Americans are meant to use expression, communication, association and assembly (including voting), not violence, to assert or defend our rights, our liberty, our sovereignty
I concur; that's clearly what the Founders intended. But...Citizens United put the government up for sale to the highest bidder, and the ultrawealthy purchased it. (The top three donors to various Republican PACS spent over half a billion dollars, or close to $1.50 for every person in the country).
In the words of Justice Brandeis, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Based on the destruction of guardrails and consumer protections over the past few months, the ultrawealthy earned a superb return on their investment, and they are unlikely to relinquish their ownership. Bluntly, they don't give a damn what we have to say!
That's the kind of logic that leads people to think they should resort to violence or just do nothing. If someone is looking for excuses to go in either such direction, they can probably find plenty. I'm trying to help people who want to do something understand how they can do something lawfully and see how we were expected to do so by the founders and empowered to do so by our Constitution.
I very much admire the men who created this country and the profound thoughts they contributed to its Constitution. What concerns me is that once the ultrawealthy have captured the government, it's relatively easy for them to keep that control unless the Supreme Court recognizes the disaster they've created and finds a way to correct their error. Unfortunately, we know that a majority of the Justices were selected because they would ignore the Constitution and vote to not "discriminate" against the wealthy (but discriminate against all the rest of us).
We can and will use our First Amendment rights to restore our sovereignty, but I fear the degree of polarization we face and suspect that too many people will give up when faced with the slightest threat. We've already experienced that capitulation from organizations we fully expected would resist.
Roger, again, you rely on contentions that seem to justify doing nothing or resorting to violence, e.g., "the ultrawealthy have captured the government" and "it's relatively easy for them to keep that control," in part, because of "capitulation from organizations we fully expected would resist." How do such observations do anyone any good?
This is a time to stop relying on someone else to do the hard work. This is a time for individuals to commit to putting in the effort to help make a difference. I'm trying to help show how and why.
I have a somewhat different concept of where we're going, and violence isn't part of it.
The combination of recent Supreme Court decisions, including Citizens United and its follow-on cases, and Dobbs, along with the constitutional imbalance of power in the Senate, has resulted in a serious rift in this country that cannot readily be resolved.
I suspect that California will withdraw from the United States, possibly accompanied by Oregon and Washington, and later joined by Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, forming the Western States of America. The foundations of that nation will remain the same, based on the Declaration and Constitution, without the problems created by the justices selected by the Federalist Society. The remaining States will suffer under rule by the oligarchs until they destroy it.
If you think secession would be simple and it wouldn't involve violence, maybe you should watch Ghandi (starring Ben Kingsley). It's worth watching for multiple reasons. One reason is that it illustrates how secession would play out. Pakistan was created from a part of India.
Or you could review some history from the 90's. Yugoslavia's citizens were almost all ethnically slavic. The country broke up, and before long the most powerful part was attacking other parts and trying to "cleanse" land of people deemed undesirable.
Would you like an even more recent example? Russians and Ukrainians also are ethnically slavic. Their common heritage is the reason some Russians think they're entitled to take over Ukraine. That's the reason Russians are murdering Ukrainians and kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Roger, this is my point precisely. People are talking about how bad things are to purport to justify things that are far worse. People are talking about things that are, at the very least, absurdly unconstitutional (like secession of states). They also very likely will or would result in considerable violence. Such people really aren't thinking at all. They should be thinking about how to work within the system created by our Constitution. Did you learn nothing from Civil War history? Did you learn nothing from the history of our Constitution? One of the first and strongest arguments for forming "a more perfect Union" was that the alternative was very likely to be another very destructive civil war very soon. See, e.g., The Federalist Nos. 9 and 10. States cannot constitutionally secede. It should be obvious to all that they will not be allowed to do so.
I concur; that's clearly what the Founders intended. But...Citizens United put the government up for sale to the highest bidder, and the ultrawealthy purchased it. (The top three donors to various Republican PACS spent over half a billion dollars, or close to $1.50 for every person in the country).
In the words of Justice Brandeis, "We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Based on the destruction of guardrails and consumer protections over the past few months, the ultrawealthy earned a superb return on their investment, and they are unlikely to relinquish their ownership. Bluntly, they don't give a damn what we have to say!
That's the kind of logic that leads people to think they should resort to violence or just do nothing. If someone is looking for excuses to go in either such direction, they can probably find plenty. I'm trying to help people who want to do something understand how they can do something lawfully and see how we were expected to do so by the founders and empowered to do so by our Constitution.
I agree with you, and I abhor violence.
I very much admire the men who created this country and the profound thoughts they contributed to its Constitution. What concerns me is that once the ultrawealthy have captured the government, it's relatively easy for them to keep that control unless the Supreme Court recognizes the disaster they've created and finds a way to correct their error. Unfortunately, we know that a majority of the Justices were selected because they would ignore the Constitution and vote to not "discriminate" against the wealthy (but discriminate against all the rest of us).
We can and will use our First Amendment rights to restore our sovereignty, but I fear the degree of polarization we face and suspect that too many people will give up when faced with the slightest threat. We've already experienced that capitulation from organizations we fully expected would resist.
Roger, again, you rely on contentions that seem to justify doing nothing or resorting to violence, e.g., "the ultrawealthy have captured the government" and "it's relatively easy for them to keep that control," in part, because of "capitulation from organizations we fully expected would resist." How do such observations do anyone any good?
This is a time to stop relying on someone else to do the hard work. This is a time for individuals to commit to putting in the effort to help make a difference. I'm trying to help show how and why.
I have a somewhat different concept of where we're going, and violence isn't part of it.
The combination of recent Supreme Court decisions, including Citizens United and its follow-on cases, and Dobbs, along with the constitutional imbalance of power in the Senate, has resulted in a serious rift in this country that cannot readily be resolved.
I suspect that California will withdraw from the United States, possibly accompanied by Oregon and Washington, and later joined by Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, forming the Western States of America. The foundations of that nation will remain the same, based on the Declaration and Constitution, without the problems created by the justices selected by the Federalist Society. The remaining States will suffer under rule by the oligarchs until they destroy it.
If you think secession would be simple and it wouldn't involve violence, maybe you should watch Ghandi (starring Ben Kingsley). It's worth watching for multiple reasons. One reason is that it illustrates how secession would play out. Pakistan was created from a part of India.
Or you could review some history from the 90's. Yugoslavia's citizens were almost all ethnically slavic. The country broke up, and before long the most powerful part was attacking other parts and trying to "cleanse" land of people deemed undesirable.
Would you like an even more recent example? Russians and Ukrainians also are ethnically slavic. Their common heritage is the reason some Russians think they're entitled to take over Ukraine. That's the reason Russians are murdering Ukrainians and kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Roger, this is my point precisely. People are talking about how bad things are to purport to justify things that are far worse. People are talking about things that are, at the very least, absurdly unconstitutional (like secession of states). They also very likely will or would result in considerable violence. Such people really aren't thinking at all. They should be thinking about how to work within the system created by our Constitution. Did you learn nothing from Civil War history? Did you learn nothing from the history of our Constitution? One of the first and strongest arguments for forming "a more perfect Union" was that the alternative was very likely to be another very destructive civil war very soon. See, e.g., The Federalist Nos. 9 and 10. States cannot constitutionally secede. It should be obvious to all that they will not be allowed to do so.