduced in the House on Sept 10th and passed on Sept 20th. It provided for funding for the Government. The Senate refused to accept the House's approval as well as the House's revision.Wait, im confused. Wasn't the shutdown caused by the Houses refusal 3 weeks ago to approve funding of the Government?I'm no tea bagger fan, but how is approving the funds to keep the government running "putting the government in jeopardy"?I think you have your analogy backwards. The teabaggers were the ones trying to harm the country, and the sane people rallied and wrestled the gun out of their hands.Congratulations.
You've won, proving that if someone wishes to harm themselves, they only need to be persistant against everyone who tries to save them.
I'm just curious, Justin - do you even believe the sort of things you're saying? I mean, we all know that it's crap and that the Republican party has actually spent the better part of a month doing everything in its power to make sure the government doesn't run unless they get exactly what they want, because they couldn't accomplish it by any of the legitimate means available to them, but do you actually believe otherwise?
I really just want to know whether you're lying to us, or if you've just been deliberately keeping yourself in the dark.
despite significant evidence there were sufficient votes to pass the amended billWhat evidence?
Why didn't you know this already? This is critical information that goes to the heart of GOP motivations during this crisis. How can you possibly pretend to have an informed opinion when you missed this development completely?
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the Republican party has actually spent the better part of a month doing everything in its power to make sure the government doesn't run unless they get exactly what they want.Of course they did.
So did the Democrats.
The Democrats already had what they want. They drafted it, campaigned on it, passed it in both houses of the legislature, campaigned on it again, defended it successfully in the Supreme Court, and launched it in such a way that the CBO anticipates that it will be healthy for the country's economy.
The Republicans, on the other hand, hate it, tried to repeal or defund it almost 40 times (and failed), failed to have it overturned in court, failed miserably to prevent the re-election of the guy whose name is colloquially attached to the bill itself, and the only way they could see to possibly do anything about that was to literally shut the entire government down until the other side caved, because the country's economy would have been sent into a tailspin.
That's insane. Even Republicans thought so! And they finally acknowledged it tonight by agreeing to re-open the government with essentially no changes whatsoever, save a $24 billion hole in the country's pocket.
We all know that your argument is nonsense, and we're all more knowledgeable about this than you. Your only hope is to go find an echo chamber of other conservatives who believe exactly as you do where you can all be bitter about how much your party sucks together.
Labrador makes a statement of opinion. Statements of opinion are not statements of fact.despite significant evidence there were sufficient votes to pass the amended billWhat evidence?Why didn't you know this already? This is critical information that goes to the heart of GOP motivations during this crisis. How can you possibly pretend to have an informed opinion when you missed this development completely?
Likewise, facts don't cease to exist because one chooses to ignore them.
The votes were there. National media, independent reports, and impromptu surveys of the people who would actually vote (i.e., House members) all agreed on that.
Labrador makes a statement of opinion. Statements of opinion are not statements of fact.despite significant evidence there were sufficient votes to pass the amended billWhat evidence?Why didn't you know this already? This is critical information that goes to the heart of GOP motivations during this crisis. How can you possibly pretend to have an informed opinion when you missed this development completely?
That video clip featured two House Republicans saying, "Yeah, there are plenty of us who would vote for a clean CR." That's not an opinion. They're saying that's a fact. And you're calling both of them liars, which is bonkers.
Are you just going to keep coming up with increasingly deluded ways to justify what you want so badly to believe is true?