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> I’m assuming the reference was to Roe v. Wade, but would like to hear more. Republicans ran in elections on "stack the supreme court with people who will en

> I’m assuming the reference was to Roe v. Wade, but would like to hear more. Republicans ran in elections on "stack the supreme court with people who will enact our values". Republicans ran in elections on "our values are ban abortions". Republicans win election. Republicans winning an election, stacking the court with their people, having them do exactly what they promised to do and enacting their campaign promises is democracy in action, not the suspension of democracy. If you dont want it, everyone needs to vote for what they do want.

mrcartmeneses 4y ago
Hate to break it to you but Trump lost the popular vote and there are several states and many counties that will always go republican despite them losing the popular vote. Is your electoral system fair if it is this gerrymandered? Furthermore, most states and districts are “safe” for one of the two main parties. Of the remaining places, a voter can choose between either of only two parties. If neither represent them, then they have no one to vote for. This situation is not “free” in the true sense of the word. You do not have a free vote, and in most places your vote is meaningless. Worse still is the fact that one of your political parties openly attempted to overthrow the result of the election in order to stay in power, and the other party has not brought the full force of the law to bare for fear of speaking civil unrest. It is not hyperbolic to warn Americans of the extreme danger their democracy is in, nor of its inherent weakness due to the rather antiquated voting system it uses. Stacking a court goes against the separation of power that the three estates were supposed to uphold. No party that openly tries to pack a court against the will of the people should get a single vote from anyone who cares about freedom. America is sailing very close to the wind and Americans should not be complacent about the risks they face
- the_only_law 4y ago
  Not related to GP, but just something that's common on thread like this in general. There seems to be an attitude that the modern world has ushered some eternal era and that since everything is better in the modern world nothing can ever get worse again and the empire will never decline. Not surprised, given the sites association with VCs and startups that operate on the delusion of infinite growth.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Yes. Similar to what people like Bill Gates and Jordan Peterson keep repeating while wanting to generally maintain core status quo traits. Stephen Pinker championing this and being buddies with the first two is also of note. Tho their optimism point is to be happy with what you have and calm down and so on. As if the way we have our current rights was gotten by calming down.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      > Tho their optimism point is to be happy with what you have and calm down and so on. Sure, that's fair, I'll even agree that the tone of many of these pieces is hyperbolic. But I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and pretend that things can't go bad, because that's a sure fire way to ensure they eventually do go bad.
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
        Well I’m disagreeing with that statement haha. So I think it’s only fair cuz it sounds fair and calm. But it’s said by people who want to preserve their own high status in society and don’t care about serious progress being made any more. As if America doesn’t have so many people paycheck to paycheck, in poverty, etc. and that’s just America
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > Hate to break it to you but Trump lost the popular vote You are aware that the competition is for the most electoral college seats. I am fairly certain that the Democrats were aware of this for the election as well. Yet armed with this knowledege they still lost to the worst run campaign in a century fronted by an actual clown. > Is your electoral system fair if it is this gerrymandered? I mean, the people elected to office litterally promised to gerrymander. If the people elect someone who brings in proportional representation will you have a problem with that? > Furthermore, most states and districts are “safe” for one of the two main parties. Hang on, those "safe" districts are "safe" because an overwhelming majority of people vote for the party that wins... That is democracy! Are you arguing for or against democracy? > No party that openly tries to pack a court against the will of the people should get a single vote from anyone who cares about freedom Litteral campaign promise, and people voted for it in numbers, it is the will of the people. > It is not hyperbolic to warn Americans of the extreme danger their democracy is in The problem is democracy itself. People are voting for shitty hacky demi-gods selling them a used car that runs on snake oil. Every side of every agenda has become infected with this horrible disease, but what is happening is the logical conclusion of what happens when you combine democracy with an erosion of education. It didnt start this year or with trump etc. It has been happening for decades. The population is now so poorly equiped to navigate the most basic of tasks that a foreign power can swing an election by spending $100,000 on some facebook ads.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    You missed the point of this entire thread. The whole point is fairness and freedom. Not about the basic obvious truth that Trump won the electoral college. That’s a pointless factoid that everyone is already agreeing with. The rest of the comment appears to be along similar lines of logic.
    - shapefrog 4y ago
