Jump to content

The Next President is...


disgruntledemployee

Recommended Posts

Reduce the power of the government.  Less ability for overreach and less ability/incentive to buy favor.
The challenge I see is that someone or some group will step in to fill that power gap, and they might not be accountable to the citizens.

Look at speech on the internet (facebook, twitter, get al). Government doesn't really have much in the way of laws or regulations here (there is some, but largely seems to be extensions of rules for older media rather than addressing unique qualities of social media). So largely it was left up to the tech companies to self regulate behavior. Their incentive to self regulate was to prevent actual laws being put on the books, which could hurt their business model. That was great, right up to the point where the tech companies started acting in their own interests based on their views of society.

This created a dilemma. On one hand, social media/tech companies are private organizations and should be free to censor whatever they want, since the first amendment only prevents government from restricting speech. On the other hand, since social media companies can have broad influence in controlling narratives and what gets promoted or seen, they can sway how people think and potentially vote, giving social media companies undue influence on our laws and social norms.

I doubt less regulation (reduction in scope of government power) would fix this particular problem. The challenge is, if laws or regulations are soght, the same large companies who are the cause for needing those new laws are also the same ones with money to lobby for their interests.

Basically, it all just comes down to "don't be a dick to other people." The difficult part is that statement encompasses a wide range of definitions for what constitutes acceptable behavior, which is amplified by how diverse our country is (and not just race/ethnicity, but also regional norms/beliefs, religions, and the wide range of upbringings). And there's only a few ways to deal with people/groups being dicks: laws and a system to enforce those laws (which consolidates authority/power in those who enforce the laws), social norms and unwritten standards enforced by shame and ridicule, or just straight up violence (power through strength).
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, HeloDude said:

Is Biden’s travel ban on India due to bigotry/racism?  Asking for a friend...

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-biden-set-ban-most-travel-us-india-limit-covid-19-spread-2021-04-30/

Is spilling classified information to Iran still a federal crime?  Asking for another friend of this friend...

 

Is falsely attesting to drug use and flavor of military discharge on a Form 4473 when buying a gun still a felony?  Asking for the son of that first friend...

 

Is being orange now a felony?

  • Like 2
  • Upvote 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

43 minutes ago, brickhistory said:

Is spilling classified information to Iran still a federal crime?  Asking for another friend of this friend...

 

Is falsely attesting to drug use and flavor of military discharge on a Form 4473 when buying a gun still a felony?  Asking for the son of that first friend...

 

Is being orange now a felony?

Only if someone will hold them accountable.  Earliest would be 2023 that it could happen. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, NKAWTG said:

Only if someone will hold them accountable.  Earliest would be 2023 that it could happen. 

It would be nice if this could be true, but Leviathan/Deep State/entrenched bureaucracy/good taxpayer-funded deals demonstrated pretty vividly from 2017-2021 that this isn't the case.

 

The IRS, among others, used its power to punish wrong-thinking Americans who held contrarian political views.  They hid/destroyed evidence, lied under oath about it.  Not one person was punished, charged, or lost a sweet government pension.

The FBI and at least parts of the Intelligence Community intentionally spied on a presidential candidate, a President, and willfully lied about it multiple times.  Those are now facts.  And the FISA courts said, "Tsk, tsk."  And recently appointed one of the key DOJ participants as one of the watchdogs.

Comey/Brennan/McCabe/Powers, et al did really heinous things against a President they didn't like.  One elected by the American people.  And not one person saw the inside of a jail.  One low-level lawyer pled down to a single charge and received a suspended sentence.  Didn't even lose his law license.

Cities are literally burning and it's called "mostly peaceful" and miscreants are either not charged or provided bail via elected officials.  

Protesters at the Capital are relentlessly pursued and charged with fairly minor crimes.  An Air Force veteran was shot and killed by a cop because of....?

All fun and political games until those powers are turned against us little guys because we believe/think/speak a different tune.

So Leviathan proved its power pretty clearly. 

  • Like 2
  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, jazzdude said:

The challenge I see is that someone or some group will step in to fill that power gap, and they might not be accountable to the citizens.

Of course "they" wouldn't be. 

