- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.dbzer0.com
- cross-posted to:
- politics@lemmy.dbzer0.com
Already the most disliked man in America, Zuckerberg will show with his next era whether he believes in anything as much as he does power. Was his interest in jiu-jitsu mixed martial arts authentic or a way to ingratiate himself with the manosphere’s podcast hosts? We may know by the time he faces his first inquest. Perhaps he’ll return to the liberal roots of his former public image like founding a pro-immigration nonprofit, as he did a decade ago.
You must log in or register to comment.
They will cozy up to Democrats, and celebrate on stage with them when they take the Presidency.
In return for all of that “coziness” (i.e. donations), Democrats will continue their longstanding policy of not returning to pre-Reagan taxation for corporations and the wealthy (a 50-year tradition)
They’ll cozy up to the Dems. It’s not rocket science. All the corporations pay both parties to further their interests, due to the most idiotic ruling in history: citizens united, which effectively decided that legally in the US, money = speech.
It’s known as a plutocracy … a political system based on money and wealth
As compared to a democracy … a political system based on the will of the people.
America has always worked like the first and it’s debated as to whether or not it ever was the second.
Just in case anyone is curious as to what you mean, here’s a brief historical context.
Up until Trump and adjusting for inflation, George Washington was the wealthiest president in history with his net worth contributing an actual percentage of the US wealth at the time. I mean, we were still getting national loans to the tune of a few million dollars per deal and that was considered adequate at the time.
Jefferson used the White House as his personal palace while he was President and spent as much time throwing dinner parties and receiving guests in his dressing gown as being President and trying to undo everything Hamilton left behind out of pure spite.
It wasn’t until damn near Lincoln (1828) that your average man was able to vote, as only those who owned land were considered educated enough to have a say in government, and when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation we had the “who can vote” conversation all over again, and then once more and with feeling for the women after that.
I’m in Canada and I have this debate often with my friends. One prime example is our federal governments Westminster system of government … where we have a house of parliament filled with elected officials from across the country, who can draw up, debate issues and pass laws … but then those laws are sent to a senate that provides ‘a sober second thought’ to everything … the senate is filled with unelected officials that are placed there by appointment.
Historically, the senate was just filled with friends and associates by the ruling government at the time … basically it meant that every democratic law in the country was first given over to unelected elites and business friendly people to water down anything that went through government … in recent decades, they’ve modernized the system and now it is still appointed people but appointed through a system disassociated with individual political parties or political leaders - apparently senators are appointed by committee
But its still filled with heavily influential people with money and monied interests … they keep arguing that any canadian citizen can be appointed but it never happens because you have to be a fairly wealthy individual, have influence and know lots of people before you could ever be considered for appointment … one of the prerequisites they point out is that individuals considered for appointment must own a minimum wealth of $4,000 (or something like that, I forget the actual figure but it was only a few thousand dollars), which most will argue is not a barrier to many in this day in age. What they don’t point out is that $4,000 in 1867 when the country was founded was equivalent to saying someone should own roughly almost a million dollars in wealth. It was always geared and built into the system to have wealthy overseers watch over the country and protect the wealth of the most powerful people.
Which makes you question, like I do with America, whether we ever did have a democratic system here in Canada
That’s interesting, I didn’t know that about the Canadian Senate.
Honestly though, and this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, the bicameral legislative system in general is a vestige of old social stratification from a bygone age.
The lower chamber (in the US that’s the House of Representatives, but in Canada I suppose it’s the House of Parliament) is basically a derivative of the House of Commons from England/UK. I think it was established by the Magna Carta (if I remember correctly) to give commoners (peasants) a say in government.
The upper chamber, being the Senate, in a similar way derives conceptually from the English House of Lords. In other words, from its inception, the Senate as a concept was always intended to be the house representing the nation’s aristocracy.
Things have changed over time of course, but there are still echos of its origins in the way it functions as the upper chamber, and also in the way people are selected as Senators versus as Representatives.
I’m not saying we should immediately abolish the bicameral system. There are certainly still good reasons to keep both chambers in place (and honestly we could potentially even eventually expand it to a tricameral or quadracameral system, adding a chamber that represents different career fields, or one that that represents different academic disciplines). But it’s just something to be aware of about the history of senates in general.