      > free and fair elections, are being turned down this year What changed this year? The most commone argument for the election not being free and fair here is "electoral college vs popular vote". Some have even backed up the very point by showing that this situation has been persistent for the last 20 years, so ... what changed this year? Did they add electoral college votes to red states or something? Free and fair elections - personally I think of elections not being free and fair someone standing next to you as you vote saying vote for vlad or we will kill your whole familiy or votes being thrown in the bin. As far as I am aware none of that is happening. Its pretty bad faith to say Republicans claiming electoral fraud is the Big Lie but when Dems say its Not a Free and Fair Election that it is an irrefutable evidence and vice versa. Simultaneously holding the belief that the elctions are Not Free and Fair while claiming that they are indeed Free and Fair depending upon which party is claiming it is rank hypocracy at best.
skinnymuch 4y ago
The republicans who have barely won the presidential popular vote in decades? How is that a free and fair election? Similarly, the senate that confirms the Supreme Court justices — how is it free and fair that Wyoming with 500K people gets two senators, same as every other state? Except DC gets no Congress people in the house or senate. Nor does Puerto Rico get proper representation.
- nxm 4y ago
  Because that’s how the Constitution was written, so that the minority has a voice and Wyoming citizens matter just as much as coastal elites. Very fair
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Being in a document from 250 years ago doesn’t mean anything except it’s in a document that old. Certainly doesn’t make whatever it says about elections free and fair. That defies logic. Explain how the popular vote not mattering for president is free and fair? Why are you choosing only one minority to care about? State citizens of Wyoming? Why not any other minority? Why not minority religions, colors of skin, political views, gender identity, sexuality, disabilities, mental health conditions? What makes not caring about these minorities fair? Why is Wyoming even a state? Have you read up on the politics of how we got to 50 states? Especially the civil war and post civil war time period? How is that fair? How is DC not having a voice fair? How is Puerto Rico, Guam, and the other territories not having any sort of proper voice fair?
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      Not sure why fairness is the ultimate arbiter. There are obvious reasons why you don’t want sparsely-populated stretches of contiguous territory to feel disenfranchised on account of their smaller population. Fair systems that predictably spin apart are useless.
      - skinnymuch 4y ago
JetSpiegel 4y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/16/republican-candidates-no-voter-fraud-when-they-win https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/16/republican-c... Democracy for me, not for thee.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  Many Democrats think that the 2016 election result was rigged. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/09/11/many-democrats-think-that-the-2016-election-result-was-rigged/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/09/11/many-democrats-... Democracy for me, not for thee. In their study of voter confidence in national elections 2000 through 2012, Michael Sances and Charles Stewart found that while most supporters of both the winner and loser of an election are very confident in that their own vote was counted correctly, the confidence of those on the losing side slightly decreases. Moreover, the confidence of those on the winning side increases significantly from its pre-election level.
  - JetSpiegel 4y ago
    > Many Democrats think that the 2016 election result was rigged. Touché, the "Russians forced deplorables to vote for Trump" is another mass delusion. Pretty much the only good thing you can say about Hillary is that she didn't lead a mass of cannon fodder democrats, and a select group of conspirators to assassinate her own VP.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Yeah, the delusion is silly. Not that the delusions of the other side are any better, but the Russians trope still happening is very smh.
toofy 4y ago
since we’re on hn i’ll assume your comment was in good faith and not a bad faith attempt to paint entire segments of our citizens and their legitimate concerns as if they are somehow unreasonable. your comment assumes a perfectly functioning system and ignores the many non-hyperbolic, very real and very rational concerns which our citizens of all stripes have explained repeatedly.
- shapefrog 4y ago
  > to paint entire segments of our citizens and their legitimate concerns as if they are somehow unreasonable. the dems want to murder babies Now is that hyperbolic, legitimate, rational reasonable? It is a concerns which our citizens of all stripes have explained repeatedly. > your comment assumes a perfectly functioning system Actually the system is functioning shockingly well in the face of a rabid population hooked on fox/cnn talking heads then voting in bad actors promising to be bad actors. For some absolutely baffling reason the will of the people at this point in time is to elect batshit crazy representitives of all stripes. The best spent dollar of the billion or so spent on a presidential election cycle would be to try and figure out why that is and what you can do to get people to vote in their self interest and not against.
  - toofy 4y ago
    > the dems want to murder babies > Now is that hyperbolic, legitimate, rational reasonable? obviously that is hyperbolic, irrational, and unreasonable. assuming that you’re referring to abortion—those are not babies and it is absurdly hyperbolic to imply that an entire segment (81,268,924 people voted Dem in 2020) that more than 81 Million people want to murder babies. Obviously you can see how ridiculously hyperbolic and irrational your statement is. as for the rest of your comment, it would appear like you agree that we have anything but a perfectly functioning system, even if you chose to ignore the larger obvious systemic problems which have been repeatedly and reasonably addressed by countless rational citizens. so, with that said, even tho it’s clear that you are not engaging at all in good faith, and it would seem you are indeed attempting to paint entire massive segments of our citizens and their absolutely legitimate concerns as if they are all somehow unreasonable—your gp post still assumes a perfectly functioning system, and i believe a very convincing and strong argument can (and has repeatedly) been made that this is not currently the case.

