Portlander here, and the OP invoked Portland's experiences in 2020-2021. A couple thoughts on that, in lieu of writing my own post on the subject.
I largely agree with the sentiments of the ADL's Mark Pitcavage, quoted in the OP's linked article that Portland's Antifa/Black Bloc have adopted a strategy that is counterproductive to their stated goals and crosses the line into unacceptable and unjustifiable violence.
While I'm broadly sympathetic to the generalized goals of police reform and discouraging violent right-wing groups from coming here and causing trouble, experience demonstrates that what these yahoos do entrenches the police into an us-versus-them mentality and causes them to double down on the very tactics that Antifa protests. It's not like there aren't a lot of people active in the legitimate channels of politics trying to enact police reform as well.
As to the Proud Boys and other wingnuts from (mainly) north of the river, they come here looking for a fight. I dislike that Rose City Antifa gives one to them. I dislike MORE that these yahoos come here in the first place. But one of the reasons that they do is Oregon's very liberal free speech laws, which not coincidentally are the same root cause for the proliferation of strip clubs in a city that was supposed to have been cleaned up from vice in the 1970's. (Hah.) So the fact of the matter is that there's only so much governmental authorities can do to stop the Proud Boys from caravaning over the Jackson Bridge to assemble in our many public forae and do their thing. Meanwhile, right-wing politicians in Oregon have been very successful at preserving firearm rights, so we're an open carry state with a "shall issue" law for concealed weapon permits, meaning these guys are armed with a lot more than bear spray when they show up. And the likes of Rose City Antifa are explicitly not pacifists, and sometimes they come armed, too.
Bypassed in favor of addressing the sexy topic of Proud Boys and Antifa shooting it out in Chapman Square, however, is the complex knot of issues that keeps these left-wing groups active: the overlap between rank-and-file members of the Portland Police Bureau and the right-wing groups from north of the river, the extensive and racially-tainted cultural history of the Portland Police Bureau to attempt (and sometimes fail) to assert overwhelming force over principally left-wing political demonstrators; and the astonishing political and legal power of the police union, the Portland Police Association, to protect those same misbehaving rank-and-file members from facing any enduring consequences for breaking the law or rules of conduct imposed by would-be police reformers.
The result of this confluence of phenomena is that, not entirely unlike what other left-wingers referenced in the OP who have protested "Cop City" in Atlanta have objected to, the police department becomes a place where some young men of a right-wing political bent go to find an outlet for their impulses to violence, because there will be powerful forces at play legitimating their violent behavior and a cadre of peers within the agency who facilitate it.
So the bad actors here that I see as bearing responsibility for creating a culture where violence is a real possibility at political protests are, in descending order but closely-spaced: 1) Right-wing militia groups like Proud Boys; 2) Rose City Antifa, Black Bloc, and their fellow-travelers; and 3) the PPA.
Most of the city, and indeed a good chunk of the city's Establishment, looks upon the status quo with a degree of horror and sends marching orders to our politicians to change it. Police reform is here, as elsewhere, an uphill battle against both prevailing culture and bureaucracy. The state's constitutional law is a formidable barrier to political entities putting obstacles between the people who have demonstrated a willingness to publicly brawl with their adversaries over politics. Most of the rest of us would like nothing more than for the violence to go away so we can eat our sushi burritos from the food carts in peace while we watch home equity values skyrocket as though this was California in the 1990's. But these problems aren't going to go away.
A final thought is that something unique happened during the Trump years. Trump was widely and intensely unpopular in hippie-progressive Portland, so there was lots of political agitation against him. And Trump loved it. That catalyzed the embedded institutional forces that have grown to foster these violent clashes and by the time we got to the George Floyd protests in 2020, Trump (and there's every reason to think he was personally involved in it, not just his people) decided that they could portray Portland as a city full of anarchists, lunatics, and nut cases against whom there was no choice but to deploy the forces of violence in the name of preserving law and order. So what was new was that the Federal authorities and the national media stepped in with a visibility we hadn't seen before and further catalyzed the base conflicts as well as splashing it all over the national news.
