A well regulated militia...

[sabs]

Part of the reason ours isn't working is that the Republicans when in power, keep giving more and more power to the President, and when the Democrats are in power, they never undo it, even though they voted against it when it was a Republican President.

Additionally, the Senate has become this quagmire of 'House rules' that are just stupid and allow individual players to mess up the whole game for as long as they want.

The Treasury Department is still missing 6 top posts from being filled, because some anonymous jackass has all those nominations on hold.
Even 3 years later, vast Swaths of the President's Appointments have gone unfilled, because of Senate hijacking.

It's possible it's not a Republican who did it. Frankly, it doesn't matter. Anonymous holds are stupid. Allowing one side to merely threaten to filibuster is stupid. MAKE them go through with it. The Filibuster is an important tool. But you should have to pay the price for using it (actually standing in the Chamber and reading the goddamn phone book, or war and peace, out loud.)

[Lago PARANOIA]

Anyway, armed revolutions against a repressive government that don't originate with the military almost never start with a mass uprising of the armed citizen population. In the Cuban, British, American, Filipino, Haitian, French, Russian, and Polish Revolutions, the pattern starts like this every single time:

1.) Some shit is going down. It can either be mass discontent that happen to include the elites like the Russian Revolution or the elites of the country don't like what's going like Continental Congress or the Anti-Charles faction of Parliament.

2.) Some kind of zeitgeist initiates a breaking point where people go from 'discontent with the government' to 'actively want to dismantle the government's rule'. If the revolution does not have the popular support of the people at this point then it's dead in the water because even if they topple the government if they don't have the support of the army and/or citizenry they ain't going nowhere. The elites of 1930's America were fucking lucky that their would-be quisling Butler turned them in before actually starting the conflict, otherwise Roosevelt would've been stacking their electricity-charred corpses like firewood.

3.) Either the citizenry forms an army from scratch or gets the support of the existing army. Forming an army from scratch has a huge chance of just plain not working and I can't recall any occasions in which it happened against a government that wasn't Imperialist. Anytime else you need to get the support of the existing army or get a bunch of other peoples' armies.

The American Revolution was unique in that the Founders were able to force a rebellion despite not having the popular support of the other revolutions. Which admittedly would not have been possible without an armed civilian population. However historians also say that only about a 1/3rd of the people actively supported the rebellion while it was going on. So while this might be an argument for arming the citizenry it's just as much an argument against it because it also means that a minority douchebags can overthrow a government against the will of the people and implement a government that may or may not be better.


But anyway, all this shows that the best defense against a tyrannical government is not an armed civilian population but civilian control of the military. Building a military from scratch is hard as fuck and when the military has expanded waaaaay past a Cromwell/Washington level of technology to navies, air forces, satellite communications, and bribes in the tens of millions of dollars I doubt it can be done at all anymore.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The structure of the Senate is the biggest obstacle to American freedom.

Ironically the U.S.'s longetivity is probably going to be the biggest reason for its downfall. Back when the country was first formed even though the gap in population between New York and Florida was huge, it's nowhere near as big as today. Moreover, back when it seriously took like a month at best for Andrew Jackson to hear that the War of 1812 was over it was acceptable for senators to have 6 year terms. Nowadays that's too goddamn long. But regardless at the time it was extremely stable.

If I could go back in time and tell the U.S. Framers one thing I would tell the Federalists to go tell the Anti-Federalists and Slave States to go pound sand and form the U.S. without them. Then they could've been crushed in a couple of decades or so by the superior economies, population sizes, and/or the machinations of Tecumseh and Britain and be begging to join. So two hundred years later we weren't getting fucked over by the Great Compromise.

But anyway, when you have states that are twenty times the population of others but you have equal representation among all of them something is going to give. It's actually a miracle that the U.S. has lasted this long frankly.

[tzor]

Sabs, there are a number of reasons why it is't working. We really put a money wrench into the works when we changed the Senate from a body of the states to a body of the people. Still, one of the biggest problems is that it is Congress that doesn't use the authority given to it in the constitution, especially in the power of the purse and the power of impeachment. (The Nixon option, a sitting president a priori pardoning himself has never been constitutionally tested.) Congress also has the ability to start the ball rolling on changes to the constitution.

While we often say that Lincoln "freed" the slaves it was actualy an amendment to the constitution that actually freed them, passed after the war was over.

From a technical standpoint, the biggst problem with the Constitution was that it lacked a dictionary. It used legal terms of the day, clearly understood by all, intutitively obvious to even a casual observer ... NOT. The early supreme court practically redefined the classic English law term of "High Crimes." (High Crimes actually doesn't imply a criminial act.) This was done to keep congress from impeaching judges. We have shouting arguments over "natural born." (I hate to see the first test tube baby candidate for president, or *gasp* a C Section.) But this is minor ... we can just add a dictionary by passing an amendment. No one wants to, but that's not the document's fault.

