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Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is about to gut the EPA's authority. Hope you're able to afford to move far away from plants that spew toxic chemicals! https://ww

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is about to gut the EPA's authority. Hope you're able to afford to move far away from plants that spew toxic chemicals! https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1082934438/supreme-court-to-hear-a-case-that-could-limit-the-epas-power-to-fight-climate-ch https://www.npr.org/2022/02/28/1082934438/supreme-court-to-h...

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
colechristensen 4y ago
Eh, I’m relatively in favor of limiting government agencies effectively making law up all by themselves. That is not the correct fix for a dysfunctional legislature.
- paulmd 4y ago
  If you think Congress is dysfunctional now, wait until you require congress to individually specify safety limits for each compound, etc. You'll have congresspeople grandstanding about how restricting X chemical is killing hardworking small businesses in their state, etc. Which the court knows damn well will be the outcome - that's the goal. Keep anything from being done.
  - colechristensen 4y ago
    That kind of thinking leads to “the only way we’ll get anything done is with a dictator” and it’s not like that is an unprecedented outcome for a country. Fix what’s broken, don’t use authoritarianism as a patch for dysfunction.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      I don't understand why it's "authoritarianism" for elected representatives to say "we want to protect X, within the following parameters, and we delegate the job of making specific rules to this agency". You can vote out the legislator if you disagree with the parameters they agreed upon, and you can vote out the executive branch that appointed the leaders of the agency. We already complain all the time that legislators don't understand the stuff they pass laws about. Delegation is not authoritarianism. You haven't actually said how you'd "fix what's broken". Do you have any specific ideas?
      - colechristensen 4y ago
        It's authoritarian because it allows the legislature to offload its job to the executive branch and the directions given to these agencies isn't specific at all, and this is what it seems the court is deciding: if vague instructions to the various agencies matches the constitutional intent of the duties of legislative and executive branches. We don't want to have one set of regulations for each party which change with the president, (we also don't want to delude ourselves into thinking our preferred party will keep winning). You're assuming that there are "parameters" given to agencies to create regulation with the force of law and the case seems to be about the circumstances where these are not nearly direct enough. I don't want the president to be able to run the country with executive actions, this has very much gotten out of hand. Specific ideas involve people not watching news paid for with advertisements, changes to election funding which should be obvious (removing the idea that unlimited political contributions are "free speech"), killing the filibuster, fixing gerrymandered districts, alternatives to first-past-the-post voting, someone going out and trying to inform the electorate in a way that encourages independent thought and not just cheer-leading for ones own side, re-enforced and expanded limits on corporate media/news ownership. Ultimately though, the electorate just has to demand it instead of letting itself get whipped up into an emotional frenzy with the ever-present latest manufactured crisis.
        Spivak 4y ago
        I was with you until the manufactured crisis part, I think you just want the electorate to care about a different set of issues and so you downplay them as not important in general when really they’re just not important to you. The most recent media spirals are another school shooting refueling the gun control fight, overturning Roe, and the Don’t Say Gay bill all of which have real life impact on people’s lives. Like what do you think the “demanding” is going to look like if not an emotional frenzy and protests?
        colechristensen 4y ago
        The reason Roe v Wade is being pushed is that a small number of people in power see who don't care about it one way or the other push/pushed opposition to it because getting that base emotionally charged gets people more engaged with the party. It is entirely opportunistically taking advantage of an issue to drive the conversation away from other issues. It's not that abortion is unimportant, it's that without certain politics motivations, it would just be solved and generally allowed and not particularly large on anybody's mind. You find this all over and have to question about each issue that is emotionally charged... how does fanning the flames help certain parties and politicians? Likewise for news sources. There's an incentive partially intentional by those pulling the strings and partially emergent (or a stand-alone complex for Ghost in the Shell fans) phenomenon where by in a intentional/emergent collusion between parties, politicians, media, and individuals... the most emotionally charged issues dominate the political landscape these days because from somebody seeking out the emotional rush of a like to a politician winning elections to corporate news advertisement sales there are benefits everywhere to make people frenzy about something, and whatever is most apt for it gets it, regardless if rationally it's a solved issue that only a few hangers on really want to fight about any more. >Like what do you think the “demanding” is going to look like if not an emotional frenzy and protests? There's a real core of the problem, inability to imagine what meaningful political discourse would look like without an emotional frenzy.
    - andrekandre 4y ago
      > Fix what’s broken whats the solution?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

colechristensen 4y ago

Eh, I’m relatively in favor of limiting government agencies effectively making law up all by themselves. That is not the correct fix for a dysfunctional legislature.

