4 ms·

Which is weird because Dobbs was a rebuke of ambiguity in the Constitution. There’s no ambiguity in “separation of church and state”. However, if I was a conse

Which is weird because Dobbs was a rebuke of ambiguity in the Constitution. There’s no ambiguity in “separation of church and state”. However, if I was a conservative, I’d want to distance myself from Dobbs as far as possible because the next most ambiguous item in the Constitution is the second amendment.

api 4y ago
A prediction I have made for years: it will be the right, specifically the national conservatives, who “come for the guns.” You can see little seeds of it in the shifting discourse after one mass shooter turned out to be trans. Just wait. It will happen if they gain real broad spectrum power. The deal will be “now that good nationalist hard right wingers now run the police and FBI you don’t need those guns anymore, and we can’t have dangerous degenerates with guns now can we?” Think I’m nuts? Look at how fast the Trumpists were able to flip the militia / conspiracy subcultures into supporting secret mass arrests and limitless state power as long as “the patriots are in control.” Look at the whole Q narrative and adjacent things. Total 180 degree flip into cheering for the stuff they were paranoid about for decades. Fascists always lock down power as soon as they have it. They will also ban encryption and cryptocurrency. The Greenwald orbit will act really surprised. Maybe that surprise will be genuine. After totalitarians come to power there’s always a subset of their supporters who are very surprised when they get instantly tossed under the bus. The left likes to scream and virtue signal about guns but they’re not truly or deeply authoritarian enough to do what it would take to execute on it. (Which is a good thing.) They also tend toward a maximalist interpretation of the rights afforded by the constitution, which makes it hard to argue for a very narrow interpretation of the second amendment without tossing things like gay rights and reproductive rights.
- sharemywin 4y ago
  I noticed now the headlines are people getting shot doing random reasonably innocent things. - fetching a ball from a yard. - pulling into a drive way - opening the wrong car door because it looked like yours
- kgwxd 4y ago
  The fact that this isn't insanely obvious to every single person in the world is infuriating. It was obvious centuries ago. It's obvious now. Everyone that's aware needs to stop questioning their own eyes. If someone claims the sun is NOT going to rise tomorrow, everyone will put the burden of proof on them. Calling your observation a "prediction" is as useful as calling the claim that the sun IS going to rise tomorrow a prediction. Calling these people fascists is 100% accurate and there will be at least one idiot that replies to this comment claiming it's hyperbole. We're WAY beyond that point. They are taking major action, daily at this point, and every "win" is emboldening all the rest. The exponential growth might be beyond stopping at this point. I know I have no clue what to do other than scream at the sky and prepare as best I can for the likely future of this country.
  - krapp 4y ago
    It's difficult to get people to notice fascism when they have a vested interest in it, which a lot of Americans do.
somenameforme 4y ago
Separation of church is not the clear establishment most take it as. In the constitution it appears nowhere. It's only shows up in the 1st amendment in the phrase: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This was taken to be a restriction exclusively on Congress for the majority of the US's existence. For instance the early states mostly all had their own official religions, and so on. But in 1947 there was a critical case [1]. It was about whether a state could use public funds for busing kids to private religious schools. It was a 5-4 split decision that was kind self contradictory in its ruling, but in a way that ended up making everybody pretty happy. The court ultimately decided that publicly funded religious bussing was okay, but also expressed that there must be a strong distinction made between church and state. I think the reason this has been less of an issue is because people have generally been willing to make some concessions to the other side. Religious types generally accepted not having e.g. intelligent design taught alongside evolution. And secular types generally accepted a bit of religion in cultural stuff, sports, extracurricular, times of crises, etc. But the divides in everything are changing that. And so it does look like we're trending towards another Supreme Court judgement. [1] - https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/435/everson-v-board-of-education https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/435/everson-v-b...
- bediger4000 4y ago
  I don't see how mandating hanging 10 Commandments isn't establishment of religion. That's what I quoted above. That's the issue.
- atmavatar 4y ago
  Even more relevant (and certainly more recent) cases would be McCreary County v. ACLU [1] and Van Orden v. Perry [2], though they are even less decisive than your example, given the former ruled against a Ten Commandments display in front of court houses, while the latter rules in favor of said displays in public parks. Despite this particular case having a much stronger establishment of religion argument given it's a legislative mandate to display the Ten Commandments, I don't know that I'd make any bets on how the current Supreme Court would rule, though. [1] - https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/695/mccreary-county-v-american-civil-liberties-union https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/695/mccreary-county... [2] - https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/697/van-orden-v-perry https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/697/van-orden-v-per...