Now, for all that, it was still confined to only a few very small areas of the city, like it always is, because those are the only spaces that are 1) free speech forae where people can assemble, at least during the pre-violence phases of things, 2) large and open enough where there can be that sort of clash at all, and 3) symbolically close to police centers.
I don't know if the cognate is true in Atlanta. It sounds like "Cop City," the big training facility, is well away from Atlanta's downtown. But it also sounds like there's a history and some ongoing local culture in Atlanta that also perpetuates struggles against left-wing activists and the police, politically polarizing the police against their antagonists.
What I think we, the overwhelming majority, can do is insist upon politicians who see the holistic issue with clear eyes and without bias in favor of any side, who move the various institutions quietly but relentlessly in favor of de-escalation. Alas, this is not sexy and takes years of unglamorous and difficult work. And all it takes is one flare-up of violence for de-escalated feelings to re-polarize.
Which is why we will probably always have this problem, perhaps in varying degrees but never absent, everywhere.
We're going to see environmental concerns invoked more and more, from all over the political spectrum, as justification for a variety of obnoxious things. We're already seeing environmental concerns invoked in Europe to justify anti-immigrant political agitation, the kind from whence it shall be but a short step to violence. Instead of "they're going to come here and take all our jobs!" it's going to become "they're going to come here and drink all our fresh water!"
All I know of Madison's thoughts was that he generally believed the contemporary republican governments did not confront the same scale of tasks that the Framers did, with so large and diverse a population and geography, unlike Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Venice.
But we've got this from Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia, which may be summed up as "Insufficient checks and balances":
All the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the [House of Burgesses]. The concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one. 173 despots would surely be as oppressive as one. Let those who doubt it turn their eyes on the republic of Venice. As little will it avail us that they are chosen by ourselves. An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. For this reason that convention, which passed the ordinance of government, laid its foundation on this basis, that the legislative, executive and judiciary department should be separate and distinct, so that no person should exercise the powers of more than one of them at the same time. But no barrier was provided between these several powers. The judiciary and executive members were left dependant on the legislative, for their subsistence in office, and some of them for their continuance in it. If therefore the legislature assumes executive and judiciary powers, no opposition is likely to be made; nor, if made, can it be effectual; because in that case they may put their proceedings into the form of an act of assembly, which will render them obligatory on the other branches. They have accordingly, in many instances, decided rights which should have been left to judiciary controversy: and the direction of the executive, during the whole time of their session, is becoming habitual and familiar. And this is done with no ill intention. The views of the present members are perfectly upright. When they are led out of their regular province, it is by art in others, and inadvertence in themselves. And this will probably be the case for some time to come. But it will not be a very long time. Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them; distinguished too by this tempting circumstance, that they are the instrument, as well as the object of acquisition. With money we will get men, said Caesar, and with men we will get money. Nor should our assembly be deluded by the integrity of their own purposes, and conclude that these unlimited powers will never be abused, because themselves are not disposed to abuse them. They should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.
George Washington was compared to Cincinnatus on many occasions so it's doubtful Washington would have accepted (though one suspects others from the era, like Adams or Jefferson or maybe even Hamilton might have; Burr definitely would have but he wasn't going to have got the offer before one of them; Franklin would surely have laughed at the offer and thanked the Monarchial Selection Committee* on behalf of his son); the video goes to some pains early on to point out that it's just speculative genealogy.
Inherited prominence, either with or without meaningful amounts of political power, doesn't strike me as a great idea. That which makes admirable people admirable is almost never heritable and frequently effed up by the formative experiences of access to wealth, fame, and power their descendants get to enjoy.
* On reflection, we ought to concoct an acronym for "WITAN" that would substitute for Monarchial Selection Committee.
