United States Politics Thread 47

[Torco]

often there exist some definitions of victory at least, such that it is the case that they are in fact not achievable. feudalism lasted for a long while until it didn't, and eventually the same should happen to liberalism or any other social system. I'm not thrilled about what might come next, if we in fact are living in such a time.

[malloc]

often there exist some definitions of victory at least, such that it is the case that they are in fact not achievable. feudalism lasted for a long while until it didn't, and eventually the same should happen to liberalism or any other social system. I'm not thrilled about what might come next, if we in fact are living in such a time.

Quite. The time will come when liberalism must end, but I always hoped that something better would replace it. Instead we are hurtling toward authoritarian regimes all across the world.

Regarding the recent supreme court ruling, my understanding is that most countries do not allow the courts to nullify laws, only to rule whether they've been followed or violated. It seems like the US is unusual in giving greater weight to court rulings than decisions of the legislature. Is that an accurate impression?

[WeepingElf]

Regarding the recent supreme court ruling, my understanding is that most countries do not allow the courts to nullify laws, only to rule whether they've been followed or violated. It seems like the US is unusual in giving greater weight to court rulings than decisions of the legislature. Is that an accurate impression?

I think it is a regular feature of democracies that the supreme court has the power of nullifying laws that violate the constitution.

[Lērisama]

Regarding the recent supreme court ruling, my understanding is that most countries do not allow the courts to nullify laws, only to rule whether they've been followed or violated. It seems like the US is unusual in giving greater weight to court rulings than decisions of the legislature. Is that an accurate impression?

I think it is a regular feature of democracies that the supreme court has the power of nullifying laws that violate the constitution.

Laughs in UK¹

¹ That's not entirely fair any more, as courts can issue a strongly worded polite request for parliament to fix a law that's incompatible with the Human Rights act, but that's still not real constitution review

[WeepingElf]

Regarding the recent supreme court ruling, my understanding is that most countries do not allow the courts to nullify laws, only to rule whether they've been followed or violated. It seems like the US is unusual in giving greater weight to court rulings than decisions of the legislature. Is that an accurate impression?

I think it is a regular feature of democracies that the supreme court has the power of nullifying laws that violate the constitution.

Laughs in UK¹

¹ That's not entirely fair any more, as courts can issue a strongly worded polite request for parliament to fix a law that's incompatible with the Human Rights act, but that's still not real constitution review

Well, strictly spoken the German Bundesverfassungsgericht cannot nullify laws, but order the legislature to revise them. (Or so I think it works, but I am no expert on this.)

[Richard W]

¹ That's not entirely fair any more, as courts can issue a strongly worded polite request for parliament to fix a law that's incompatible with the Human Rights act, but that's still not real constitution review

A UK statute may override the Human Rights Act, so long as it states that does so. This preserves the supremacy of the King in Parliament.

Strikingly, the UK Supreme Court overruled the clause that had later been added to the British Nationality Act 1981 that insisted that the mother's husband at the time of birth was the father of a child; the Court allowed the natural father to be considered as the father for nationality purposes.

[malloc]

Admittedly the common law system of the US has always sounded rather janky to me, at least as Wikipedia and such describe it. The whole concept of precedent, where law derives from continuity with past judicial rulings, sounds remarkably pre-modern like tribal custom or something. The civil law approach of deriving law from legislative makes more sense in my opinion.

[Travis B.]

Fuck you both California Democrats and California Republicans.

[malloc]

Fuck you both California Democrats and California Republicans.

Quite. While we're focused on global catastrophes like the climate and war, we can't forget about local bullshit like this. Although it does sound like proposals to kick children off of social media and require IDs for such are rapidly becoming a global problem as well.

[alice]

Is anyone else disappointed by the obvious lack of imagination in the name "Project Freedom"?

[malloc]

Just to underscore one impact of the war, gas prices around here have surged from less than three dollars before the war to nearly four and half dollars today. Admittedly gas is undoubtedly cheaper here than in many other parts of the country and expensive gas is hardly the worst impact of this war. Nonetheless, if nothing else sours Americans on the MAGA movement, surely this will.

[Travis B.]

Just to underscore one impact of the war, gas prices around here have surged from less than three dollars before the war to nearly four and half dollars today. Admittedly gas is undoubtedly cheaper here than in many other parts of the country and expensive gas is hardly the worst impact of this war. Nonetheless, if nothing else sours Americans on the MAGA movement, surely this will.

Americans have soured on the MAGA movement.