[Lago PARANOIA]

There's also the communication between people, whatever is by blogs, Twitter, Facebook and all other social media. Is hard to mantain a lie if you can see the experiences of others that also experience the truth behind the lie.

Maintaining a lie through internal censorship is the old, stupid way of controlling information. The best way to do it nowadays is through so much overexposure and then just making people plain not care. Then you can just tell the truth all you want, no matter how vile it is. The media doing a blackout on OWS was probably the stupidest thing it could have done (assuming it opposed the movement) because it was able to grow in size because it was old hat. Unless OWS pulls some rabbits out of its hat and keeps people distracted by the shiny (or some unrelated crisis makes the OWS a lot more relevant like leaked footage of Obama literally kissing Rupert Murdoch's ring and begging for forgiveness) it could double in size and still fizzle out in about a month without having done anything.

The American Tea Party is definitely the right way to do social movements or government protests from now on. Organize behind the scenes, raise a big stink, push everything into a couple of months of exposure, then get absorbed by the mainstream and/or influence policy before the viewing public--including their own supporters--gets tired of them.

The Information Age broke Big Brother but just as tragically it also broke the Progressives.

[sabs]

part of the problem with an amendment, is that I don't trust your view point, and you don't trust mine. So we're all intrinsically wary of passing an amendment, because we don't trust each other.

I agree, I think that popular vote of Senators is bad. Senators should be focused on the will of the States, and not, the Will of the People of Southern Florida. But additionally, Senators have way too much power to individually gum up the works.

I mean, come on, with 60 nominal votes, the democrats couldn't pass anything. Everything got either philibustered, or buried in committee. That's a disgrace.

Lincoln freed the slaves, living in the Confederacy. He actually didn't free a single slave living in Maryland or New Jersey. (Both of which were slave states that were too far north to join the Confederacy.)

I would be more pro amendments, if your side didn't keep trying to pass ones that are geared for removing people's rights.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I agree, I think that popular vote of Senators is bad. Senators should be focused on the will of the States, and not, the Will of the People of Southern Florida.

What the fuck does that even mean? If the Will of the States is not that of the will of the people who are living in it, then whose will does it coincide with?

[tzor]

Then you can just tell the truth all you want, no matter how vile it is. The media doing a blackout on OWS was probably the stupidest thing it could have done (assuming it opposed the movement) because it was able to grow in size because it was old hat.

I would argue that the media was supporting OWS by doing a general blackout. It sounds odd, but these days the media basically is better at tearing things down. It is always possible to make a tempist in a teapot, to find the worst and to oberblow that, but it's hard to make idiots look good. Any attempt at reporting (real reporting) the OWS crowd would have resulted in no coherant message (other than Wall Street Sucks), a plethora of exceptionally anti-semetic and dare I say it ... anti-Obama signs, and a base support that could only be described as real astro-turf ... including people who were literally paid to protest.

(And if you don't think OWS was a money making enterprise, you should hear the complaints about the drummers who have been charged a "drumming tax" but get no relief when vandals destroyed their drums.)

Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in — but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protesters is fraying tempers.

Some drummers — incensed they got no money to replace or safeguard their drums after a midnight vandal destroyed their instruments Wednesday — are threatening to splinter off.

“F–k Finance. I hope Mayor Bloomberg gets an injunction and demands to see the movement’s books. We need to know how much money we really have and where it’s going,” said a frustrated Bryan Smith, 45, who joined OWS in Lower Manhattan nearly three weeks ago from Los Angeles, where he works in TV production.

On the other hand, media blackouts can be very effective, especially if you don't want to cover numbers. The annual media blackout of the pro-life rally in Washington DC is a good example. I mean how can you argue that the pro-life movement is only supported by white senior citizens when a group of teenage people pass by in a parade with pro-life signs?

[RobbyPants]

The elites of 1930's America were fucking lucky that their would-be quisling Butler turned them in before actually starting the conflict, otherwise Roosevelt would've been stacking their electricity-charred corpses like firewood.

What are you referencing here?

[tzor]

I agree, I think that popular vote of Senators is bad. Senators should be focused on the will of the States, and not, the Will of the People of Southern Florida.

What the fuck does that even mean? If the Will of the States is not that of the will of the people who are living in it, then whose will does it coincide with?