mrcartmeneses 4y ago

Hate to break it to you but Trump lost the popular vote and there are several states and many counties that will always go republican despite them losing the popular vote. Is your electoral system fair if it is this gerrymandered? Furthermore, most states and districts are “safe” for one of the two main parties. Of the remaining places, a voter can choose between either of only two parties. If neither represent them, then they have no one to vote for. This situation is not “free” in the true sense of the word. You do not have a free vote, and in most places your vote is meaningless. Worse still is the fact that one of your political parties openly attempted to overthrow the result of the election in order to stay in power, and the other party has not brought the full force of the law to bare for fear of speaking civil unrest. It is not hyperbolic to warn Americans of the extreme danger their democracy is in, nor of its inherent weakness due to the rather antiquated voting system it uses. Stacking a court goes against the separation of power that the three estates were supposed to uphold. No party that openly tries to pack a court against the will of the people should get a single vote from anyone who cares about freedom. America is sailing very close to the wind and Americans should not be complacent about the risks they face

the_only_law 4y ago
Not related to GP, but just something that's common on thread like this in general. There seems to be an attitude that the modern world has ushered some eternal era and that since everything is better in the modern world nothing can ever get worse again and the empire will never decline. Not surprised, given the sites association with VCs and startups that operate on the delusion of infinite growth.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Yes. Similar to what people like Bill Gates and Jordan Peterson keep repeating while wanting to generally maintain core status quo traits. Stephen Pinker championing this and being buddies with the first two is also of note. Tho their optimism point is to be happy with what you have and calm down and so on. As if the way we have our current rights was gotten by calming down.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    > Tho their optimism point is to be happy with what you have and calm down and so on. Sure, that's fair, I'll even agree that the tone of many of these pieces is hyperbolic. But I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and pretend that things can't go bad, because that's a sure fire way to ensure they eventually do go bad.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago
      Well I’m disagreeing with that statement haha. So I think it’s only fair cuz it sounds fair and calm. But it’s said by people who want to preserve their own high status in society and don’t care about serious progress being made any more. As if America doesn’t have so many people paycheck to paycheck, in poverty, etc. and that’s just America
shapefrog 4y ago
> Hate to break it to you but Trump lost the popular vote You are aware that the competition is for the most electoral college seats. I am fairly certain that the Democrats were aware of this for the election as well. Yet armed with this knowledege they still lost to the worst run campaign in a century fronted by an actual clown. > Is your electoral system fair if it is this gerrymandered? I mean, the people elected to office litterally promised to gerrymander. If the people elect someone who brings in proportional representation will you have a problem with that? > Furthermore, most states and districts are “safe” for one of the two main parties. Hang on, those "safe" districts are "safe" because an overwhelming majority of people vote for the party that wins... That is democracy! Are you arguing for or against democracy? > No party that openly tries to pack a court against the will of the people should get a single vote from anyone who cares about freedom Litteral campaign promise, and people voted for it in numbers, it is the will of the people. > It is not hyperbolic to warn Americans of the extreme danger their democracy is in The problem is democracy itself. People are voting for shitty hacky demi-gods selling them a used car that runs on snake oil. Every side of every agenda has become infected with this horrible disease, but what is happening is the logical conclusion of what happens when you combine democracy with an erosion of education. It didnt start this year or with trump etc. It has been happening for decades. The population is now so poorly equiped to navigate the most basic of tasks that a foreign power can swing an election by spending $100,000 on some facebook ads.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  You missed the point of this entire thread. The whole point is fairness and freedom. Not about the basic obvious truth that Trump won the electoral college. That’s a pointless factoid that everyone is already agreeing with. The rest of the comment appears to be along similar lines of logic.
  - shapefrog 4y ago
    > free and fair elections, are being turned down this year What changed this year? The most commone argument for the election not being free and fair here is "electoral college vs popular vote". Some have even backed up the very point by showing that this situation has been persistent for the last 20 years, so ... what changed this year? Did they add electoral college votes to red states or something? Free and fair elections - personally I think of elections not being free and fair someone standing next to you as you vote saying vote for vlad or we will kill your whole familiy or votes being thrown in the bin. As far as I am aware none of that is happening. Its pretty bad faith to say Republicans claiming electoral fraud is the Big Lie but when Dems say its Not a Free and Fair Election that it is an irrefutable evidence and vice versa. Simultaneously holding the belief that the elctions are Not Free and Fair while claiming that they are indeed Free and Fair depending upon which party is claiming it is rank hypocracy at best.

