HarkMahlberg

joined 1 month ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The papers we hold up and say "this will be the foundation of our government, society, and economy" can say anything we want, but none of the words on the page matter once the people in the system abdicate their responsibilities to point at something wrong, refuse to participate, and work against it.

SOX controls are the result of the Enron fraud, but those are also just words on a page. The US Constitution is just words on a page. SCOTUS may very well rule this year that the US government cannot deport native-born, tax-paying, passport-holding, lived-here-all-their-lives US citizens.

Watch as the Trump administration does it anyway. It's all just words to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Well there's the disaster that was hexbear...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

They also have 1.4 Billion people, each.

4x the US population.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

The Baltics catching strays: "and I took that personally"

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah they were never learned to begin with.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Wow... That's quite the journey. Thank you for sharing it.

It's particularly enlightening is that the diversity of information presented to you is what helped you change. Not just one "gotcha" quote from some online commenter, one snippy remark about a noticeable hypocrisy. Not one source of disruption, but many. I think that's fascinating, and extremely helpful for those of us with family who only get their news and opinions and politics from one place.

Again, thanks for telling your story.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

They'll willingly catch leprosy if Trump told them to.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I know, I didn't mean to sounds argumentative with you. You presented the facts clearly for the OP who asked their question. :)

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

This is why I would have crossed behind but, did he make eye contact with you? A Pillars are so fucking thick nowadays cars have blindspots forward of the driver. And frankly some people should have never passed their driving tests and we would have public transit to get them where they need to be.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Had a guy pulling out of a parking lot while I was walking on the sidewalk, with him waiting on the sidewalk to pull into traffic. He actually bothered to back up a bit so I didn't have to walk in front or behind him. It wasn't necessary but a cool gesture. We could all do a little more of that in the world.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The supreme court stacked with Trump and Bush appointees, the ones who were installed there explicitly so they would abdicate their responsibilities and dissolve the separation of powers.

When people say they want Democrats to fight harder, what they're asking for is for someone to use the same dirty tricks as Republicans to defend their democratic institutions as opposed to tearing them down. To that end, we ought to wipe our ass with SCOTUS's ruling on presidential immunity. Merchan should have sentenced Trump anyway. Let the Republicans appeal back to SCOTUS, and then wipe our ass with their decision a second time.

It's distasteful to stoop to their level of dirty tricks and stall tactics, but playing by the rules is what fascists always count on to seize power. Even if we have to break our own rules, we should fight them with everything in the proverbial arsenal. The country and its people will not survive if they have their hands tied behind their backs by the paradox of tolerance.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (4 children)

It is worth pointing out that other governments have prosecuted and removed their presidents, prime ministers, and other heads of state, and their government still function.

This article covers a good assortment of those cases, from Sarkozy to Netanyahu.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/heres-when-other-countries-have-prosecuted-former-leaders

Unfortunately it predates South Korea's most recent crisis, and Netanyahu's use of the war in Gaza to stay in office.

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

Last I checked, Isreal, South Korea, and France have not collapsed or lost any functionality by those events.

The argument US conservatives love to put forth is "contacting Georgia's governor and asking that he conjure up enough votes to help Trump win, that's an official presidential request, it was totally kosher" is wrong, and no other words other than "wrong" need to be used to describe it. Asking a governor to rig an election is not "the exercise of a constitutional power [that cannot] be infringed on [by] holding the individual personally liable" because it is not a constitutional power being exercised. It is just corruption and authoritarianism.

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