If you're seriously looking for a nice tidy answer, there isn't one.  Everything is a compromise of trade-offs. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course "they" wouldn't be. 
If you're seriously looking for a nice tidy answer, there isn't one.  Everything is a compromise of trade-offs. 
I agree. Unfortunately, both Republicans and Democrats don't want to compromise, and both sides are happy to fuel the fire and polarize politics, largely on single issues to try and get a majority and push things through unilaterally.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, jazzdude said:
3 hours ago, busdriver said:
Of course "they" wouldn't be. 
If you're seriously looking for a nice tidy answer, there isn't one.  Everything is a compromise of trade-offs. 

I agree. Unfortunately, both Republicans and Democrats don't want to compromise, and both sides are happy to fuel the fire and polarize politics, largely on single issues to try and get a majority and push things through unilaterally.

Of course they're intransigent jerks.  The government has too much power.

My statement has nothing to do with political compromise.  The point is someone who views the government's role to make a better society will try to figure out which policy levers to pull to get closer to their vision of a better future without negative consequences.  That lever is a myth.  There are always negative consequences.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, NKAWTG said:

Only if someone will hold them accountable.  Earliest would be 2023 that it could happen. 

To explain my snark a bit more, I don't believe any part of the executive branch will investigate any misconduct by someone with a (D) by their name.  So when it comes to Kerry selling out the Israelis, the media will turn a blind eye.  Doubtful Israel will share any intel on how many of their people were compromised/killed because of Kerry.  The only reasonable thing would be the House switching hands, and committees doing their own investigation.  As we saw during the Obama years, the committees will be high on rhetoric, and low on ability to compel testimony from the Justice Department and the IRS, to name a few.  

So where do go from here? I haven't a clue at this point. 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Of course they're intransigent jerks.  The government has too much power.
My statement has nothing to do with political compromise.  The point is someone who views the government's role to make a better society will try to figure out which policy levers to pull to get closer to their vision of a better future without negative consequences.  That lever is a myth.  There are always negative consequences.
 


Political compromise helps mitigate/resolve those negative consequences through facilitating debate from multiple viewpoints. And yes, for any policy/law there will likely be at least some negative consequences that affect someone. But that's just a fact of life with any form of government, at least with a representative government you get input into the process, and it's the price that's paid to live in the society being governed.

My point is the people that wanted to pull those government levers to effect a change will find other levers elsewhere within society to do so if that lever is removed from government. Those negative consequences don't go away just because a different organization is now controlling the lever.

Really, the only way to reduce government power (in a functioning representative government) on an issue is if we as a society agree on that issue and use informal (i.e. non-governmental) methods and power to enforce that norm or standard. However, this still creates negative consequences for people in the minority, and can leave them with no recourse except to appeal to government to protect them through laws if their basic rights are being violated.

So if you're in the majority in the country on an issue, removing government power has no effect on you, and may be a benefit since removing power removes the costs associated with enforcement of that power. But if you're in the minority and that government power was protecting you from the majority, you'll lose out. So the question becomes to what extent do we protect the rights of the minority from the majority? Otherwise, it just turns into mob rule, which negates any benefit of democracy or representative governments.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

If only there was a system of government where there were individual smaller governments (let’s call them states in this example), and they could largely be sovereign as long as they adhered to very basic principles (like no slavery, allowing people to have their own religion, not stop people from being able to protect themselves, etc)...and then people could pick and choose which state better reflected their own values and priorities.  This way the national government would have less influence on people’s everyday lives when compared to these state governments.  If only such system existed...

  • Like 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, jazzdude said:

people that wanted to pull those government levers to effect a change will find other levers elsewhere within society to do

their basic rights are being violated.

if you're in the minority and that government power was protecting you from the majority, 

You assume that the minority is inherently fucked without big brother to step in an help/protect them.  Why?  Historically it has been the government that has been the one doing the fucking by actively enforcing violations of liberty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You assume that the minority is inherently ed without big brother to step in an help/protect them.  Why?  Historically it has been the government that has been the one doing the ing by actively enforcing violations of liberty.


A minority isn't always in need of protection from the government. But it requires the majority to not abuse power to harm the minority. Otherwise, the minority could be left to either suffer, or turn to violence to fight back.

