volkris @volkris@qoto.org
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
@BohemianPeasant Oh this is one of my favorite hobby horses.
People really don't understand what McConnell did because they don't understand how the Senate operates, so that let all of these politicians really pull the wool over people's eyes.
It was a win-win-win arrangement though, so they were really happy to promote it.
The rules of the Senate really emphasize equality, for the most part all of the senators are equal, even the leaders. The president of the Senate has special powers but never mind the sidetrack talking about how we misunderstand the role of the VP these days...
Any Senator could have walked to the podium to start the nomination process, and if the Senate wanted to do it then McConnell could not have stopped it. That's just how the equality rules in the Senate work.
But! As happened so often, Democrats were happy to blame McConnell as a campaign stunt, Republicans were happy to blame him to get out of votes they would rather not deal with, and McConnell himself got to present himself to his own constituents as super duper powerful because everyone else was saying so.
It was a win-win-win arrangement, even though it was terribly misleading of the American public.
To emphasize it, if the Senate wanted to confirm Garland then they would have outvoted McConnell and It would have gone through. The Senate functions largely on pantomime, they negotiate behind the scenes what they're going to say on the floor and script it, and what we see is just the script that they all agreed to.
@nancylwayne Well it's not two different Americas, is two different sets of facts, two entirely different sets of reality based on who you believe, who you listen to.
And this has been the case for years now.
A third of America believes one thing while a third believes the exact opposite. And we no longer have a way of reconciling those two sets of beliefs, those two sets of facts.
This is a very important thing to keep in mind. We really need someone to figure out what's going on, someone that we can all believe in to sort everything out, but there is no such authority looming anywhere on the horizon.
From now on, until we figure out how to work this out, we are going to be living in a world where a huge majority of the population are just going to believe that they are being gaslit by the other half.
It's no way to run a society. But that's what we're dealing with right now.
Uspol
@malderi FWIW, conservatives are promoting it as a success
@chris careful: given his opposition he might win.
@USelaine I mean the Trump supporter response is that he's American...
@doctormo I really don't like the idea of tying exchange of ideas to money like that.
@PDXDemSocialist seriously, Reich became a political hack long ago and that was a shame, but we all need to recognize that these days he just panders in propaganda, and we need to call him out on it.
This is just as misleading as most of the stuff he puts out these days.
@rbreich It doesn't, though.
Because this post is trying to set up a false equivalency between budget and action.
@BohemianPeasant but it's not the role of the Supreme Court in the US system to reflect current perspectives.
Wrong branch of government. That's the legislative branch that's supposed to be reflecting the opinions of the people as they evolve over time.
And the Senate doesn't block appointments. That's not how the process works. Rather, the president works with the Senate to settle on an appointee that our elected senators can accept.
This process was set up this way to ensure that presidents don't wield too much power. It's really important to get it right.
@Nonilex I really don't see what's unclear there.
VPs very often have positions different from presidents, even the current P and VP demonstrate that.
Leaving abortion to the states seems like a pretty clear position to take.
That's not quite how it works in the US, by design.
Winning an election doesn't mean you can freely enact your policies, as that has serious downsides in terms of things like representation and consistency/reliability.
Winning an election means you get a seat at the table to participate in the ongoing discussion about how to govern the country.
The problem is that we keep electing and reelecting politicians who refuse to participate even as they complain that they don't have a voice... that they have but they're not using.
The great example was Democrats shutting down the House of Representatives even while complaining that it's shut down.
Unfortunately, their voters generally don't know what they did and so won't hold them accountable for leaving the conversation.
@crispius@mstdn.crispius.ca
Exactly. And that's exactly why the judicial branch wasn't granted executive authority. It keeps the Court in check.
You don't have to go down the road of violence. The other two branches could simply ignore the Court if it was really so off the rails.
But it's not, despite sensationalized stories getting clicks.
But in just about each of your arguments above there are serious drawbacks and reasons they might actually be counterproductive.
For example, you say the court today is slow. Firstly, I disagree with that, but even if it is, adding more justices threatens to make it exponentially slower, if even more time has to be taken to shuttle drafts back and forth between even more justices.
And you seem to keep going back to representation when the Court is adamantly NOT to be a representative body. Wrong branch of government.
Should the Court start featuring representation it would be a malfunction of the US system, not a benefit.
@xs4me2 probably. It just wasn't very interesting.
Far more interesting is how outfits like NYTimes put out these bizarre pieces that misinform the public... and lots of people notice, which is part of why people have lost so much faith in journalism.
@jmccabe from the reporting (I couldn't find the actual submission, maybe it's just too new) it's not sounding like the argument is over immunity.
That's just a side note, saying that while this isn't about immunity, it has some similar considerations related to actions.
But right, there's a general principle that states can't prosecute federal issues because the federal government must be superior to the states. That includes official acts of a president since he'd be acting on behalf of the federal government.
Imagine if Texas had the ability to take down the federal government by arresting Biden. That's why states can't prosecute presidents, and why this removal process exists.
But the Supreme Court is intentionally not a representative body, that's the Congress. There's no reason at all that SCOTUS should have followed demographic developments.
It's not its role in the federal system, and that threatens to obstruct the branch that IS to be representative.
@crispius@mstdn.crispius.ca the real answer is: voting.
The protection against fascist packing of the court is us not electing representatives who will actively participate in such a move.
All too often Americans overlook the power of their votes--all two few actually realize how their government even operates--as we keep reelecting the exact representatives working against our wants.
We really need to spend more time emphasizing the importance of holding representatives accountable for their actions and stop reelecting the bad ones.
Too often reps will point blame at presidents and judges for their own screwups.
That applies here.
@GerhardD and ONLY for official--that is legal--acts.
That's right, a president can't prosecute his predecessor for something that was legal.
THIS is what Biden's trying to score political points by misleading his base over.
@oligneisti nobody is allowing former presidents to do whatever they like.
The Supreme Court ruling specifically called for prosecuting former presidents for their crimes.
Yes, there's a lot of misinformation floating around out there, and it needs to be countered.
I think the most pressing and fundamental problem of the day is that people lack a practically effective means of sorting out questions of fact in the larger world. We can hardly begin to discuss ways of addressing reality if we can't agree what reality even is, after all.
The institutions that have served this role in the past have dropped the ball, so the next best solution is talking to each other, particularly to those who disagree, to sort out conflicting claims.
Unfortunately, far too many actively oppose this, leaving all opposing claims untested. It's very regressive.
So that's my hobby, striving to understanding the arguments of all sides at least because it's interesting to see how mythologies are formed but also because maybe through that process we can all have our beliefs tested.
But if nothing else, social media platforms like this are chances to vent frustrations that on so many issues both sides are obviously wrong ;)
Joined Dec 2022
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