Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

[uke2se]

SOrry, but your list sounds like a left wing version of the same Authoratarian crap that right is peddlling.
I note how much you want to silence any criticsim of the left.
Frankly, I get the feeling you would be happy with the end of democracy if it ended with the political left in charge.

Nothing about what he listed is authoritarian. It's a fairly good recipe for a functional democracy.

Gun control would come later, naturally.

 

[RolandRat]

SOrry, but your list sounds like a left wing version of the same Authoratarian crap that right is peddlling.
I note how much you want to silence any criticsim of the left.
Frankly, I get the feeling you would be happy with the end of democracy if it ended with the political left in charge.

What on the list do you object to?

 

[shemp]

Nothing about what he listed is authoritarian. It's a fairly good recipe for a functional democracy.

Gun control would come later, naturally.

Well, I'm glad we can agree on that. Sorry, I shouldn't have come down so hard on you like that. I'm just tired of us being told we suck and we need to do something about it. It's like telling a terminal cancer patient "Hey why don't you just get better?"

 

[dudalb]

What on the list do you object to?

Restricting free speech.
Attempting the impossble by brnging back the Fairness doctrine in age of the Interenet, Satellite broadcasting and streaming.
Sceptical about taxing the Churches, since I thin, given the OP hatred of religio,he wants to close them down.
Things like "endind racism" without giving any idea of how we do that.
Sounds pretty authoratarin to me.

I also think this whole "We are doomed and nothing we can do about it"attitude helps nobody but the right wing nutjobs.
This is a serous situation, and posturing just because it looks cool on the Internet does not help matters.

 

[uke2se]

Well, I'm glad we can agree on that. Sorry, I shouldn't have come down so hard on you like that. I'm just tired of us being told we suck and we need to do something about it. It's like telling a terminal cancer patient "Hey why don't you just get better?"

I don't mind. Being angry with me is natural given what I said.

 

[dudalb]

Nothing about what he listed is authoritarian. It's a fairly good recipe for a functional democracy.

Gun control would come later, naturally.

I would say silencing all criticism of the left..and that is what he is talking about..is pretty authoritarian.
But then you have pretty much shown you don't like free speech either with your wanting to "silence the Fascists" wihtout really defining what a fascist is.
And I do not like the EU restrictions on free speech. Once you begin to go down that road, it never ends well.

 

[uke2se]

I would say silencing all criticism of the left..and that is what he is talking about..is pretty authoritarian.
But then you have pretty much shown you don't like free speech either with your wanting to "silence the Fascists" wihtout really defining what a fascist is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism

 

[bruto]

I note with some pleasure that the Thomas story has made the newspapers, and is getting some attention. Not that I expect much to happen, but anything that does even a minimum of harm or impediment or even inconvenience to Thomas is a step in the right direction. We'll wait and see....

 

[Brainster]

During his presidency, Bill Clinton vacationed for free on Martha's Vineyard at the home of Richard Friedman a "dear friend of the Clintons," and "a major Democratic fundraiser". Cruising? Bill and Hill cruised with the Kennedys.

“August 1998 was a bloody month,” Hillary Clinton wrote in her book Living History. Terrorists bombed two African U.S. embassies; meanwhile, the Lewinsky scandal was reaching fever pitch. “The last thing in the world I wanted to do was go away on vacation.” Nevertheless, the Clintons set off for the Vineyard. Their getaway included a trip aboard the Relemar, whose owner—Jackie O. companion Maurice Tempelsman—offered Hillary marital advice while Bill stayed in the proverbial doghouse with their Lab, Buddy. But that was not their maiden voyage: In 1993 Senator Ted Kennedy took the family for a ride, enjoying a swim with Bill while Hillary, Chelsea, Jackie, and Caroline traded war stories about raising (or growing up as) a teen in the White House.

I certainly hope Ted was just the host, not the driver.

 

[shemp]

During his presidency, Bill Clinton vacationed for free on Martha's Vineyard at the home of Richard Friedman a "dear friend of the Clintons," and "a major Democratic fundraiser". Cruising? Bill and Hill cruised with the Kennedys.



I certainly hope Ted was just the host, not the driver.

The Clintons are politicians. Clarence Thomas is a judge. Politicians are expected to be partisan. Judges are not. There is no equivalence here.

