Huh.
If only there was supreme court legislation that fit what the majority of Americans have always wanted.
if supreme court was for the people it would be appointed by the people.
Rut Roe (v Wade), shaggy. Shots fired.
supreme court legislation
The supreme court does not legislate. No court of any kind should be legislating. That’s the damn problem.
The reason the US is in the position it’s in is because while the rest of the world was going through its bodily autonomy revolution and democratically legislating abortion access, the US relied on a judicial decision (without a lawmaker being involved) based on a fragile foundation of “right to privacy”.
I don’t disagree with your point regarding this specific argument, but we want to avoid a tyranny of the majority for a reason. It’s dangerous. Popular rule isn’t good because there may be a time where what’s popular isn’t aligned to your beliefs. Or quite frankly to what is logically “right”. Law should be based on established reason, logic, precedent, etc. and not on what most Americans want. Most Americans are dumb.
Yeah that minoritarian Supreme Court is pumping out great decisions, letting a minority rule is clearly the way forward and not totally insane babble.
About six-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases
Fox News poll finds voters overwhelmingly want restrictions on guns
Increasing share of Americans favor a single government program to provide health care coverage
If political results in the USA followed popular will instead of the fucked up system it runs, it would be a much better country. Trust democracy more.
So wild that 6/10 Americans want universal healthcare and yet it has almost zero support from the people actually in congress.
The real wild thing is by and large a lot of policies the Democrats champion for have wildly popular uptakes across the entire political spectrum in the US but the Democrats themselves lack the overwhelming public support to implement them.
Florida passed a $15 minimum wage ballot measure and yet as a state votes almost wholly for Republicans.
Net neutrality has broad national support. Democrats never have sufficient legislative power to enshrine that. Repeat ad nausuem with all sorts of popular policies like inflation-tied minimum wage, secured abortion access, healthcare for all, legalize marijuana, etc.
These policies are popular. Half of Congress is represented (in loose terms) by a broad coalition of people who haven’t lost it but can’t really pass anything people really want because they lack the majorities needed to do so unopposed from both across the aisle and within their own ranks, and the other half have completely lost the plot.
I agree with most of this comment however I do not think more than 40% of the democrats currently in congress would ever vote yes on a universal healthcare bill no matter how air tight. The senate definitely doesn’t help, but I’m not even sure about the house.
Also, couldn’t they bring back net neutrality via the FCC right now? Sure it could get overturned by the next republican majority, but make a public commitment to keep changing it back every time the dems are in power so it’s a waste for companies to try and entrench themselves in business models that rely on its death.
Regardless, this is why I want to move to California so badly. Basically the only state consistently fighting for its people these days.
I do not think more than 40% of the democrats currently in congress would ever vote yes on a universal healthcare bill
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was, at least at its time, a revolutionary piece of legislation that got watered down by Democrats capitulating to Republican demands and “Democrats” (i.e. incredibly conservative Democrats who are Democrats in name but not really) weakening the bill and the fact the Democrats’ filibuster proof majority really only existed for a few weeks at best, and despite all of that, it passed and despite its weaknesses, have had immense positive impact on the lives of many everyday people. Democrats passed the bill knowing they would get eviscerated in the immediately following election, which they did.
A clean universal healthcare bill, no strings attached, handed to the Democrats with a sufficiently large majority such that the most conservative of their ranks can break without jeopardizing the bill’s passage, will likely pass. I wouldn’t bet my life savings on it, but the notion the Democrats in general wouldn’t pass public good legislation does not line-up with their actual legislative and voting history. If a clean universal healthcare bill makes it out of the current House’s subcommittee with no Republican gotchas, I’m fairly confident most of the Democrats will vote for it, and those that will not are likely to do so for political maneuvering knowing it won’t pass.
You may say I’m being idealistic, and honestly I admit I am. But I think chances are good with a strong majority trifecta, strong and large enough for holdouts to vote against and not jeopardize its passage. Such a majority will probably never exist for another half a generation at least though. And at least from my PoV, dismissing the possibility is a grim outlook and a great way to lead to both discouragement and disillusionment of the process, and at least to me, there is only one major political party that benefits from people being disengaged and disillusioned.
