volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@TheOldGuy The problem is, the churches don't have enough money to afford it so you wouldn't get it.

@nberlat.bsky.social But that just gets into the eternal issue of special interests concentrating to elect one representative who would have to go up against all of the others vs spreading out to sway all of them a little more in their direction.

It's a strategic question of putting all the eggs in one basket or not, and there are arguments in both directions, with no objective answer.

If the people move out then all of the jurisdictions have those Ds shifting their policies.

@504DR If that was true then he wouldn't have ruled against Trump in case after case, ordering lower courts to prosecute the guy and generally rejecting the stuff Trump was asking for.

Yes, social media is full of misreporting about what the rulings actually say. But that's no excuse to believe these conspiracy theories that just don't jive with the record in front of us.

@RememberUsAlways

@RememberUsAlways people like to point to gerrymandering, but that explanation doesn't hold when Senate elections aren't subject to gerrymandering.

No, we choose these people. The representatives that fail us constantly get support from voters who campaign for them. Just everyday voters do actually elect these people.

Any day of the week congresspeople could act against the administration. They are empowered to do so. But we go out and vote for people who decide, meh, this is fine

We voters vest these folks with that authority, and that's how they use it, so here we are.

But maybe if we stopped letting them shift the blame to the courts we might someday demand that they use that authority differently.

@RememberUsAlways Right. But that doesn't change anything here.

We elect morons, and the reason we elect them is kind of secondary to the fact that we are, indeed, electing morons.

Personally I'm a lot more frustrated with the democratic representatives we reelected who are complicit with this administration. But that's the group we voted for, so this is what we get.

@RememberUsAlways No you're absolutely wrong about how that goes.

The courts were intentionally not given executive powers. They were intentionally not vested with any power to check the executive. These unelected judges are only able to issue opinions, and that's all by design. We don't want to give huge amounts of executive power to people that aren't accountable to election processes.

Instead the power is given to the legislative branch which can impeach and otherwise engage with the executive.

So no, by design the courts absolutely do not have any power to check the executive. Not only are they not the final check, but they're not empowered that way at all.

It's up to the people that we elect to Congress to act against the executive if they see fit.

It is so critical that Americans understand how the government is set up if they care about this kind of thing. And it is really a shame that so many don't understand how functions are distributed between the three branches.

@RememberUsAlways No not at all.

If we elected a wet paper towel that's what we get. Yay democracy.

The premise doesn't fall apart. We get what we vote for, so this is what we got.

It's how the system works. We should probably stop reelecting morons, but we do reelect morons, so I guess we like this.

@Nerde No that is absolutely not what happened, despite so much misinformation that went around social media.

The courts absolutely did not rule that the laws don't apply to the president. The courts say the exact opposite of that.

The more you promote that sort of misinformation, well that actually does undermine holding presidents to account.

But it's a lie. Whoever told you that is either wrong or actively lying to you, either way you should stop listening to them.

@RememberUsAlways wrong branch of government.

It's Congress, not the courts, that have the power to smack Trump down.

And really it undermines democracy to get that wrong.

@HarriettMB But the one has nothing to do with the other.

It's really foolish to categorize people that way and promote such prejudice.

@theguardian_us_news I mean the examples being used to make the case pretty much debunk it and point the other direction.

Authoritarianism? We're all complaining that the administration is giving up power!

@festal

Seems like this pretty much proves that blue sky is not in practice fully centralized.

@vortex

@Nerde No, the courts themselves did not rule that.

Contrary to a bunch of sensationalist news stories and political propaganda, no, they didn't rule that, and that's not how any of this works.

@00Aaron source?

@ben No, section 230 is complicated by double and triple negatives so that all of these political commentators don't seem to understand what it actually means, and its repeal is just as complicated

@breedlov

What in the world?

If your local library is so controlled from DC, then it doesn't sound very local.

This is a symptom of a problem.

@Nochem Well you are welcome to give up.

This is the path forward. This is the only path forward. If you think it's futile, okay. Go ahead and give up. Don't waste your time on any of this.

But if you would like to change things, this is the way to change things. This is the only way to change things.

Again, if you want to just roll over and take it then go enjoy your life as best you can. I am always a supporter of the idea that people should go read books under trees and ignore all of this stuff.

If you want to change things, this is your option. If you don't want to, or you don't think the option will work, then it gets you to the same outcome either way.

This is the way to change things. Take it or don't, But I would suggest that you don't waste your time and efforts away from more fulfilling personal enterprises.

Oh, let me go ahead and emphasize that you can make things worse.

@CdnCurmudgeon

@Nochem so again, that's exactly the kind of rhetoric that got Trump elected.

You can speak in these abstract high-minded verbiage all you want, but strategically, it plays into the hands of folks like Trump. Right-wingers literally quote statements like that to build support for their causes. I hear it literally every single day.

You need to rebuild strong international left-wing movements? Okay, great! How? And I would counter with the rhetoric that you are using right in that comment builds the right wing. So even as your rhetoric is supporting the right wing, promoting their causes, how are you going to the international left-wing movement?

Great, your rhetoric is being used by the right wing to elect more right-wingers. How are you offsetting that in building the left wing at the same time?

Because as far as I can tell you're only helping the right wing with that kind of talk, not actually making the left wing any stronger in trade.

@CdnCurmudgeon

@ReggieHere exactly!

So the way to stop them from coming to power is to engage with that minority of people. If it's a minority of people, it makes it even easier because there are fewer people that you have to convince.

It's a heavily gamed democracy? Great! That means the rules of the game stand, and gaming the rules can help change the course of power.

This is the point.

@YourShadowDani @cemedia