Seems to me that this data suggests mortgage rates don't have a direct effect on the price-to-income ratio, but lowering mortgage rates over time might have catalyzed whatever other thing it is that's made housing prices escalate faster than incomes.
1. Assault in the Second Degree: Acquitted
2. Assault in the Third Degree: Convicted
3. Assault in the Second Degree: Convicted
4. Assault in the Second Degree: Convicted
5. Assault in the Third Degree: Convicted
6. Unlawful Use of a Weapon: Convicted
7. Unlawful Use of a Weapon: Convicted
9. Riot: Convicted
10. Riot: Convicted
11. Criminal Mischief in the First Degree: Convicted
12. Criminal Mischief in the First Degree: Convicted
Particularly given that modern robotics means that any American manufacturing renaissance will probably not bring massive numbers of jobs along with it (and thus not provide a substantial amount of the psychological benefits spoken of in the OP), it bears a moment's thought as to why we would want more manufacturing here.
There will be some jobs, of course.
It would boost our GDP.
It would cultivate industrial infrastructure.
It could help our import-export ratio.
It would allow us more control over how the goods are made (specifically thinking about environmental concerns here).
It could be a point of national pride.
All of these things may well be worth it and important. Certainly they all sound good. My point here is that it is important to not see growth in our manufacturing sector as an inherent good, but rather as a means to some other end. It helps us have an intelligent discussion and make intelligent decisions in pursuit of this goal if we understand the benefit we seek.
Also, horse-trading. Neither is possible in a world where people insist that bad-faith actions be treated as the equivalent of good-faith actions.
I can imagine some things conservatives might suggest in good faith, like legislatively carving out an exception to anti-discrimiantion-in-public-accommodation laws for providers of products and services intended for weddings. That probably wouldn't violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause on its face the way this proposal does. I don't know whether I'd support or oppose such a proposal, but I wouldn't think it offered in bad faith.
This isn't such a proposal.
(N.b., of course, almost no one of any political alignment actually cares about abstract principles of Constitutional law and in particular the nuances of federalism; such things are weapons to use or, alternatively, obstacles to be dodged, in pursuit of victory.)
There's a unionized Starbucks right in my neighborhood. I could walk there from my house if I were of a mind to drink Starbucks (as opposed to the superior product available at a closer, local coffeehouse). Coffee there costs no more than at a non-unionized Starbucks elsewhere in the city.
There are also a few fast food places that have unionized here as well, particularly a local chain called Burgerville. Not every Burgerville location is unionized but the two closest to my home are.
The only difference I've noticed at these unionized coffee and fast food places is that I am presented with an opportunity to leave a tip for the staff when I pay electronically. Upon inquiry, I find that the tips are pooled. I've noticed no differences whatsoever in the prices of the products or the quality of the service.
If your point is that nothing is unconstitutional if we're talking about amending the Constitution, then, I'll grant it. We could amend the Constitution calling for the President to be crowned king and hereditary succession of the office via ecclesiastically-legitimated male primogeniture if there were sufficient political will to adopt Carolingian executive leadership norms in the 21st Century. You'd be laughed out of Congress for suggesting it, but it wouldn't be illegal.
Or is the thought exercise "What would happen if, by some miracle, we adopted this language as the 28th Amendment?" If that's the question, then I'd predict that the US would become a North American version of the European Union within a decade, and within a decade of that, there would be the equivalents of Brexits, and within a decade of that, we'd have what are currently states going to war with one another over water. And I'ma call that "a superlatively bad idea."
...and what? Congressmember Greene could sponsor your proposed Constitutional amendment and try to gather political support for it. She might succeed, but probably would not. But there's nothing wrong with her trying to do that. In fact, I think if she were serious about this "national divorce" idea, it is approximately what she would be doing. Has she proposed a resolution to amend the Constitution in (more or less) such a way? I think the answer is "no," else we'd have heard of it. Hence, Slade's point remains the most trenchant: this is not-serious talk coming from a not-serious person, and we've all already paid it far too much attention here.
