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
@MugsysRapSheet just because Trump would be awful doesn't mean Biden is not also awful, in different ways.
In fact, I'd say the chaos of Trump meant he shot himself in his foot, preventing himself from doing a lot of awful things.
Biden has seemed more capable of actually doing his awful things.
It's the choice between an ineffective idiot or an effective idiot. I'll take the ineffective one.
@housepanther@goblackcat.social well it's not really the place for the Supreme Court to side for or against the individual. As a court off appeals its job in cases like this is to judge lower courts, not individuals like Cruz.
The question is, did the lower court err in its ruling? Did the lower court misapply the law or misread it?
In the end, though, no, Cruz was not punished for being homeless. That's simply not what the regulation applies to.
@SherBeareth
@bohnsdorfer55 well it's more a 5th Amendment, takings clause issue.
You'd be devaluing the property by not allowing the company from serving its customers for profit as it sees fit.
But that sort of thing is really muddled in US law, and has been for a long time.
@ChemicalEyeGuy @TheConversationUS
@ChemicalEyeGuy no, I don't think it's the lack of critical thinking skills at the core here.
A more direct problem is that people noticed that well known news outlets were reporting things that they knew to be false, to the point where people lost faith in those outlets.
Platforms like TikTok rose to fill the vacuum.
We need journalism to improve, to regain the trust of the people through valuable and accurate reporting.
There is no substitute for this. Without reliable journalism everything else is up for grabs, and we need to forcefully tell journalists to their faces that they put themselves in this position, and they can fix it.
@TheConversationUS
@Itchy IMO we should always have been emphasizing that the president is elected by the Electoral College, and we know for certain how each elector voted, so we know for certain that Trump lost.
None of the other arguments even matter.
This is one of the huge advantages of the EC system, and we should be emphasizing it.
@Free_Press I wish reporting wouldn't get this backwards like this.
It's not that Johnson needs Democratic help to stay in the job. It's the opposite: the hardliners need Democratic help to oust him.
The hardliners are such a small minority that without Democratic votes they're quickly sidelined.
And we need to hold those Democratic reps accountable for voting with Republican ideologues.
Oh, it's easy to explain why this happened now and not then. It all comes down to procedures of the House.
The Speaker can't just pass legislation unilaterally. He's even limited in how he can propose the consideration of legislation.
It took this long to find a way to gain enough votes among US representatives to move the legislation forward, and it involved compromises and tradoffs that popped up between then and now.
You can see how this worked out, how complicated it was, by looking at the list of votes here:
https://clerk.house.gov/Votes
@ClevelandRock well right, and the example of trying to influence the makeup of Student Council like that is exactly why we don't have such tests for running for president.
We let voters decide who they'd like to head the executive branch, even if that choice might not reflect the preferences of some powerful council who'd otherwise gatekeep.
@cra1g what specifically do you have in mind?
Sounds like opposing this federal rule would be consistent with states' rights arguments.
@wjmaggos that's not really consistent with how ActivityPub is designed in its core.
It's really designed around instances, not identities, so you'd run into problems trying to share identities across instances.
@kayleeserenada to be clear, the argument is specifically not about criminal fines or jail.
It sounds like the regulations were cognizant of the need to strike a balance as they managed public spaces.
@Nonilex well the attack on judges is motivated by PR outside of the trial.
It's not so much stupid as it's just done with a different goal.
@cwdolunt that's not how presidential immunity works.
It means the individual can't be held liable for valid conduct in office, but the conduct must first be valid.
@weirdwriter meh, I don't think it's about what Meta does or doesn't like as much as reminding users that Fediverse doesn't work quite the way they may be expecting it to work.
It seems like a reasonable disclosure to me.
Media is promoting headlines that Democrats are bailing out Mike Johnson when in reality, that's just how it's supposed to work.
It's not bailing out, it's functioning as a chamber that has different representatives representing different districts.
This is really important to call out because this notion of Us versus them, team red versus team blue is really sensationalized, misleading, and just plain corrupting to the US system of government.
The Speaker of the House is the speaker of the entire House, Democrats and Republicans and independents.
There are majority leaders and minority leaders to represent the two major parties, and it's just ignorance of basic civics to conflate the speaker with those other offices.
@realcaseyrollins I would say the CBSNews story misses critical issues of intentional tax fraud and violation of federal campaign laws that make this more than just a hush money case.
Many people have been downplaying the charges on account of them being just an NDA that was mishandled, as if by accident even.
@Perspective you're not going back far enough, though: politics didn't go off the road when Trump was elected. Rather, Trump was elected after and because of politics having gone off the road.
Trump's election was an effect, not a cause.
We've seen an erosion of faith in many institutions, including the federal government, over the years, and Trump's election was a symptom of that.
You mention people in the back of the room, and that's a pretty good analogy with some tweaks. Many of those people DID want to be there, but they were feeling excluded, felt like they were being sent to the back of the room and ignored by the teacher.
After that they elected Trump as a way of getting attention.
We need to address the underlying issues that created that situation, but we can't do that unless we focus on the problem.
Unfortunately, folks are distracted by the Trump circus and don't look at how it came to be.
@normalguy that's not how the legal system works, though.
@realTuckFrumper
@Runyan50@newsie.social no, the MAGA folks are already voting Trump.
But there are Republicans and independents out there who are trying to stick it to the system by voting for the felon.
If that means get ready for the purge, well, get ready.
But really, it means we need to get it together, take government more seriously, including addressing the concerns of such people through the democratic process.
We didn't get to this point randomly. It took a generation to undermine faith in the system so badly.
@StephenRamirez@universeodon.com
@slcw presidents don't have that authority.
This is more sensationalism, and when the sky turned out not to be falling last time Trump was elected a lot of people lost faith in all of the folks who were running around with their hair on fire.
That's not how the US government works.
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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