Net Neutrality as it stands currently is being implemented because a variety of states (WA, CA, as examples) implemented some form of NN that is similar but not quite different. The FCC tried to preempt the ability for individual states to implement their own NN-esque laws or requirements but this was shot down by the courts. The consequence is, pragmatically speaking, NN of some form exists without the FCC directly intervening anymore because telecom companies aren’t very keen in implementing this at a state-based level, so very much like how CA has an undue influence in emissions standards due to its large market and the fact no company really wants to build one product for CA and one product for some of the rest of the states.
A number of West Coast states are aggressively passing legislation to the benefit of their citizens (WA’s minimum wage law has been signed for a while now, for example).
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Almost like there’s more than two options, and maybe we should opt for one that doesn’t have an “either or” decision making process…
Tyranny of the majority > Tyranny of the minority every, single, time.
Personally I wouldn’t want any kind of tyranny. But I guess that’s just me.
You make a good point, but it would land harder if the Supreme Court was not already a complete disaster that has been exposed for currying favor amongst the rich and powerful. The independence of the the court system from the government is one of the most important measures of a functioning democracy. You can see what is happening in Israel as an example of this point. In the United States it is no different and sadly the Supreme Court has done an horrendous job at showing they maintain any kind of independence from the political arms of our country.
Most Americans are dumb
This is pretty much why many of the founding fathers were against democracy. They wanted the rich, property owning men to be able to vote but thought that the poor and the working class (such as it was at the time) needed to be controlled lest they try to take away the property that rightfully belonged to the people who inherited it. They weren’t looking to secure the rights of ethnic minorities (obviously). They feared that popular elections would lead to a loss of property for the wealthy, whom they thought were the best positioned by virtue of education, influence, and an inborn sense of noblesse oblige to act in the best interests of the country as a whole. Rich people were obviously not going to be in it for themselves. The rich are the most likely to be selfless, and in any case their interests were most closely aligned with the interests of the country.
I think political science has moved past that model and has generally come to recognize that oligarchy is anti-democratic. Democracy would recommend free and widespread public education to try to make Americans less dumb.
There’s a party that is in opposition to that.
Public education is tricky since it needs to be reformed before its truly a worthy cause. It could be great, but for now there’s a lot of issues with it and people latch onto those
I have a feeling a lot of the issues are introduced by people who are interested in taking public education private. There’s a strong push from the US right to spend tax money funding privately run charter schools or to simply fund religious education as opposed to public schools.
I think, like with health care, the US should look at models from other countries that work better than ours. For now, US universities rank among the best in the world, but politicians like Ron DeSantis are coming for them, too.
But then you get the rule of the minority with our current gerrymandering. Is that really better? You’re definitely right on established reason, logic, and precedent, but people can argue that they have points for all of those things that support abortion rights and points that support restrictions abortion. To basically anyone either side is established reason, logic, and precedent.
It’s not necessarily one or the other, you can cater to the needs of both the majority and the minority. They don’t come into conflict nearly as much as conservatives would have you believe. As long as we don’t cater to the needs of the minority that want to supplant the majority, and instead to those who want to live in harmony with everyone else.
Policies should in general be focused on the statistically proven as beneficial options. Instead we go for wedge issues that actually matter to no one.
Wedge issues like the majority versus the minority?
Trans men in sports is one of the hottest issues right now. Would you say you truly care about that at all?
I dunno if I use podcasts as my metric for how hot an issue is. The only time I really hear about that kind of thing is when people are complaining (albeit rightly so) about Joe Rogan’s latest attempt at keeping himself relevant.
Tyranny of the majority is a myth.
People who use “tyranny of the majority” seriously seem to prefer the “tyranny of a specific minority” - which is the only existing alternative.
Too bad it’s not based on either right now. Majority rule is far from perfect, but minority rule tends to be worse. Law exclusively based on logic and reason may be a noble goal, but the most dangerous and extreme ideologues believe their arguments to be perfectly reasonable. At some point someone has to decide what is logical. Who? And how are they selected?
Until we have good answers to these questions I’m in favor of democratic systems.
This is what Republicans don’t understand. The more tightly they try to squeeze, the more the future will be exactly what they don’t want. Pushing an unpopular position this hard will only make people consider even more extreme versions of the opposing opinion.
I mean, it’s a very good point – why should the government have any say? It’s antithetical to what libertarians and small government proponents say.