skinnymuch 4y ago

The republicans who have barely won the presidential popular vote in decades? How is that a free and fair election? Similarly, the senate that confirms the Supreme Court justices — how is it free and fair that Wyoming with 500K people gets two senators, same as every other state? Except DC gets no Congress people in the house or senate. Nor does Puerto Rico get proper representation.

nxm 4y ago
Because that’s how the Constitution was written, so that the minority has a voice and Wyoming citizens matter just as much as coastal elites. Very fair
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  Being in a document from 250 years ago doesn’t mean anything except it’s in a document that old. Certainly doesn’t make whatever it says about elections free and fair. That defies logic. Explain how the popular vote not mattering for president is free and fair? Why are you choosing only one minority to care about? State citizens of Wyoming? Why not any other minority? Why not minority religions, colors of skin, political views, gender identity, sexuality, disabilities, mental health conditions? What makes not caring about these minorities fair? Why is Wyoming even a state? Have you read up on the politics of how we got to 50 states? Especially the civil war and post civil war time period? How is that fair? How is DC not having a voice fair? How is Puerto Rico, Guam, and the other territories not having any sort of proper voice fair?
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    Not sure why fairness is the ultimate arbiter. There are obvious reasons why you don’t want sparsely-populated stretches of contiguous territory to feel disenfranchised on account of their smaller population. Fair systems that predictably spin apart are useless.
    - skinnymuch 4y ago

JetSpiegel 4y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/16/republican-candidates-no-voter-fraud-when-they-win https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/16/republican-c... Democracy for me, not for thee.

shapefrog 4y ago
Many Democrats think that the 2016 election result was rigged. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/09/11/many-democrats-think-that-the-2016-election-result-was-rigged/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/09/11/many-democrats-... Democracy for me, not for thee. In their study of voter confidence in national elections 2000 through 2012, Michael Sances and Charles Stewart found that while most supporters of both the winner and loser of an election are very confident in that their own vote was counted correctly, the confidence of those on the losing side slightly decreases. Moreover, the confidence of those on the winning side increases significantly from its pre-election level.
- JetSpiegel 4y ago
  > Many Democrats think that the 2016 election result was rigged. Touché, the "Russians forced deplorables to vote for Trump" is another mass delusion. Pretty much the only good thing you can say about Hillary is that she didn't lead a mass of cannon fodder democrats, and a select group of conspirators to assassinate her own VP.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    Yeah, the delusion is silly. Not that the delusions of the other side are any better, but the Russians trope still happening is very smh.

toofy 4y ago

since we’re on hn i’ll assume your comment was in good faith and not a bad faith attempt to paint entire segments of our citizens and their legitimate concerns as if they are somehow unreasonable. your comment assumes a perfectly functioning system and ignores the many non-hyperbolic, very real and very rational concerns which our citizens of all stripes have explained repeatedly.

shapefrog 4y ago
> to paint entire segments of our citizens and their legitimate concerns as if they are somehow unreasonable. the dems want to murder babies Now is that hyperbolic, legitimate, rational reasonable? It is a concerns which our citizens of all stripes have explained repeatedly. > your comment assumes a perfectly functioning system Actually the system is functioning shockingly well in the face of a rabid population hooked on fox/cnn talking heads then voting in bad actors promising to be bad actors. For some absolutely baffling reason the will of the people at this point in time is to elect batshit crazy representitives of all stripes. The best spent dollar of the billion or so spent on a presidential election cycle would be to try and figure out why that is and what you can do to get people to vote in their self interest and not against.
- toofy 4y ago
  > the dems want to murder babies > Now is that hyperbolic, legitimate, rational reasonable? obviously that is hyperbolic, irrational, and unreasonable. assuming that you’re referring to abortion—those are not babies and it is absurdly hyperbolic to imply that an entire segment (81,268,924 people voted Dem in 2020) that more than 81 Million people want to murder babies. Obviously you can see how ridiculously hyperbolic and irrational your statement is. as for the rest of your comment, it would appear like you agree that we have anything but a perfectly functioning system, even if you chose to ignore the larger obvious systemic problems which have been repeatedly and reasonably addressed by countless rational citizens. so, with that said, even tho it’s clear that you are not engaging at all in good faith, and it would seem you are indeed attempting to paint entire massive segments of our citizens and their absolutely legitimate concerns as if they are all somehow unreasonable—your gp post still assumes a perfectly functioning system, and i believe a very convincing and strong argument can (and has repeatedly) been made that this is not currently the case.