Because life is complicated. I'll start with the original model. Rhetorical question: Why did Lincoln and Douglas have their debates? Lincoln clearly wanted Douglas' senate seat, but they debated before the people, who didn't elect senators at the time. The real reason, they were on the campaign trail, not for themselves, but their party's candidates in the state legislature. They were getting the people to vote for the representatives who, in turn, would get them elected.

So that means ... in order to get into the senate, they had to get the people to agree with their choices for candidates at the local level, they had to deal with local issues. If your party wasn't doing well at the state level you didn't have much of a chance of getting the senate seat. Contrast this today where the senate seat is basically a popularity contest completely divorced from local issues.

This doesn't mean that returning the control of the senate to the states is the solver of all our problems, but a whole lot of things would have never been passed on the Federal level had the states had more of a control over their senators.

[tzor]

The elites of 1930's America were fucking lucky that their would-be quisling Butler turned them in before actually starting the conflict, otherwise Roosevelt would've been stacking their electricity-charred corpses like firewood.

What are you referencing here?

You do know that google can be your friend. That and wikipedia. Not that I would trust either but hey ...

The Business Plot (also the Plot Against FDR and the White House Putsch) was an alleged political conspiracy in 1933. Retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler claimed that wealthy businessmen were plotting to create a fascist veterans' organization and use it in a coup d’état to overthrow United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler as leader of that organization. In 1934 Butler testified to the McCormack–Dickstein Congressional committee on these claims.[1] In the opinion of the committee, these allegations were credible.[2] No one was prosecuted.

While historians have questioned whether or not a coup was actually close to execution, most agree that some sort of "wild scheme" was contemplated and discussed.[3][4][2][5][6] Contemporaneous media dismissed the plot, with a New York Times editorial characterizing it as a "gigantic hoax".[7] When the committee's final report was released, the Times said the committee "purported to report that a two-month investigation had convinced it that General Butler's story of a fascist march on Washington was alarmingly true" and "It also alleged that definite proof had been found that the much publicized Fascist march on Washington, which was to have been led by Major. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, retired, according to testimony at a hearing, was actually contemplated".[8]

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. said, "Most people agreed with Mayor La Guardia of New York in dismissing it as a 'cocktail putsch'[51] In Schlesinger's summation of the affair, "No doubt, MacGuire did have some wild scheme in mind, though the gap between contemplation and execution was considerable, and it can hardly be supposed that the Republic was in much danger".[2]

Robert F. Burk wrote: "At their core, the accusations probably consisted of a mixture of actual attempts at influence peddling by a small core of financiers with ties to veterans organizations and the self-serving accusations of Butler against the enemies of his pacifist and populist causes." [3]

Hans Schmidt wrote: "Even if Butler was telling the truth, as there seems little reason to doubt, there remains the unfathomable problem of MacGuire's motives and veracity. He may have been working both ends against the middle, as Butler at one point suspected. In any case, MacGuire emerged from the HUAC hearings as an inconsequential trickster whose base dealings could not possibly be taken alone as verifying such a momentous undertaking. If he was acting as an intermediary in a genuine probe, or as agent provocateur sent to fool Butler, his employers were at least clever enough to keep their distance and see to it that he self-destructed on the witness stand."[4]

Many years later, McCormick continued to vouch for Butler: "General Smedley Butler was one of the outstanding Americans in our history. I cannot emphasize too strongly the very important part he played in exposing the Fascist plot in the early 1930s backed by and planned by persons possessing tremendous wealth."[22]

In a book about art collector Robert Sterling Clark, art historian and non-profit executive Nicholas Fox Weber wrote: "Butler's testimony to the House Committee, which was played down in the newspaper and magazine accounts at the time, and made to seem largely specious by influential commentators, seems credible about the attempt to overthrow FDR, and Robert Sterling Clark's role in it. Butler's Claims, moreover, were supported by the committee's subsequent investigations and conclusions."[6]

James E. Sargent, reviewing The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer, wrote: "Thus, Butler (and Archer) assumed that the existence of a financially-backed plot meant that fascism was imminent, and that the planners represented a widespread and coherent group, having both the intent and the capacity to execute their ideas. So, when his testimony was criticized, and even ridiculed, in the media, and ignored in Washington, Butler saw (and Archer sees) conspiracy everywhere. Instead, it is plausible to conclude that the honest and straightforward, but intellectually and politically unsophisticated, Butler perceived in simplistic terms what were, in fact, complex trends and events. Thus, he leaped to the simplistic conclusion that the President and the Republic were in mortal danger. In essence, Archer swallowed his hero whole".[5]

[RobbyPants]

You do know that google can be your friend. That and wikipedia. Not that I would trust either but hey ...

