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This is a hopelessly naïve viewpoint. A strong, liberal federal government is the only guarantor of civil rights nationally. If you get rid of it, it won't be r

This is a hopelessly naïve viewpoint. A strong, liberal federal government is the only guarantor of civil rights nationally. If you get rid of it, it won't be replaced by enlightened anarchism, it will be replaced by oligarchs like Peter Thiel and fundamentalist Christians who have no qualms about using violence to impose their morals on the rest of us.

anonym29 1y ago
The criminal justice system does not prevent crimes, they just investigate a small handful of crimes, arrest even fewer, and prosecute even fewer. The federal government, further, has almost zero role in policing. Unless you live in DC, there is a >99% chance that any time you interact with a member of law enforcement, they are state/county/city. The histrionics over fundamentalist Christians, who make up less than 15% of the country anyway (not some rabid majority trying to stamp out the rights of the minority - they are the minority; most Americans who call themselves "Christian" are closer to atheists in terms of church attendance than the tiny subset of fundamentalists), and are not some dangerous threat. I grew up in a repressive, fundamentalist evangelical southern Baptist household as a non-hetereosexual. I'm very familiar with that world in the worst of ways, including the loosely regulated Christian boarding schools. These people are a pain in the ass, but they're not a real danger. To insist otherwise is to critically misunderstand reality, crime rates, and really the general intent of that subset of the population.
- arrosenberg 1y ago
  Ah yeah, I recall the many famous times that fundamentalist Christians pushed for the abolition of the regimes of slavery, anti-miscegenation, Jim Crow and segregation. What's that? It was the liberal Federal government who did those things? Well darn, I guess the theocrats are part of the problem.
  - anonym29 1y ago
    The liberal Federal government was also the one who legalized those practices in the first place. Slavery and racial segregation doesn't exist in nature, the legal practice of both only ever existed thanks to government having a monopopy on force. The correction was good and overdue (thank you to all of the western countries who ended slavery long before the rest of the world did), but never forget that it was governments who created the original evil in the first place. But I get it. You're fundamentally statist - no amount of state-sanctioned evil can ever convince you that the state is bad. On a related note: Free Palestine.
    - arrosenberg 1y ago
      No, it was colonial monarchies that legalized those practices in the first place. You know, Kings, ordained by God. Thats not to say liberals abolished it immediately - Thomas Jefferson holds a lot of blame there, but liberal governments are the ones that did abolish it, and they are the ones that achieved the highest levels of broad civil rights in the history of civilized humanity. > But I get it. You're fundamentally statist - no amount of state-sanctioned evil can ever convince you that the state is bad. Pretty odd assumption to make. Clearly I think some types of states are bad, I'm just pitching for one specific kind. Israeli theocrats are bad too, but I get it, leftism - history is a suggestion and nothing is ever good enough.
      - anonym29 1y ago
        The specific kind of government you are pitching for is solely and directly responsible for the unjustifiable and cowardly mass murder of unarmed women and children with napalm bombs and hellfire missiles that occurred in the invasions of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan; the "smaller" atrocities that occurred in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria; the Kent State massacre, the Jackson State massacre, the Orangeburg Massacre, the MOVE bombing, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, MKUltra, human radiation experiments, Guatemala STD experiments, downwinders, the agent orange epidemic, the flint water crisis, COINTELPRO, Japanese American internment, Ruby Ridge and Waco, and the ongoing widespread well-documented practice of police brutality against black and indigenous communities, and the war on drugs that has ended the lives and torn apart the families of millions of their own nonviolent citizens. Support these monsters all you want, just do yourself a favor and don't delude yourself into thinking you're on the team of the "good guys". You're on the team of psychopathic mass murderers who will brag about what they've done with a smile and a laugh. No amount of good governance can justify supporting institutions run by people who commit war crimes and grave moral atrocities with pleasure.

anonym29 1y ago

The criminal justice system does not prevent crimes, they just investigate a small handful of crimes, arrest even fewer, and prosecute even fewer. The federal government, further, has almost zero role in policing. Unless you live in DC, there is a >99% chance that any time you interact with a member of law enforcement, they are state/county/city. The histrionics over fundamentalist Christians, who make up less than 15% of the country anyway (not some rabid majority trying to stamp out the rights of the minority - they are the minority; most Americans who call themselves "Christian" are closer to atheists in terms of church attendance than the tiny subset of fundamentalists), and are not some dangerous threat. I grew up in a repressive, fundamentalist evangelical southern Baptist household as a non-hetereosexual. I'm very familiar with that world in the worst of ways, including the loosely regulated Christian boarding schools. These people are a pain in the ass, but they're not a real danger. To insist otherwise is to critically misunderstand reality, crime rates, and really the general intent of that subset of the population.

arrosenberg 1y ago
Ah yeah, I recall the many famous times that fundamentalist Christians pushed for the abolition of the regimes of slavery, anti-miscegenation, Jim Crow and segregation. What's that? It was the liberal Federal government who did those things? Well darn, I guess the theocrats are part of the problem.
- anonym29 1y ago
  The liberal Federal government was also the one who legalized those practices in the first place. Slavery and racial segregation doesn't exist in nature, the legal practice of both only ever existed thanks to government having a monopopy on force. The correction was good and overdue (thank you to all of the western countries who ended slavery long before the rest of the world did), but never forget that it was governments who created the original evil in the first place. But I get it. You're fundamentally statist - no amount of state-sanctioned evil can ever convince you that the state is bad. On a related note: Free Palestine.
  - arrosenberg 1y ago
    No, it was colonial monarchies that legalized those practices in the first place. You know, Kings, ordained by God. Thats not to say liberals abolished it immediately - Thomas Jefferson holds a lot of blame there, but liberal governments are the ones that did abolish it, and they are the ones that achieved the highest levels of broad civil rights in the history of civilized humanity. > But I get it. You're fundamentally statist - no amount of state-sanctioned evil can ever convince you that the state is bad. Pretty odd assumption to make. Clearly I think some types of states are bad, I'm just pitching for one specific kind. Israeli theocrats are bad too, but I get it, leftism - history is a suggestion and nothing is ever good enough.
    - anonym29 1y ago
      The specific kind of government you are pitching for is solely and directly responsible for the unjustifiable and cowardly mass murder of unarmed women and children with napalm bombs and hellfire missiles that occurred in the invasions of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, Afghanistan; the "smaller" atrocities that occurred in Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Libya, and Syria; the Kent State massacre, the Jackson State massacre, the Orangeburg Massacre, the MOVE bombing, the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, MKUltra, human radiation experiments, Guatemala STD experiments, downwinders, the agent orange epidemic, the flint water crisis, COINTELPRO, Japanese American internment, Ruby Ridge and Waco, and the ongoing widespread well-documented practice of police brutality against black and indigenous communities, and the war on drugs that has ended the lives and torn apart the families of millions of their own nonviolent citizens. Support these monsters all you want, just do yourself a favor and don't delude yourself into thinking you're on the team of the "good guys". You're on the team of psychopathic mass murderers who will brag about what they've done with a smile and a laugh. No amount of good governance can justify supporting institutions run by people who commit war crimes and grave moral atrocities with pleasure.