Only a few actually think we're murderous perverts. In practice the rest confine themselves to saying "Eww gross," and living their lives peaceably. Which is all we can really ask of our differently-minded neighbors anyway, and all most of them really ask of us. Which is fine.
Horse trading and compromise and log rolling and all the other things decried as "politics" were the tools the Framers thoughts would get us through the vagaries of "faction." At least, I think I read that somewhere once.
I'd ask you to bear in mind that there are incentive issues this sentiment is up against: "Public affairs are going pretty well, our elected officials are doing more or less what I'd like them to, and things are satisfactory to me if not affirmatively good," might be reason for me to be happy for you, but that isn't likely to make for an interesting post. "Here's something that is sub-optimal and here's how I would see it improved" is much more likely to produce something interesting to read, and more likely to prompt an interesting debate.
Politics is downstream of other things in the culture, and there's evidence of a significant push by the Ed Board to get more upstream culture things posted here. We've got weekly poetry, semi-weekly comments on science in the media and in particular the movies and TV, lots of food, and a few road trip stories.
I see Jaybird getting friction from others in arenas like public policy and politics. But I don't see a lot of vitriol shot at him when he discusses ways to zazz up a pizza, what's good and bad about a classic video game, or offers up an earned-brag about finishing a 5K. Those ordinary life type posts are well-received, solicit pleasant sharing of observations from others, and political alignment in responding to them is generally of such trivial importance as to not be commented upon. I bet if you look hard you can find someone disagreeing strenuously with Jaybird on a political post and two minutes later offering a non-confrontational post about food or gaming or whatever on a different post.
I should bring my own lunch to the office from home more often. Yes, the food carts are delicious. Yes, there are good restaurants downtown that need support if they are to thrive. But food from home is less expensive and healthier. And I would like to lose some weight...
Oh, who the hell am I kidding? It's Korean cart Wednesday -- time for bibimbap!
On “A Tale of Two Riots”
Portlander here, and the OP invoked Portland's experiences in 2020-2021. A couple thoughts on that, in lieu of writing my own post on the subject.
I largely agree with the sentiments of the ADL's Mark Pitcavage, quoted in the OP's linked article that Portland's Antifa/Black Bloc have adopted a strategy that is counterproductive to their stated goals and crosses the line into unacceptable and unjustifiable violence.
While I'm broadly sympathetic to the generalized goals of police reform and discouraging violent right-wing groups from coming here and causing trouble, experience demonstrates that what these yahoos do entrenches the police into an us-versus-them mentality and causes them to double down on the very tactics that Antifa protests. It's not like there aren't a lot of people active in the legitimate channels of politics trying to enact police reform as well.
As to the Proud Boys and other wingnuts from (mainly) north of the river, they come here looking for a fight. I dislike that Rose City Antifa gives one to them. I dislike MORE that these yahoos come here in the first place. But one of the reasons that they do is Oregon's very liberal free speech laws, which not coincidentally are the same root cause for the proliferation of strip clubs in a city that was supposed to have been cleaned up from vice in the 1970's. (Hah.) So the fact of the matter is that there's only so much governmental authorities can do to stop the Proud Boys from caravaning over the Jackson Bridge to assemble in our many public forae and do their thing. Meanwhile, right-wing politicians in Oregon have been very successful at preserving firearm rights, so we're an open carry state with a "shall issue" law for concealed weapon permits, meaning these guys are armed with a lot more than bear spray when they show up. And the likes of Rose City Antifa are explicitly not pacifists, and sometimes they come armed, too.
Bypassed in favor of addressing the sexy topic of Proud Boys and Antifa shooting it out in Chapman Square, however, is the complex knot of issues that keeps these left-wing groups active: the overlap between rank-and-file members of the Portland Police Bureau and the right-wing groups from north of the river, the extensive and racially-tainted cultural history of the Portland Police Bureau to attempt (and sometimes fail) to assert overwhelming force over principally left-wing political demonstrators; and the astonishing political and legal power of the police union, the Portland Police Association, to protect those same misbehaving rank-and-file members from facing any enduring consequences for breaking the law or rules of conduct imposed by would-be police reformers.