I would have googled it if I knew what to look for (like if he'd used the term Business Plot, or something). That being said, thanks for the links.

[tzor]

Would you believe I just googled "Butler Roosevelt" ...

[Psychic Robot]

gee how terrible would it have been if the people had overthrown FDR

man that would have sucked.

[Username17]

Senators being elected by the people in the states means that they are elected by the states. States do not have an independent existence from the people in them. They do not have interests or opinions, they are completely fictional entities.

Now the Senatorial system is bullshit, but it is bullshit because state interests don't exist. Rhode Island is an arbitrary political division, and it has no opinions or interests to protect. There are people in Rhode Island, and they have opinions and interests, but the corporate entity of Rhode Island exists only on paper and would be completely unmoved if every single person died.

The Senate is a corrupt and archaic institution precisely because it attempts to represent the interests of arbitrary units that have no independent existence. There are no Wyoming interests, and the power of a senator is so massively disproportionate to the amount of people actually living in Wyoming that the senatorial races there become hopelessly clouded by foreign money. for fuck's sake, let's look at a Wyoming Senator's campaign funding. Five million dollars. For an election in a year that has not even started yet. And his biggest contributors are:

• Chevron (Standard Oil of California)
• Berkshire Hathaway (George Frickin Soros)
• Blue Cross (Chicago based Health Insurance company)
• Mewbourne Oil Co (Texas Oil company)
• Exxon Mobil (Standard Oil of New Jersey)

Notice something? Every single fucking one of those major contributors is from out of state! This is because a senatorial vote is worth more in national and international affairs than the sum total of all people in Wyoming. So while the five hundred thousand people of Wyoming doubtless have various cultural quirks and opinions about shit, that literally means fuck all in the face of the literally millions of dollars poring in from out of state and over seas to corrupt the process. Seriously, which do you think John Barrasso cares more about: the will of the people of Wyoming, or the generous out of state donors who have left him with over two million dollars in cash?

It is simply not fair to the people of Wyoming to give them a voice that is twelve times the size of their actual number of people with actual voices. Because the extra eleven voices are given to Benjamins from out of state. If we wanted the Senate to actually represent people, we'd make the senators be proportionally representative. So you'd vote for a party, and if the party got 3% of the vote, they'd get a senator to assign. That way it would represent the actual will of the actual people, and 6 years in, if the Tea Party was 18% of the people, they'd have 18 Senators.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

Would you believe I just googled "Butler Roosevelt" ...

Part of that is just me being stupid. I read "Butler" as one of the elite guy's butlers. I missed the capital 'B'.

[RadiantPhoenix]

So you'd vote for a party, and if the party got 3% of the vote, they'd get a senator to assign. That way it would represent the actual will of the actual people, and 6 years in, if the Tea Party was 18% of the people, they'd have 18 Senators.

I would actually go with Single Transferable vote, rather than party-list proportional representation. It seems more likely to get people's actual interests across.

[fbmf]

An honest question for Gx and Psychic Robot:

Are you guys for the right to bear arms specifically (gun enthusiasts), or for it because it is a right guaranteed by the Constitution/Bill of Rights (but aren't, per se, gun enthusiasts) or is there something I'm not getting?

Game On,
fbmf

[Fuchs]

I think banning honest citizens from owning legal guns because they could be used for a crime shows a view of citizens that runs counter to democratic ideals.

If you think you cannot generally trust your fellow citizens not to shoot you, why do you trust them with the power to vote?

I am rather sick of the fearmongering that paints every gun-owning citizen as a potential murderer. That's exactly the kind of attitude that paints every black man as a drug dealer, pimp, or both, and every latin american immigrant as a cartel and gang member.

[Username17]

I think banning honest citizens from owning legal guns because they could be used for a crime shows a view of citizens that runs counter to democratic ideals.

That's not really the gun control argument. The gun control argument is that they are dangerous, and should be controlled. Like how cars, industrial machinery, and noxious chemicals are all controlled.

Let's consider the parallel issue of Fireworks. I am in favor of firework rights. I think that I should be able to buy and use fireworks for holidays and special occasions without fear of police harassment. Now, I am aware that legalizing fireworks will also necessarily come with an increase in wildfires and send more children to the hospital with injuries and amputations of fingers, ears, and eyes. People will die in an entirely predictable and measurable fashion if we put fireworks back into stores. And I'm in favor of it anyway, because bringing joy to large numbers of people is literally worth more to me than a bunch of children going blind and catching on fire.

