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> most of our rights are set up as explicit negatives to block the government from legislating them away, Of course, as we've discovered, those rights don't me

> most of our rights are set up as explicit negatives to block the government from legislating them away, Of course, as we've discovered, those rights don't mean much, when the executive doesn't want to recognize them. So what was the point anyway?

psunavy03 1y ago
They also don't mean much when state governments just ignore them and never get called to account (and I can point to examples on both sides of the aisle).
II2II 1y ago
It's too early to make that claim. There are multiple branches and levels of government to deal with situations like this. They have worked in the past for smaller scale violations. They should work in the present for larger scale violations. The problem is that it takes time, it always took time, so a lot of people are going to get hurt in the process. (Granted, it is also important for people to fight for their rights because the current government is pushing the limits.)
- malcolmgreaves 1y ago
  > current government is pushing the limits The Republicans* are. Important to be factually accurate here’s the Democrats have never done anything remotely this lawless and authoritarian before.
  - psunavy03 1y ago
    . . . aside from supporting slavery and then the Dixiecrats opposing civil rights, you mean? If you actually look at American history, the ugly parts are ultimately bipartisan.
    - hackyhacky 1y ago
      > . . . aside from supporting slavery and then the Dixiecrats opposing civil rights, you mean? If you actually look at American history, the ugly parts are ultimately bipartisan. You are really pushing both-sides-ism to its limits. It goes without saying that if you have to go back that far in history to find an analogy to today's abuse of power, you are proving GP's point: the lawlessness of the Republican party is unprecedented in modern history.
      - psunavy03 1y ago
        The person I was replying to said "never before," which means that AND the internship of Japanese-Americans during WWII are squarely on the table. I never voted for Trump and I don't support the power grabs he's trying to make, but I also understand America has a history of playing footsie with authoritarianism every 80-100 years or so. Internment camps, a civil war over literally owning humans as property, the Alien and Sedition Acts . . .
      - _bin_ 1y ago
        It is not. The precedent is around ninety years old, but firmly within modern history. As Franklin Roosevelt attempted to enact his New Deal agenda, the so-called "Four Horsemen", often along with Justice Roberts and/or Chief Justice Hughes, repeatedly ruled against his alphabet agencies and sweeping social bills. So, Roosevelt worked to find the necessary votes to pack the court. His "Judicial Procedures Reform Bill" was not so different from any of the other "judicial reforms" we've condemned when other strongmen around the world used them to strengthen their power. Politicians from Roosevelt's bloc spewed vitriol at the justices who were simply trying to do their jobs. In Iowa, effigies of the six justices who had opposed any of Roosevelt's actions were found hanged by nooses. Once Roosevelt secured political support and signaled his willingness to push for packing the court, the justices backed down and began ruling in his favor, repeatedly. Where months before it had struck down a New York minimum wage law, a nearly-identical law in Washington was deemed perfectly constitutional. The National Labor Relations Act was fine and dandy. Coal mining was suddenly interstate commerce after all. In fact, the Commerce Clause now covered everything; one clothing factory in Virginia was enough commerce to quality. Later, the court would rule that a man growing wheat for his own consumption was sufficient "commerce" to warrant near-limitless federal rule-making. After all, it meant he bought less wheat from someone else, so clearly it was within the feds' purview. Wickard v. Filburn stands as precedent today. The justices on that court kept their seats but gave up their power. Now, another populist has shown up. One who has a different vision for the nation than that laid out by the neoliberal technocrats who have dominated American politics since Clinton. Trump has explicitly called out FDR's new deal coalition, the coalition emplaced by vaguely authoritarian means quite similar to those he is using, that was the underlying basis for politics for almost the past century. I don't care for Trump's vision much more than I care for Roosevelt's or Clinton's. But claiming that this is "unprecedented" only serves to point people away from the prior time in history when this happened, when we utterly failed to stop Roosevelt and remove his power. Perhaps learning from history is the better choice so this time we can do a better job of it.
    - acdha 1y ago
      Our history is ugly, but that particular detail needs to address the southern realignment where the Jim Crow-era Democrats moved to the Republican Party. I think it’s less about bipartisanship and more that there’s a group of people who both switch parties and influence within parties trying to accomplish their goal of maintaining their superiority over other groups. Their loyalty is to their group, not the party.
      - _bin_ 1y ago
        This isn't an accurate picture either. A good example would be Justice Hugo Black, Roosevelt's first appointee to the Supreme Court. Black remains one of the most noteworthy big-time liberals in the history of the court (with a few exceptions like Korematsu.) He was a southern democrat and a klansman; not a member of some shadowy cabal that exploited the democrats for political expediency but a true believer in progressivism. Perhaps one of the funniest elements of the American left's propensity to preach slavery and racism as a form of original sin is its insistence that it, unlike others, is pure, and only through it can one be purified. None of us is free from history, none of our forefathers was clean, but neither are we responsible for their failings.
        acdha 1y ago
        > Perhaps one of the funniest elements of the American left's propensity to preach slavery and racism as a form of original sin is its insistence that it, unlike others, is pure Opposition to slavery isn’t exclusive to the left, but also if that isn’t hyperbole you really need a wider sample. By far the most common perspective I’ve heard from anyone in the anti-racist camp is that nobody is perfect because we are all shaped by our environment. The whole point of entire campaigns is to avoid reinforcing those biases because they’re so widespread. This also touches on the perceived inaccuracy you mentioned: my argument is that the key part for Black isn’t the Democratic affiliation but the southern white identity. People are motivated by issues but some people prioritize that one above everything else, and that’s what happened with the southern realignment: some people valued white supremacy most and changed what were in many cases generational party affiliations, while others decided that things like labor rights or social programs mattered more and shifted correspondingly. It was largely the same people but they sorted themselves into different parties and that shaped the policies of those parties.

psunavy03 1y ago

They also don't mean much when state governments just ignore them and never get called to account (and I can point to examples on both sides of the aisle).