One thing I think every modern government should employ is a way or means to either change, upgrade or renew a nations constitution or overall governing laws. To change it or update it every 100 hundred years - or every 50 years or after every 10 elections or something. Basically to enshrine into law that the whole system has to be updated to modern standards every few generations to keep up with changing times … a constitution or set of laws that are allowed to change or evolve over time.
I know that the current system tries to employ change over time … but all those changes are based on the laws, system and regulations of a bygone era … systems like ‘senates’ in Canada … or the electoral college in the US
Existing or old laws and regulations were meant to deal with problems or issues from a hundred or even 200 years ago but usually those problems are no longer applicable centuries later … and those insitutionalized changes are only abused to manipulate the democratic system. Updating and upgrading the system every hundred years would serve to evolve the system over time and prevent forces from abusing existing regulations that no longer function.
I am sure that any new system that would be developed would have its own abuses but at least everyone would have an opportunity to do something about it all rather than just sit still and maintain the status quo, even if it means a degraded democratic system.
No matter the country … every nation should have a way to update its system to better represent people in its current age. How do we expect to represent the modern American or Canadian governments using regulations from 100 - 200 years ago when everyone lived with horse and buggy and didn’t have world wide mass communication? And in the future, how do we except future generations to deal with their problems 200 years from now using regulations from the 1900s?
Human society and civilization is in constant change and evolution and technology … we can’t expect our governing systems to stay static over generations while everything changes.
I can see that. I’ve thought a great deal about that two. On the one hand, societies and cultures evolve, so it’s important for governments and institutions to evolve with them. I think building that concept into the framework itself would be important.
On the other hand, it comes with a different set of challenges. Of the two most obvious that stand out to me, one is ideological and one is practical.
On ideological grounds, the point of a government charter such as a constitution is to create a stable system based on certain principles that are at least in theory permanent, inherent, or universal. In modern times, often that includes provisions for certain immutable human rights.
If we make constitutions more malleable, then a side effect of that would be that the rule of law also becomes more flexible. How can we guarantee that over time, in a century or two or even longer, those human rights might gradually become more mutable, until they eventually start to disappear altogether?
On practical grounds, it comes down to how the changes themselves would be implemented. Would the constitutions be updated by citizen’s referendum, by a constitutional convention of state/provincial governors and/or legislatures, by federal-level legislatures? How could that work? And how could the courts provide oversight to such changes if their key role is to ensure the other branches are following constitutional law?
It seems the opportunity for a constitutional convention is rare, because according to the safeguards that are rightfully built into said constitutions, changes require widespread support. That isn’t guaranteed to occur every few generations, nor even every century. And do we really want to impose some rigid schedule for changes and watch politics degrade into a hectic battle for a supermajority every few dozen years?
Furthermore, what if in a century or two, a new wave of fascism happens to take a supermajority and enough state/provincial governments to hold a constitutional convention? That would be like a reversal of the intention, the dark flipside parallel to the bright promise of a governmental system that can adapt to the changing needs of the times. There’s no guarantee that it would be a progressive government in power when it comes time to make updates to the fundamental structure and function of government.
So in that respect, I think stability is important, and some parts of government/constitutional law should be immutable.
Maybe a layered charter could provide a good solution. Some parts that are permanent and can never be changed, and some parts that must be updated on a schedule; say at the turn of each new century.
The challenge then remains in deciding, from a present standpoint, what aspects are enduring and universal, and what aspects are relevant to time-and-place.
Great point … I still think that the governing system should be upgraded and changed over time and given a major overhaul every few generations just to shake off the old ways of doing things.
But I like your point … ‘some parts of government/constitutional law should be immutable.’
There should be a simple straight forward core of government … something so simple that it would only be expressed in about a hundred words. Something basically stating the basic rights of ‘people’ (stating it as people rather than ‘man’ because it would encompass all genders or any other identity that people might have now or in the future)
That core should be agreed upon to never change because it would be the basis of the current generation and future generations of people far into the future.
Everything else surrounding that core would be up for change, upgrading or even removal … so that every generation could lose all the old methods of doing things and create new ways of governing in order to support and maintain that single core constitutional idea that never changes.