But that's the argument that gun advocates have to make. They have to convince me that having guns around is so cool that it is worth an entirely predictable increase in accidental maiming and death as well as an entirely predictable increase in the lethality of mental illness and confrontations. Because all the other arguments that gun enthusiasts run around with are crap. Guns don't protect you from the criminal element, they don't make the government afraid to take your rights away, they don't make society more tolerant or polite. None of that shit happens. You either like guns because you think guns are cool, cool enough to put up with the predictable and measurable fatalities, or you like them because you're a fucking idiot who has entirely indefensible theories about how gun ownership will affect society.

You're not a fucking action hero, and neither is anyone else unless they were born into a Gurkha family. You having guns doesn't make anyone any safer. You may think it's cool, but you have to argue from that position. Not from some sort of bullshit position where you argue that you should have a gun because you're a statistical anomaly.

-Username17

[Fuchs]

I am not against gun control - as long as it is assured that everyone who wants a gun and is not a criminal can take the needed courses, take an exam, and then get a gun or three. And carry it.

Like driving licenses.

There's a lot of things whose ban would save lives - from dogs to climbing, smoking and drinking alcohol - but if we go down that route we end up with a life not worth living anymore.

Incidentally, fireworks are available in stores over here in Switzerland. And it's not really a problem. I was very surprised to learn they are strictly regulated in the US.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The 'this is so cool that it makes the extra fatalities worth it' argument isn't as shaky as you think. I feel the same way about eggs, amateur prostitution, rock concerts, media violence, Ironman camping trips, fried pork chops, and certain drugs. Seriously, eggs are ridiculously unhealthy for how common they are, but they're so tasty I could never give them up. I could see myself going vegetarian and giving up meat if really pressed because vegetarian cuisine can be really delicious, but I could not go vegan because going without dairy products and eggs for more than a week is enough reason for me to start stabbing people. Due to a physical I had recently I was able to give up smoking except for the seasonal cigar but I have not advanced an inch towards giving up eggs.

That said, I'm against proliferation of guns in the U.S. not because they aren't sufficiently cool when used right because they could be, but because they've clearly crossed the line from 'sweet hobby' to 'dangerous fetish'. But it's not like they can't go back to the 'sweet hobby' side again; just that something needs to be done about America's weird patriarchal worship of violence and domination. But that needs to be done anyway, so W/E.

[Maj]

Incidentally, fireworks are available in stores over here in Switzerland. And it's not really a problem. I was very surprised to learn they are strictly regulated in the US.

Some cities won't even let people light them off at all.

[tzor]

That's not really the gun control argument. The gun control argument is that they are dangerous, and should be controlled. Like how cars, industrial machinery, and noxious chemicals are all controlled.

Cars, for the most part, were controlled because they went on public roads. Off road vehicles are controlled by the consumer protection agency and technically that only applies to the sale of such vehicles. It has only been recently that the EPA has stepped i on suck items as farm equipment that never goes on a public road, and the farming industry is fighting tooth and nail against theserequirements. Industrial machinery is covered under workplace regulations. Some of the most potentially dangeous pieces of industrial machinery are in the private hands of provate indiiduals who could seriously injure themselves. The most common is the ordinary chainsaw.

[sabs]

Yes, but the primary purpose of a chainsaw is not to hurt someone. Same with farm equipment. The Farming Industry always fights regulations, because it means they have spend money on maintaining a safe work environment. Corporations NEVER want to maintain a safe work environment if they can avoid doing it.

A handgun's primary purpose is to shoot someone. You can make the claim that you want it for shooting rats. But that's ludicrous, for the same amount of money as a handgun, you should be able to get an exterminator out to kill said rats.

Rifles at least have a primary function of being for hunting.

I don't see why /anyone/ should have a problem with waiting periods, and fire gun safety class requirements, and a license for owning a gun. The US isn't a gun enthusiast country anymore, it really has become an unhealthy fetish.

For fucks sake, the NRA lobbied against banning hollow points and armor piercing rounds. There is /no/ reason for a gun enthusiast or a hunter to need either of those. And if you want it for 'protection' first off, if the home invader is wearing a vest you're so fucked it's not funny. That armor piercing round isn't really going to help you. Secondly, given construction in America, that AP round is likely to go through walls and kill some one in the house/apartment next door. Thirdly, if you shoot a guy wearing a vest point blank in the chest, he's getting knocked down, and the wind knocked out of him. Shoot him again, kick the gun out of his hand. You don't need AP. Same goes for Hollow points. Yes, if you're going to shoot a home invader, make sure you kill him, so he can't sue you, but you don't need Hollow Rounds for that. And if you DID use Hollow Points, that means you didn't just want it for protection, but you /wanted/ to kill. It puts a much darker spin on your 'self protection'.