And at times, a minority can violate the majority as well. History is full of examples of individuals or small groups, and not just governments, inflicting their will on a larger population after they have consolidated some means of power, often through force/violence, technological advantage, or through control of key resources. Any number of groups can and have consolidated and abused power throughout history, such as religions, organized crime, businesses, terrorists/freedom fighters, etc. And that ignores outside forces like rival countries.

So the real problem is how to manage power within a society. That power can reside in either a majority or minority, though within our form of government, it largely rests with the majority for government matters.

I'd rather see power reside at lower levels of government, since they are closer to the people they represent. At the same time, issues that affect all Americans should be handled at the federal level.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, jazzdude said:

History is full of examples of individuals or small groups, and not just governments, inflicting their will on a larger population after they have consolidated some means of power, often through force/violence, technological advantage, or through control of key resources.

BLM, teachers unions,Twitter, Facebook, ANTIFA, the media, etc...   

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, busdriver said:

You assume that the minority is inherently fucked without big brother to step in an help/protect them.  Why?  Historically it has been the government that has been the one doing the fucking by actively enforcing violations of liberty.

Exactly. And when the federal government steps it it's usually well after the tide has shifted. Gay rights, civil rights, the legalization of weed, women voting, prohibition, unprohibition... All driven by the lower levels of society with national politicians jumping in front of the parade at the finish line to pretend like they were leading it the whole time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, Lord Ratner said:

Exactly. And when the federal government steps it it's usually well after the tide has shifted. Gay rights, civil rights, the legalization of weed, women voting, prohibition, unprohibition... All driven by the lower levels of society with national politicians jumping in front of the parade at the finish line to pretend like they were leading it the whole time.

It wasn't lower levels of society that escorted those black girls to school in Arkansas...

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, busdriver said:

But it was the state enforcing segregation.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk
 

Which was a more local government than the federalized troops who ensured desegregation. After the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the students. 

Not exactly a case of the locals fixing a problem. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My point is it was enforced violation of individual liberty by government.

Arguing about which government body gets to be big government misses the point that big government is a danger to individual rights.

The state having a monopoly on the legitimate use of force is (I think) necessary, but it carries risk that must be mitigated.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, pawnman said:

It wasn't lower levels of society that escorted those black girls to school in Arkansas...

No, it was the government jumping in front of the parade. 

 

If you think the very famous incident you are citing was at the beginning, rather than the end of the process that led to the civil rights of black people being recognized and enforced in America, you are mistaken. 

 

Where does government get it's power from? How well does it work when the government does something that the majority opposes? Were all the civil rights advocates voted out of office during the next election cycle?

 

The government could have stepped in 50 years earlier, why didn't it?

 

Remember that Jim Crow laws were *governments* forcing private citizens to segregate their business. Those laws were passed because citizens were desegregating on their own. 

Edited by Lord Ratner
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Lord Ratner said:

No, it was the government jumping in front of the parade. 

 

If you think the very famous incident you are citing was at the beginning, rather than the end of the process that led to the civil rights of black people being recognized and enforced in America, you are mistaken. 

 

Where does government get it's power from? How well does it work when the government does something that the majority opposes? Were all the civil rights advocates voted out of office during the next election cycle?

 

The government could have stepped in 50 years earlier, why didn't it?

 

Remember that Jim Crow laws were *governments* forcing private citizens to segregate their business. Those laws were passed because citizens were desegregating on their own. 

You can’t reason with the far left (and right)—they’re the same people who think that it’s racist to require an ID to vote and it’s like Jim Crow, but yet requiring that same ID to purchase a gun is just “common sense”.  We even have people on this site who support such nonsense.

The difference I see is that for the most part it’s the left that has gotten far more extreme with their views in the last 10+ years.  Remember when the left was against illegal immigration, and now if you even say the words the left will call you a racist?  Just one of many examples.  And sure there are examples on the right—the abortion issue for one. But again, which side has seen the greatest change in the last 10+ years?  I think it’s obvious.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, HeloDude said:

......  And sure there are examples on the right—the abortion issue for one. ......

That's about the worst example you could use for an extreme view. The Constitution, science, logic, and religion all agree on abortion. It's not a right or left issue, its a human life and death issue. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution both speak to our individual right to life. ("We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  -  "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.")

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...