Republican politicians don’t actually care about abortion, they’re just using it for the controversy. If anything, they like this since the fight is what fires up their base and drives them to the polls.
They do this with everything. They never pass any useful bill, they just go for easy shit to rile people up.
It’s much worse than that. The anti-abortion drive is anti-woman. Sure, it’s a wedge issue for some politicians, but overall it’s about rolling back women’s rights until they’re domestic non-citizens who depend entirely on their father, brother, uncle, husband. The anti-abortion drive also has the benefit of pleasing the ones who hate the poor, as the poor women are the most affected, while rich ones can “find ways around” the bans. In the US, that combines with racism too.
The essence of conservatism being: “rights and liberty for me, but not for thee”
what they pass is useful to them and their donors. They are also less interested in passing bills and rather confirm judges, privatize services, and remove regulatory oversight. The point is making it easier to commit white collar crime.
its a divider issue they don’t give a shit they just know they can maintain the religious vote with it while they rob everyone blind. They’ve also figured out making places not worth living in for progressives will drive them out of their districts.
They don’t care.
The goal is not to set things up and then sit down and be happy. The goal is to eradicate democracy and control the US until they die, at home and surrounded by their harems.
reagan was the era of “let’s build a future for nazis”. We are in that future. Now it is all about short term gains until they never have to have another election again.
That’s what they want. They want extremism.
It shows how much they lack self-awareness, since they themselves only double down when told “no.”
Well, yeah, it’s almost like the government shouldn’t get to control your body.
Politicians shouldn’t practice medicine without a fucking license either.
Ben Carson is a great neurosurgeon but the dumbest of dumb when it came to any government. He is either paid to be that dumb or he is actually just that cognitively dissonant.
Hey buddy, are you really saying that the guy who said “the pyramids were for storing grain” is dumb?
Yeah, he’s a good example of specialized intelligence. He’s is pretty damn stupid outside of his core specialization. And even if he’s a medical professional, he shouldn’t be able to put broad, invasive, extreme sweeping medical decisions on the people of the US. That should all be between patients and their doctors.
Are you an antivaxxer?
No, however the only vaccine I’ve gotten since I was a kid was the COVID one and that was by choice. I wasn’t forced to do so.
So 3 seconds before the head crowns, you should be able to kill the baby?
edit: no debate, just downvotes, huh?
An abortion ‘3 seconds before the head crowns’ is called a birth. Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. If you can terminate the pregnancy without killing the fetus, go for it. The fact is, almost every abortion performed in the third trimester is due to the fetus being unviable or the health of the mother.
So you just absolutely refuse to engage in the thought experiment if the result of it proves you wrong.
If you can terminate the pregnancy without killing the fetus, go for it.
If you can end the pregnancy without killing the fetus, but you kill the fetus, should that be illegal?
It’s not a fetus once it’s born and killing it would be infanticide. Why don’t you know this?
What does “once it’s born” have to do with this conversation? And why are you dodging my question:
If you can end the pregnancy without killing the fetus, but you kill the fetus, should that be illegal?
Do you know how loudly dodging this question speaks? You’re basically admitting it.
I think you’re not thinking through the complications of the question. If you had to kill the fetus to save the life of the mother rather than allow it to be born, should that be legal? If the fetus is discovered to have a fatal flaw that will allow it to live only a few days in severe agony if it isn’t put out of its misery immediately, should that be legal?
Or should we allow all pregnancies that are viable in terms of a successful birth happen that way regardless of circumstance?
So what you’re saying is that it depends? Yeah, I agree. And we both therefore disagree “States Shouldn’t Be Able To Put Any Limits On Abortion”. We also therefore agree it’s fine for the government to have some control over your body.
What is you think we disagree on, and why?
clicks downvote
What if there’s 1mm of the baby’s toe still inside the mother, and she decides to shoot it in the head? Still legal?
This is not how it works and I believe you know this. Fuck off
Aw, lost your temper because you can’t force people to believe in your incoherent opinion?
We don’t live in hypothetical land. We live in the real world we’re what you are suggesting doesn’t really happen. Where a majority of abortions happen in the first trimester and are not done in a whim. Your hypothetical sounds smart but is mussing on reasons why the sky is green. We can talk all day about what is green but guess what, the sky is blue.