The result of this confluence of phenomena is that, not entirely unlike what other left-wingers referenced in the OP who have protested "Cop City" in Atlanta have objected to, the police department becomes a place where some young men of a right-wing political bent go to find an outlet for their impulses to violence, because there will be powerful forces at play legitimating their violent behavior and a cadre of peers within the agency who facilitate it.
So the bad actors here that I see as bearing responsibility for creating a culture where violence is a real possibility at political protests are, in descending order but closely-spaced: 1) Right-wing militia groups like Proud Boys; 2) Rose City Antifa, Black Bloc, and their fellow-travelers; and 3) the PPA.
Most of the city, and indeed a good chunk of the city's Establishment, looks upon the status quo with a degree of horror and sends marching orders to our politicians to change it. Police reform is here, as elsewhere, an uphill battle against both prevailing culture and bureaucracy. The state's constitutional law is a formidable barrier to political entities putting obstacles between the people who have demonstrated a willingness to publicly brawl with their adversaries over politics. Most of the rest of us would like nothing more than for the violence to go away so we can eat our sushi burritos from the food carts in peace while we watch home equity values skyrocket as though this was California in the 1990's. But these problems aren't going to go away.
A final thought is that something unique happened during the Trump years. Trump was widely and intensely unpopular in hippie-progressive Portland, so there was lots of political agitation against him. And Trump loved it. That catalyzed the embedded institutional forces that have grown to foster these violent clashes and by the time we got to the George Floyd protests in 2020, Trump (and there's every reason to think he was personally involved in it, not just his people) decided that they could portray Portland as a city full of anarchists, lunatics, and nut cases against whom there was no choice but to deploy the forces of violence in the name of preserving law and order. So what was new was that the Federal authorities and the national media stepped in with a visibility we hadn't seen before and further catalyzed the base conflicts as well as splashing it all over the national news.
Now, for all that, it was still confined to only a few very small areas of the city, like it always is, because those are the only spaces that are 1) free speech forae where people can assemble, at least during the pre-violence phases of things, 2) large and open enough where there can be that sort of clash at all, and 3) symbolically close to police centers.
I don't know if the cognate is true in Atlanta. It sounds like "Cop City," the big training facility, is well away from Atlanta's downtown. But it also sounds like there's a history and some ongoing local culture in Atlanta that also perpetuates struggles against left-wing activists and the police, politically polarizing the police against their antagonists.
What I think we, the overwhelming majority, can do is insist upon politicians who see the holistic issue with clear eyes and without bias in favor of any side, who move the various institutions quietly but relentlessly in favor of de-escalation. Alas, this is not sexy and takes years of unglamorous and difficult work. And all it takes is one flare-up of violence for de-escalated feelings to re-polarize.
Which is why we will probably always have this problem, perhaps in varying degrees but never absent, everywhere.
"
We're going to see environmental concerns invoked more and more, from all over the political spectrum, as justification for a variety of obnoxious things. We're already seeing environmental concerns invoked in Europe to justify anti-immigrant political agitation, the kind from whence it shall be but a short step to violence. Instead of "they're going to come here and take all our jobs!" it's going to become "they're going to come here and drink all our fresh water!"
On “VIDEO: Who Would Be King?”
All I know of Madison's thoughts was that he generally believed the contemporary republican governments did not confront the same scale of tasks that the Framers did, with so large and diverse a population and geography, unlike Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Venice.
But we've got this from Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia, which may be summed up as "Insufficient checks and balances":
"
George Washington was compared to Cincinnatus on many occasions so it's doubtful Washington would have accepted (though one suspects others from the era, like Adams or Jefferson or maybe even Hamilton might have; Burr definitely would have but he wasn't going to have got the offer before one of them; Franklin would surely have laughed at the offer and thanked the Monarchial Selection Committee* on behalf of his son); the video goes to some pains early on to point out that it's just speculative genealogy.
