BREAKING: The Colorado Supreme Court holds, 4-3, that Trump "is disqualified" to be president under the Fourteenth Amendment, and "it would be a wrongful act" for him to be listed on the Colorado presidential primary ballot. More to come at Law Dork: https://www.lawdork.com/
@chrisgeidner so much for democracy
@volkris @chrisgeidner You're talking about that time the former guy tried to stay president after we fired him, right?
@liquor_american nope!
This is about the future, preventing voters from voting their choices on future ballots, not about the past.
@volkris @chrisgeidner You see, what you're suggesting would actually violate the constitution, specifically Amendment XIV Section 3.
Please allow me to do the very tiny amount of work for you that you seem unable or unwilling to do for yourself:
@volkris @chrisgeidner A link for you, too, because you need the help https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv
@liquor_american The thing is, even if this is legal and correct and even moral or any standard of propriety that you would like to propose, it still does mean people can't vote for the candidate they want.
Even if it is entirely proper to throw out that democratic process, it still has to be owned that the democratic process is being thrown out.
No matter how correct this may be, it does mean people aren't able to vote for the candidate they want to vote for on the ballots.
And owning that might be part of emphasizing how important it is that this be done. It's reasonable to say that this is so important that we have to throw out democratic principles for the sake of keeping Trump off the ballot.
Fine.
It means that is just this important.
@volkris @chrisgeidner What are you even talking about?
No state owes it to an insurrectionist to include his name on their ballot. Idiots with fucking-up ideas can still write him in if they want. That ought to satisfy you, right?
Or do you actually have some other problem you're not being forthcoming with?
@liquor_american nope, just stating it plainly.
Keeping a major candidate off the ballot means an interruption of the democratic process.
You might say that no state owes it to anybody to support the free vote, and you may say that it's absolutely worth it to interfere with it, and keep Trump off the ballot, and that's fine.
But it's worth it to own what's going on here.
If it's so important to keep Trump off the ballot that the democratic process should be subverted like this, well then let's own that, and let's say clearly that it's so important to keep Trump away that we are willing to interfere with the voting process.
If that's your position, great!
@volkris @chrisgeidner My position is we abide by the US Constitution. If you think your feelings supersede that, it's not really my job to explain to you how that thinking is faulty.
@volkris @chrisgeidner Literally just read the Constitution. It's right there. And if you don't like it, lobby your representatives to repeal the amendment. That is the proper process, since you seem very concerned with processes.
@liquor_american what in the world are you talking about? It has nothing to do with my preferences.
Great! You say the constitution throws the voting process under the bus. Fine. Own it.
It has nothing to do with me or my preferences. It's really about, great if you think it's more important to keep the guy off the ballot, then I guess this is working for you, more important to do this then support the democratic process of voting for who people want to vote for.
I mean I don't live in Colorado. And I don't want to vote for Trump. So it really doesn't impact me.
But if you think this is a good thing, great! Own it!
@volkris
Democracy and following the rules (called "laws" in the US) aren't mutually exclusive choices.
@liquor_american @chrisgeidner
@rhizome I mean in cases like this they are.
If you are interfering with the ability of voters to vote for the person that they want to vote for, then even if that's the law, that's an undemocratic law, and maybe that's fine. But let's recognize it.
@volkris
At a certain remove all laws are anti-Democratic inasmuch as they restrict behavior. I don't want to live in a world without laws, but if you do, the South Sudan is a one-way plane ride away. This is a banal dorm-stoner topic.
@liquor_american @chrisgeidner
@rhizome Right, so again the point is to own the anti-democratic laws, stating proudly that whatever goal is on the table is important enough that it's worth being anti-democratic.
However in this case it's particularly noteworthy because it's about voting itself.
If it's so important to keep people from being able to vote the way they want to, great! The point is to own that, to say it proudly, and to emphasize how important it is to keep that option away from voters.
@volkris
It is in fact so important that we wrote it down in a very special document. A legal rider to the Constitution of the United States of America. That kind of rider is called an “Amendment” and it is proudly displayed on the 14th such document, in its 3rd section. It’s among the strongest of legal measures available to our system of government.
How much more proud and emphatic do we have to be about how “insurrectionists are not allowed to lead without extreme pardon?”