I’ve never killed anyone, and I almost certainly never will. Should we make it law to say I can, just because we’re sure I won’t?
You’re shitting on the very concept of a thought experiment and of a hypothetical. What you’re doing is like saying “The law should say you should be able to murder whoever you like so long as the sky is green, because the sky is never green”. This is a tactic to avoid addressing the issue. Namely, even if you don’t think something is going to happen, why would you allow it, if it absolutely musn’t?
They say it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it, but if you absolutely refuse to entertain it for strategic reasons, change the date. A healthy fetus, a few days passed due date, maybe no more than week from labour, could easily be induced, mother decides “Actually nah”, takes a bunch of pills to kill it - you good with that?
And in this case, tyranny of the majority isn’t even saying “you need to get an abortion.” If your religion says that abortion is wrong and thus you refuse to have any, great. Go for it. That’s your choice. However, what the majority is saying is that the minority can’t impose their religious beliefs on everyone else.
I’m in the minority due to being Jewish and not Christian. I’m also somewhat religious to the extant that (among other things), I don’t eat bacon. However, while I won’t be indulging in bacon, I would never dream about telling other people that they couldn’t eat bacon due to my religious beliefs.
I’m even fine if people eat bacon in front of me. I don’t have any control over what they do with their bodies. I’d be upset if someone intentionally gave me food containing bacon in an attempt to get me to eat bacon. But that goes back to control over my own body, not other people’s bodies.
(And, I know that “not eating bacon” isn’t anywhere close in scale to abortion. I just find it a handy analogy to use.)
Personally I don’t think the vast majority of states deserve senatorial representation, much less the right to spend a significant portion of their budgets on exquisite buildings full of overpaid suits deciding asinine shit like “The state fruit of Missouri is the blueberry”
The problem is that federal representatives only represent their states. More often than not they don’t give a flying fuck about anyone else. Which means they will burn the world to the ground as long as they get even the smallest concessions for their own voters. It might not be a bad idea to have a more fluid form of representative, where there’s overlap between represented areas, but no two senators represent the exact same base. You’d leave the House alone, excepting to maybe expand it so it better reflects its representative states.
Obviously a pretty radical change that’d never happen, and kind of a spur-of-the-moment kind of thought by someone with literally no political training or experience… but it sounds better than what we have, at least in my internet addled brain.
Meh, who needs representatives? Throw them all in the meat grinder and direct democracy everything. You could probably even pay everyone to vote and still come up ahead of the endless pageantry, security, and other associated costs.
With a direct democracy you increase the problem I talked about a million-fold. Instead of a few hundred people selfishly taking care of their own interests instead of those of the whole country, you have a few hundred million doing the same.
If we had a much more educated and empathetic population, it’d be effective. But we’re so far from that right now it’s laughable.
Depriving everyone of civic responsibility doesn’t help.
Personally, I’ll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Missourah
Missouri deserves the blueberry, they suck ass. Least favorite berry for sure.
Too bad they won’t let US vote on it.
I think the growing change in opinion is likely based on and more stories and information about late stage abortions out there. I knew I didn’t think about them as much before Roe. However, it’s pretty obvious that the viability compromise is the real middle position with more people favoring no restrictions each day
Indeed. The more unfortunate horror stories people will hear, the more Americans will be against limiting abortions.
That’s how it always works. The fact is that no one wants a late stage abortion its the least worst choice
People take the extreme since it’s hard to argue with. But in reality, it’s across the board better to leave it as an option in plenty of circumstances. You’re saving a life in technical terms, but by and large those kids will not be born into a good situation. And it will ruin their parents lives too.
How are abortion rights tyranny against anybody?
iT’s TyRaNnY fOr ThE
FeTUnBoRn BaBy
Cue Robin Williams Jumanji image macro with, “WHAT YEAR IS IT” text.
Yes, but evidently these people don’t bother to vote.
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Tyranny is not applicable here because the supreme court ruling did not ban abortion. Individual state laws can be tyrannical, but I think a lot of them are supported by the majority in the state.
If that were true then states wouldn’t be trying to stop ballot measures and direct voting.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/23/us/republicans-abortion-voting.html
Fair, they probably don’t want to take the risk at all