api 4y ago

A prediction I have made for years: it will be the right, specifically the national conservatives, who “come for the guns.” You can see little seeds of it in the shifting discourse after one mass shooter turned out to be trans. Just wait. It will happen if they gain real broad spectrum power. The deal will be “now that good nationalist hard right wingers now run the police and FBI you don’t need those guns anymore, and we can’t have dangerous degenerates with guns now can we?” Think I’m nuts? Look at how fast the Trumpists were able to flip the militia / conspiracy subcultures into supporting secret mass arrests and limitless state power as long as “the patriots are in control.” Look at the whole Q narrative and adjacent things. Total 180 degree flip into cheering for the stuff they were paranoid about for decades. Fascists always lock down power as soon as they have it. They will also ban encryption and cryptocurrency. The Greenwald orbit will act really surprised. Maybe that surprise will be genuine. After totalitarians come to power there’s always a subset of their supporters who are very surprised when they get instantly tossed under the bus. The left likes to scream and virtue signal about guns but they’re not truly or deeply authoritarian enough to do what it would take to execute on it. (Which is a good thing.) They also tend toward a maximalist interpretation of the rights afforded by the constitution, which makes it hard to argue for a very narrow interpretation of the second amendment without tossing things like gay rights and reproductive rights.

sharemywin 4y ago
I noticed now the headlines are people getting shot doing random reasonably innocent things. - fetching a ball from a yard. - pulling into a drive way - opening the wrong car door because it looked like yours
kgwxd 4y ago
The fact that this isn't insanely obvious to every single person in the world is infuriating. It was obvious centuries ago. It's obvious now. Everyone that's aware needs to stop questioning their own eyes. If someone claims the sun is NOT going to rise tomorrow, everyone will put the burden of proof on them. Calling your observation a "prediction" is as useful as calling the claim that the sun IS going to rise tomorrow a prediction. Calling these people fascists is 100% accurate and there will be at least one idiot that replies to this comment claiming it's hyperbole. We're WAY beyond that point. They are taking major action, daily at this point, and every "win" is emboldening all the rest. The exponential growth might be beyond stopping at this point. I know I have no clue what to do other than scream at the sky and prepare as best I can for the likely future of this country.
- krapp 4y ago
  It's difficult to get people to notice fascism when they have a vested interest in it, which a lot of Americans do.

somenameforme 4y ago

Separation of church is not the clear establishment most take it as. In the constitution it appears nowhere. It's only shows up in the 1st amendment in the phrase: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This was taken to be a restriction exclusively on Congress for the majority of the US's existence. For instance the early states mostly all had their own official religions, and so on. But in 1947 there was a critical case [1]. It was about whether a state could use public funds for busing kids to private religious schools. It was a 5-4 split decision that was kind self contradictory in its ruling, but in a way that ended up making everybody pretty happy. The court ultimately decided that publicly funded religious bussing was okay, but also expressed that there must be a strong distinction made between church and state. I think the reason this has been less of an issue is because people have generally been willing to make some concessions to the other side. Religious types generally accepted not having e.g. intelligent design taught alongside evolution. And secular types generally accepted a bit of religion in cultural stuff, sports, extracurricular, times of crises, etc. But the divides in everything are changing that. And so it does look like we're trending towards another Supreme Court judgement. [1] - https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/435/everson-v-board-of-education https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/435/everson-v-b...

bediger4000 4y ago
I don't see how mandating hanging 10 Commandments isn't establishment of religion. That's what I quoted above. That's the issue.
atmavatar 4y ago
Even more relevant (and certainly more recent) cases would be McCreary County v. ACLU [1] and Van Orden v. Perry [2], though they are even less decisive than your example, given the former ruled against a Ten Commandments display in front of court houses, while the latter rules in favor of said displays in public parks. Despite this particular case having a much stronger establishment of religion argument given it's a legislative mandate to display the Ten Commandments, I don't know that I'd make any bets on how the current Supreme Court would rule, though. [1] - https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/695/mccreary-county-v-american-civil-liberties-union https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/695/mccreary-county... [2] - https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/697/van-orden-v-perry https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/697/van-orden-v-per...