Inherited prominence, either with or without meaningful amounts of political power, doesn't strike me as a great idea. That which makes admirable people admirable is almost never heritable and frequently effed up by the formative experiences of access to wealth, fame, and power their descendants get to enjoy.
* On reflection, we ought to concoct an acronym for "WITAN" that would substitute for Monarchial Selection Committee.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 2/27/2023”
It's 361.9 ZWD = 1 USD as of today. If trends continue, we won't get to 500:1 until at least June!
"
I think this is an incomplete data point, but what you suggest sounds right.
It looks to me like if you compare median home price to media income, both nationally and by region,, things started to get seriously out of whack in the early 90's along the NE corridor and the west coast, and other NE and W markets following by the mid-to-late-90's.
But average mortgage rates over about the same period of time slowly but steadily declined, up until literally less than a year ago.
Seems to me that this data suggests mortgage rates don't have a direct effect on the price-to-income ratio, but lowering mortgage rates over time might have catalyzed whatever other thing it is that's made housing prices escalate faster than incomes.
"
Excellent work here, Chip.
"
Local news about a guy who made himself a national figure. The readout from Multnomah County Circuit Court is:
Sentencing is in three weeks.
On “Mini-Throughput: Why “Natural Immunity” Isn’t All That Hot”
I feel you, man. If it doesn't make the virus bounce off your chest like Captain America's shield repelling bullets, what's the point even?
"
We should celebrate the likes of Jonas Salk, Joseph Lister, and Norman Bourlag much more than we do.They have saved literally billions of lives.
On “The COVID Origins Debate Heats Back Up”
Thanks for this.
On “Maybe Domestic Manufacturing Should Come Back”
I can dig it.
"
Particularly given that modern robotics means that any American manufacturing renaissance will probably not bring massive numbers of jobs along with it (and thus not provide a substantial amount of the psychological benefits spoken of in the OP), it bears a moment's thought as to why we would want more manufacturing here.
There will be some jobs, of course.
It would boost our GDP.
It would cultivate industrial infrastructure.
It could help our import-export ratio.
It would allow us more control over how the goods are made (specifically thinking about environmental concerns here).
It could be a point of national pride.
All of these things may well be worth it and important. Certainly they all sound good. My point here is that it is important to not see growth in our manufacturing sector as an inherent good, but rather as a means to some other end. It helps us have an intelligent discussion and make intelligent decisions in pursuit of this goal if we understand the benefit we seek.
On “TSN Open Mic for the week of 2/27/2023”
Also, horse-trading. Neither is possible in a world where people insist that bad-faith actions be treated as the equivalent of good-faith actions.
I can imagine some things conservatives might suggest in good faith, like legislatively carving out an exception to anti-discrimiantion-in-public-accommodation laws for providers of products and services intended for weddings. That probably wouldn't violate the Full Faith and Credit Clause on its face the way this proposal does. I don't know whether I'd support or oppose such a proposal, but I wouldn't think it offered in bad faith.
This isn't such a proposal.
(N.b., of course, almost no one of any political alignment actually cares about abstract principles of Constitutional law and in particular the nuances of federalism; such things are weapons to use or, alternatively, obstacles to be dodged, in pursuit of victory.)
"
Or during lunch break.
On “Maybe Domestic Manufacturing Should Come Back”
There's a unionized Starbucks right in my neighborhood. I could walk there from my house if I were of a mind to drink Starbucks (as opposed to the superior product available at a closer, local coffeehouse). Coffee there costs no more than at a non-unionized Starbucks elsewhere in the city.
There are also a few fast food places that have unionized here as well, particularly a local chain called Burgerville. Not every Burgerville location is unionized but the two closest to my home are.
