I included the response I would have sent, were the thread not locked. This is how coward libs argue. They're calling the well-known study by Purdue demonstrating that the US is a oligarchy a "far left news source", for context.
Wasn't there a founding father quote where they specifically said they needed to avoid "too much" democracy or else the masses would get empowered and use that against the business owners, or something to that effect?
I am blanking on the specifics of it but perhaps if I throw that out there someone will know what I'm talking about.
Oh lmao I didn't even read down because I didn't expect it to be here so early in the thread.
Tbf it is extremely egregious, the man in no uncertain terms says if we have too much democracy the people will seize the means
Yeah it's one of the most candid examples of class war being waged by their side.
Probably not what you're looking for, but Hamilyon called Democracy a disease in his final letter.
That's pretty standard loser talk. If Jefferson had had his ass handed to him repeatedly, he likely would have penned similar shit.
Considering Hamilton grounds his support for federalism in his opposition for democracy, I don't think so
Liberal democracy has plenty of problems, as evidenced by the failure of the Articles of Confederation.
Opposition to American Democracy in 1776 relative to aristocracy was a matter of margins. And the Jacksonian Democracy that would govern American through the majority of its existence absolutely sucked balls.
Yeah, James Madison. Noam Chomsky brings this up frequently and one of his lectures is where I first learned, many years ago now, about the idea that founding fathers set out not to create a democracy but to protect themselves and their wealth from democracy. Runs quite contrary to what we get taught as school children.
Don't forget the Senate was designed from the beginning as a body to represent the interests of the minority.
i love how in amerikan schools we are taught the senate was created to protect the uwu smol bean states. as if the states themselves would be oppressed. a piss poor attempt at obscuring the purpose of representation, but it somehow worked
Sometimes it is taught as opposing "mob rule" as though when people are in a group their opinions change rather than just get emboldened.
TRIGGER WARNING, SA:
Also, not-so-fun fact, President James Madison had a sister. She was half-black. She was the daughter of the president's father (wealthy plantation owner James Madison Sr.) and one of his slaves. I'll let you infer the sexual assault implications there.
Not-so-fun fact 2: President James Madison had a son. He was one-quarter black. He was the son of the President and his sister-slave. I'll let you infer the incestuous sexual assault implications there.
Not-so-fun fact 3: Jim Madison, the illegitimate son of President James Madison and his sister, was also a slave (since his mother was a slave). President Madison never freed him. Jim worked in the Madison family kitchen, and during President Madison's presidency, Jim worked in the White House kitchen. He was there when the British burned the White House down, and was even ordered to run back into the burning building to save a flag. Jim fell in love with a white woman, who also loved him back, and for this crime, President Madison, his father-owner, sold him away to a Tennessee plantation. (It was actually Dolly Madison who ordered this to happen.) President Madison never saw his son again.
Not-so-fun fact 4: To this very day, President James Madison's white descendants refuse to take a DNA test to prove they are related to his black descendants. His black descendants have family legends that are independently verifiable with recently unearthed entries in Dolly Madison's diary, proving their claims.
I never though I would hate a president more than Andrew Jackson or Thomas Jefferson, but IMO James Madison was the most vile human being ever to be commander-in-chief. At least Jefferson freed all his children when he died. But Madison, the author of the American Constitution, sold his nephew-son away, an act so inhuman I can barely conceive of it.
For further reading: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/52772978
The Madison story sounds improbable at first, but the overwhelming amount of evidence of slave owners taking advantage of their female slaves (especially part-white slaves) makes it much more believable. I mean, Jefferson's black descendants actually do have solid DNA evidence on their side, so Madison wouldn't be the first president to be a documented r*pist. Sally Hemmings was 15 when that started, BTW.
Jefferson was also really gross in describing black women as ideal too or something right? LIke in his personal diaries I remember hearing there were some weird shit he wrote about it.
Well, Sally Hemmings was only 1/4 black and 3/4 white, and her children were 1/8 black and 7/8 white, but because of America's racist laws and cultural attitudes, they were all seen as "black" and all were enslaved. Jefferson was publicly against slavery, but also did nothing to actively fight against it, unlike Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine, who were both part of the Pennsylvania abolitionist society. (Pennsylvania had a lot of anti-slavery Quakers even before 1776.) Jefferson viewed himself as a progressive liberal, much like the French Jacobins. He even started a nailery at Monticello and pitted slaves against each other in a "free market" competition. Slaves who made more nails there were rewarded with nice clothes, management positions at the plantation, etc. Slaves who made less nails were whipped. By the way, most of the slaves who worked in the nailery were children! Here's a link for more reading: https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/nailery/
Fuck, this is the first I’ve read about this. I knew about Jefferson but you’re right, Madison is a whole nother level of grotesque.
The second method will be exemplified in the federal republic of the United States. Whilst all authority in it will be derived from, and dependent on the society, the society itself will be broken into so many parts, interests, and classes of citizens, that the rights of individuals, or of the minority, will be in little danger from interested combinations of the majority. - Madison, 1788
Minority, of course, being rich people.
I really hate those authoritarian tankies so much! Now, how else can I abuse my mod powers to piss off more tankies...
10% of voting-age citizens in the US are not allowed to vote (disproportionately minorities). Of the rest, turnout is usually ~55% and the vote for either party is usually around or under half.
So in the absolute best case scenario, the government is put in by 25-30% of the voting age population, the overwhelming majority of whom are wealthy, white and/or old. So not much has changed.
Obviously without mentioning the many other issues, including the two-party system offering effectively zero choice for any voters anyway.
I'm amazed they can put up a curtain with a big sloppily handwritten sign that says "everyone can vote now" and the majority doesn't bother to peek behind that curtain and see the lie.
Democracy is when you get to choose between old man yelling at cloud and most indicted man in the world who is also old
Thought about calling this out as well, I'm glad you did. This is a extremely naturalized form of ableist discourse (along with insane, stupid, etc) and I know I mess it up sometimes, though I try earnestly to use words that are equally vigorous but not ableist language.
I'm trying to use brain worms to convey the notion that someone's mind is rotten from propaganda, as a way to substitute this language, but I don't always get it right, as yet.
The one I struggle with most is lame
My brain suggests I use it all the time and I can never find a word that fits the meaning I want but without the connotation
weakass and pathetic could cover most uses probably, or loser shit
I want it in the context of a very mild bummer, like the resturaunt you wanted to go to was closed "aww, ****!"
Does lame have a relation to disability? I thought it just meant boring or a bummer
ableist discourse (along with insane, stupid, etc)
using those words is ableism? lol get me outta here
I dont think we ban or even warn people for that language, but we should acknowledge the implications of that. However I think we've been pretty justified in calling things sociopathic or psychopathic behavior, even if we arnt licensed sociologists
This is just completely delusional. The narrative that the US is flawed and was violent in the past, but now is democratic is wrong but still understandable. But the idea that the US has always been democratic is just
Here is my response on the US ever being a legitimate, or democratic country: President of Socialist Party of Zambia: Human development is not sustainable on basis of plunder
Democratic Republics tend to descend into fascist states. It's not a coincidence. The system you're trying to save is why we have fascism.
I had forgotten just how much some people have absolutely no historical knowledge about anything but are completely convinced they know everything. Fucking read The Constitution. You don't have to be an academic to understand what this shit was and is.
Well, democracy is literally communism so you should be happy that you're living in Mao Biden's communist utopia