 

[Lurch]

After three generations of comparatively comfortable living following the calamity of WW2, the communal memory has faded. It was a good run, this 80 year spell of more or less general global calm. But the lot of Man is to re-learn painful lessons, if his long history of cyclical strife is a reliable template and guide. It might be truly required that Man, as unevolved today as in the Dark Ages, must periodically let slip his mask of civility in competition and slake his primal urges through violence.

If America is not relieved of this ever widening societal chasm by an attack from a unifying external foe, it might have to come down to a kind of Civil War 2.

Because I see no mechanism by which needed reforms could ever realistically be effected. Not in today's worsening political climate.

What a crying shame, really, that a minority should hold the majority hostage. But that's the end result of letting money equal speech. Money is America's latent curruptor. Which the People naively admitted into its polity like a Trojan horse. A foreign power could hardly equal America's ability to bring about its own destruction. The most potent military the world has ever known, but defenseless against her own greed.

 

[Suddenly]

During his presidency, Bill Clinton vacationed for free on Martha's Vineyard at the home of Richard Friedman a "dear friend of the Clintons," and "a major Democratic fundraiser". Cruising? Bill and Hill cruised with the Kennedys.

Clinton was a politician. Supreme Court justices base their power and claim to deserve to be held above reproach because of their wise neutrality. Just not at all similar even granted he was an amoral scumbag in way more ways than that. Marc Rich, etc.

I certainly hope Ted was just the host, not the driver.

Imagine letting Ted Kennedy drive you anywhere much less somewhere near water.

 

[Suddenly]

The US is currently a bulwark against autocracies, but if it should slip into autocracy itself, it will open the door for many bad actors.

Darn tootin'. Some of them weren't even the ones we installed, caused to be installed, or enabled.


"Ah beer. The cause of and the solution to all of life's problems.” -Homer Simpson -

 

[quadraginta]

[snip]

You know what you need to do. You provided a list. In order to do that, you need to acquire power. The GOP knows this. You need to do whatever it takes. Organize. Get weapons.

This is the U.S. Where could we possibly get weapons?

 

[Suddenly]

Hanging out with lawyers, law professors, and law students has brought to my attention that, in legal academia, the U.S. Supreme Court is viewed with almost as much reverence as the twelve Mormon apostles are by their church. That is, they're seen as gods and goddesses among humanity, blessed with unparalleled powers of reason and a fanatical devotion to the prestige of the law and the principles of fairness. They are often seen as above reproach and beyond the criticism of us mere mortals.
.

It's... unfortunate. Especially given that the Supreme Court has been a terrible institution for the majority of the nation's history.

I mean, some of these people will without irony cite things like Brown v. Board as examples of the importance of the Court to protect individual rights when it was the Court that in the 1870s-1880s were the ones that blocked congress from addressing it in the first place.

Good that it got reversed, but weird to use that to buy into the idea that the Court is inherently noble.

 

[shemp]

It's... unfortunate. Especially given that the Supreme Court has been a terrible institution for the majority of the nation's history.

I mean, some of these people will without irony cite things like Brown v. Board as examples of the importance of the Court to protect individual rights when it was the Court that in the 1870s-1880s were the ones that blocked congress from addressing it in the first place.

Good that it got reversed, but weird to use that to buy into the idea that the Court is inherently noble.

And it only took about 75 years to reverse it! They nailed Roe v. Wade in about 50! The wheels of justice turn slowly but they do turn... though not always in the same direction.

 

[quadraginta]

I'm going to go take some of that medicine now, have lunch and find some cheap mindless entertainment to take my mind off of all of this ****.

I just put on the Disney movie "Invisible Sister". As 'mindless entertainment' goes, it appears to be a great choice.

 

[shemp]

I watch a few episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Food porn.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Nothing CAN be done about it, short of impeachment, which ain't gonna happen.
He also has numerous conflicts of interest involving his wife.

One thing can, and eventually will, be done to break this volksgerichtshof's stranglehold on the application of injustice on your nation. All it will take is for one state governor to declare a ruling to be illegitimate and that would be ignored within their jurisdiction. What would Roberts do if Governor Newsom declared his next illegal ruling is to be ignored in California.

The Supreme Court has no power of enforcement in the final analysis.

 

[Suddenly]

I watch a few episodes of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. Food porn.

I've been watching mid 90s CART races and candlepin bowling reruns from the 80s. I've finally lost it. I don't even like bowling but this fascinates me for some reason.


The YouTube algorithm is scary.