The only difference I've noticed at these unionized coffee and fast food places is that I am presented with an opportunity to leave a tip for the staff when I pay electronically. Upon inquiry, I find that the tips are pooled. I've noticed no differences whatsoever in the prices of the products or the quality of the service.
On “Against ‘National Divorce’”
If your point is that nothing is unconstitutional if we're talking about amending the Constitution, then, I'll grant it. We could amend the Constitution calling for the President to be crowned king and hereditary succession of the office via ecclesiastically-legitimated male primogeniture if there were sufficient political will to adopt Carolingian executive leadership norms in the 21st Century. You'd be laughed out of Congress for suggesting it, but it wouldn't be illegal.
Or is the thought exercise "What would happen if, by some miracle, we adopted this language as the 28th Amendment?" If that's the question, then I'd predict that the US would become a North American version of the European Union within a decade, and within a decade of that, there would be the equivalents of Brexits, and within a decade of that, we'd have what are currently states going to war with one another over water. And I'ma call that "a superlatively bad idea."
"
...and what? Congressmember Greene could sponsor your proposed Constitutional amendment and try to gather political support for it. She might succeed, but probably would not. But there's nothing wrong with her trying to do that. In fact, I think if she were serious about this "national divorce" idea, it is approximately what she would be doing. Has she proposed a resolution to amend the Constitution in (more or less) such a way? I think the answer is "no," else we'd have heard of it. Hence, Slade's point remains the most trenchant: this is not-serious talk coming from a not-serious person, and we've all already paid it far too much attention here.
"
Only a few actually think we're murderous perverts. In practice the rest confine themselves to saying "Eww gross," and living their lives peaceably. Which is all we can really ask of our differently-minded neighbors anyway, and all most of them really ask of us. Which is fine.
AND THAT'S WHY WE DON'T NEED A NATIONAL DIVORCE
"
Query if advocating secession is contrary to the Congressional oath of office. It's certainly contradictory to the Pledge of Allegiance.
"
Horse trading and compromise and log rolling and all the other things decried as "politics" were the tools the Framers thoughts would get us through the vagaries of "faction." At least, I think I read that somewhere once.
On “The Impervious Joe Biden”
If what you crave is competence, that comes in a lot of flavors. Biden is clearly competent at government.
If what you crave is some other attribute of Nixon, we just had that. 846 days ago, the voters said "No más."
On “New Conservatives: Do You Want Vengeance, Or A Solution?”
^
|
|
This
On “Lent!”
I'd ask you to bear in mind that there are incentive issues this sentiment is up against: "Public affairs are going pretty well, our elected officials are doing more or less what I'd like them to, and things are satisfactory to me if not affirmatively good," might be reason for me to be happy for you, but that isn't likely to make for an interesting post. "Here's something that is sub-optimal and here's how I would see it improved" is much more likely to produce something interesting to read, and more likely to prompt an interesting debate.
Politics is downstream of other things in the culture, and there's evidence of a significant push by the Ed Board to get more upstream culture things posted here. We've got weekly poetry, semi-weekly comments on science in the media and in particular the movies and TV, lots of food, and a few road trip stories.
I see Jaybird getting friction from others in arenas like public policy and politics. But I don't see a lot of vitriol shot at him when he discusses ways to zazz up a pizza, what's good and bad about a classic video game, or offers up an earned-brag about finishing a 5K. Those ordinary life type posts are well-received, solicit pleasant sharing of observations from others, and political alignment in responding to them is generally of such trivial importance as to not be commented upon. I bet if you look hard you can find someone disagreeing strenuously with Jaybird on a political post and two minutes later offering a non-confrontational post about food or gaming or whatever on a different post.
That's part of our brand.
"
I should bring my own lunch to the office from home more often. Yes, the food carts are delicious. Yes, there are good restaurants downtown that need support if they are to thrive. But food from home is less expensive and healthier. And I would like to lose some weight...
Oh, who the hell am I kidding? It's Korean cart Wednesday -- time for bibimbap!