II2II 1y ago

It's too early to make that claim. There are multiple branches and levels of government to deal with situations like this. They have worked in the past for smaller scale violations. They should work in the present for larger scale violations. The problem is that it takes time, it always took time, so a lot of people are going to get hurt in the process. (Granted, it is also important for people to fight for their rights because the current government is pushing the limits.)

malcolmgreaves 1y ago
> current government is pushing the limits The Republicans* are. Important to be factually accurate here’s the Democrats have never done anything remotely this lawless and authoritarian before.
- psunavy03 1y ago
  . . . aside from supporting slavery and then the Dixiecrats opposing civil rights, you mean? If you actually look at American history, the ugly parts are ultimately bipartisan.
  - hackyhacky 1y ago
    > . . . aside from supporting slavery and then the Dixiecrats opposing civil rights, you mean? If you actually look at American history, the ugly parts are ultimately bipartisan. You are really pushing both-sides-ism to its limits. It goes without saying that if you have to go back that far in history to find an analogy to today's abuse of power, you are proving GP's point: the lawlessness of the Republican party is unprecedented in modern history.
    - psunavy03 1y ago
      The person I was replying to said "never before," which means that AND the internship of Japanese-Americans during WWII are squarely on the table. I never voted for Trump and I don't support the power grabs he's trying to make, but I also understand America has a history of playing footsie with authoritarianism every 80-100 years or so. Internment camps, a civil war over literally owning humans as property, the Alien and Sedition Acts . . .
    - _bin_ 1y ago
      It is not. The precedent is around ninety years old, but firmly within modern history. As Franklin Roosevelt attempted to enact his New Deal agenda, the so-called "Four Horsemen", often along with Justice Roberts and/or Chief Justice Hughes, repeatedly ruled against his alphabet agencies and sweeping social bills. So, Roosevelt worked to find the necessary votes to pack the court. His "Judicial Procedures Reform Bill" was not so different from any of the other "judicial reforms" we've condemned when other strongmen around the world used them to strengthen their power. Politicians from Roosevelt's bloc spewed vitriol at the justices who were simply trying to do their jobs. In Iowa, effigies of the six justices who had opposed any of Roosevelt's actions were found hanged by nooses. Once Roosevelt secured political support and signaled his willingness to push for packing the court, the justices backed down and began ruling in his favor, repeatedly. Where months before it had struck down a New York minimum wage law, a nearly-identical law in Washington was deemed perfectly constitutional. The National Labor Relations Act was fine and dandy. Coal mining was suddenly interstate commerce after all. In fact, the Commerce Clause now covered everything; one clothing factory in Virginia was enough commerce to quality. Later, the court would rule that a man growing wheat for his own consumption was sufficient "commerce" to warrant near-limitless federal rule-making. After all, it meant he bought less wheat from someone else, so clearly it was within the feds' purview. Wickard v. Filburn stands as precedent today. The justices on that court kept their seats but gave up their power. Now, another populist has shown up. One who has a different vision for the nation than that laid out by the neoliberal technocrats who have dominated American politics since Clinton. Trump has explicitly called out FDR's new deal coalition, the coalition emplaced by vaguely authoritarian means quite similar to those he is using, that was the underlying basis for politics for almost the past century. I don't care for Trump's vision much more than I care for Roosevelt's or Clinton's. But claiming that this is "unprecedented" only serves to point people away from the prior time in history when this happened, when we utterly failed to stop Roosevelt and remove his power. Perhaps learning from history is the better choice so this time we can do a better job of it.
  - acdha 1y ago
    Our history is ugly, but that particular detail needs to address the southern realignment where the Jim Crow-era Democrats moved to the Republican Party. I think it’s less about bipartisanship and more that there’s a group of people who both switch parties and influence within parties trying to accomplish their goal of maintaining their superiority over other groups. Their loyalty is to their group, not the party.
    - _bin_ 1y ago
      This isn't an accurate picture either. A good example would be Justice Hugo Black, Roosevelt's first appointee to the Supreme Court. Black remains one of the most noteworthy big-time liberals in the history of the court (with a few exceptions like Korematsu.) He was a southern democrat and a klansman; not a member of some shadowy cabal that exploited the democrats for political expediency but a true believer in progressivism. Perhaps one of the funniest elements of the American left's propensity to preach slavery and racism as a form of original sin is its insistence that it, unlike others, is pure, and only through it can one be purified. None of us is free from history, none of our forefathers was clean, but neither are we responsible for their failings.
      - acdha 1y ago
        > Perhaps one of the funniest elements of the American left's propensity to preach slavery and racism as a form of original sin is its insistence that it, unlike others, is pure Opposition to slavery isn’t exclusive to the left, but also if that isn’t hyperbole you really need a wider sample. By far the most common perspective I’ve heard from anyone in the anti-racist camp is that nobody is perfect because we are all shaped by our environment. The whole point of entire campaigns is to avoid reinforcing those biases because they’re so widespread. This also touches on the perceived inaccuracy you mentioned: my argument is that the key part for Black isn’t the Democratic affiliation but the southern white identity. People are motivated by issues but some people prioritize that one above everything else, and that’s what happened with the southern realignment: some people valued white supremacy most and changed what were in many cases generational party affiliations, while others decided that things like labor rights or social programs mattered more and shifted correspondingly. It was largely the same people but they sorted themselves into different parties and that shaped the policies of those parties.