paulmd 4y ago
If you think Congress is dysfunctional now, wait until you require congress to individually specify safety limits for each compound, etc. You'll have congresspeople grandstanding about how restricting X chemical is killing hardworking small businesses in their state, etc. Which the court knows damn well will be the outcome - that's the goal. Keep anything from being done.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  That kind of thinking leads to “the only way we’ll get anything done is with a dictator” and it’s not like that is an unprecedented outcome for a country. Fix what’s broken, don’t use authoritarianism as a patch for dysfunction.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    I don't understand why it's "authoritarianism" for elected representatives to say "we want to protect X, within the following parameters, and we delegate the job of making specific rules to this agency". You can vote out the legislator if you disagree with the parameters they agreed upon, and you can vote out the executive branch that appointed the leaders of the agency. We already complain all the time that legislators don't understand the stuff they pass laws about. Delegation is not authoritarianism. You haven't actually said how you'd "fix what's broken". Do you have any specific ideas?
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      It's authoritarian because it allows the legislature to offload its job to the executive branch and the directions given to these agencies isn't specific at all, and this is what it seems the court is deciding: if vague instructions to the various agencies matches the constitutional intent of the duties of legislative and executive branches. We don't want to have one set of regulations for each party which change with the president, (we also don't want to delude ourselves into thinking our preferred party will keep winning). You're assuming that there are "parameters" given to agencies to create regulation with the force of law and the case seems to be about the circumstances where these are not nearly direct enough. I don't want the president to be able to run the country with executive actions, this has very much gotten out of hand. Specific ideas involve people not watching news paid for with advertisements, changes to election funding which should be obvious (removing the idea that unlimited political contributions are "free speech"), killing the filibuster, fixing gerrymandered districts, alternatives to first-past-the-post voting, someone going out and trying to inform the electorate in a way that encourages independent thought and not just cheer-leading for ones own side, re-enforced and expanded limits on corporate media/news ownership. Ultimately though, the electorate just has to demand it instead of letting itself get whipped up into an emotional frenzy with the ever-present latest manufactured crisis.
      - Spivak 4y ago
        I was with you until the manufactured crisis part, I think you just want the electorate to care about a different set of issues and so you downplay them as not important in general when really they’re just not important to you. The most recent media spirals are another school shooting refueling the gun control fight, overturning Roe, and the Don’t Say Gay bill all of which have real life impact on people’s lives. Like what do you think the “demanding” is going to look like if not an emotional frenzy and protests?
        colechristensen 4y ago
        The reason Roe v Wade is being pushed is that a small number of people in power see who don't care about it one way or the other push/pushed opposition to it because getting that base emotionally charged gets people more engaged with the party. It is entirely opportunistically taking advantage of an issue to drive the conversation away from other issues. It's not that abortion is unimportant, it's that without certain politics motivations, it would just be solved and generally allowed and not particularly large on anybody's mind. You find this all over and have to question about each issue that is emotionally charged... how does fanning the flames help certain parties and politicians? Likewise for news sources. There's an incentive partially intentional by those pulling the strings and partially emergent (or a stand-alone complex for Ghost in the Shell fans) phenomenon where by in a intentional/emergent collusion between parties, politicians, media, and individuals... the most emotionally charged issues dominate the political landscape these days because from somebody seeking out the emotional rush of a like to a politician winning elections to corporate news advertisement sales there are benefits everywhere to make people frenzy about something, and whatever is most apt for it gets it, regardless if rationally it's a solved issue that only a few hangers on really want to fight about any more. >Like what do you think the “demanding” is going to look like if not an emotional frenzy and protests? There's a real core of the problem, inability to imagine what meaningful political discourse would look like without an emotional frenzy.
  - andrekandre 4y ago
    > Fix what’s broken whats the solution?