[Torco]

Admittedly the common law system of the US has always sounded rather janky to me, at least as Wikipedia and such describe it. The whole concept of precedent, where law derives from continuity with past judicial rulings, sounds remarkably pre-modern like tribal custom or something. The civil law approach of deriving law from legislative makes more sense in my opinion.

i live under a civil law system, and tbh i wouldn't be opposed to juries. precedent is something all legal systems have, though it's slightly less important in civil law regimes than in common law ones, but juries and sortition in general seem to me quite democratic. there was a high profile corruption case in chile recently where the corruptors literally got, as a sentence, ethics classes. involving common citizens in the process seems to me a small but relevant counterweight to the very marked class character of judiciaries otherwise have: you have rich judges arguing with rich lawyers about what happens to people, after all, so you'd expect them to be extra lenient with other rich people and extra harsh towards the poor, like you can steal millions and get a fine, but steal a sack of potatoes and you get years in jail.

[malloc]

i live under a civil law system, and tbh i wouldn't be opposed to juries. precedent is something all legal systems have, though it's slightly less important in civil law regimes than in common law ones,

Is that so? Wikipedia made it sound like precedent is the biggest difference between common law and civil law.

With the latest supreme court ruling against the Voting Rights Act, we (or more precisely supporters of democracy in the US government) really need to consider how to proceed. Based on everything I have heard so far, this seems like checkmate for the Democrats, permanently saddling them with a twenty-seat disadvantage. And before anyone suggests it, there is not a chance in hell that white Southerners will suddenly vote for leftist or centrist candidates. I have lived here all my life and know them well enough not to expect any such thing.

[zompist]

Most interesting article I've read all week:

Cory Doctorow: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene?

In short: Petrostates have probably doomed the fossil fuel extraction industry. First, petrostate leader Putin created one oil shock by invading Ukraine. Then, petrostate leader Trump created another by starting a war with another petrostate, closing the strait of Hormuz. As he's too shit-stubborn to admit he lost the war, he cemented his defeat by adding his own blockade to Iran's, guaranteeing a long closure and astronomical prices.

Meanwhile renewables are now cheaper than fossil fuels, and batteries allow 24-7 use. For decades activists have tried to get people to switch because, gosh, maybe we shouldn't destroy the ecosphere. Now the whole world bar the petrostates is realizing that it's a national security disaster to rely on fossil fuels-- and that it's now cheap enough to switch.

Of course Trump will do his best to immiserate the US and make sure it loses the technology race to China. But riding to power on promises to lower prices, then raising the cost of oil and fertilizer, is not the winning strategy for November he thought it was.

[Nachtswalbe]

@Nortaneous Can you list some of influences in your politics, any books you read for example?

[Torco]

i live under a civil law system, and tbh i wouldn't be opposed to juries. precedent is something all legal systems have, though it's slightly less important in civil law regimes than in common law ones,

Is that so? Wikipedia made it sound like precedent is the biggest difference between common law and civil law.

it is, yeah. I've heard this idea but if you dig a bit more, you'll find that it's a universally agreed upon principle, i think, that it is unfair if we both steal a car and you get three days in jail whereas i get three years, so yeah, everyone does this afaik, though to different degrees. the law students in my uni did check precedents all the time though.

then again, for the us, it seems less relevant, since i hear a large majority of cases end up in agreements between the prosecution and the defense.

[lëtzeshark]

it is, yeah. I've heard this idea but if you dig a bit more, you'll find that it's a universally agreed upon principle, i think, that it is unfair if we both steal a car and you get three days in jail whereas i get three years, so yeah, everyone does this afaik, though to different degrees. the law students in my uni did check precedents all the time though.

It's what's called jurisprudence constante, but it means more that a string of cases create precedent (that isn't necessarily controlling, but it is persuasive), while the common law stare decisis means a single case can create controlling precedent.

then again, for the us, it seems less relevant, since i hear a large majority of cases end up in agreements between the prosecution and the defense.

That's the plea bargain system on the criminal side, indeed, though there's a big issue there in terms of a tendency for prosecutions to involve throwing lots of charges to try to get a guilty plea to a lesser charge. For example, a former math teacher of mine who was charged with four felony counts of having sex with one of their students (which carried up to 17 years in prison total) instead agreed to plead guilty to a single count of sexual battery (which was only a misdemeanor). Granted, civil cases often end with a settlement process, which is similar in principle. Part of it is also that the US has what's called the American rule for attorney's fees: in most cases, each party bears its own cost of litigation, even if that party wins. This means there's quite an interest to terminate a court case in a timely manner, not to mention the calculated risk of what can happen if you go to trial and lose.

[alice]

Most interesting article I've read all week:

Cory Doctorow: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene?

Fascinating, and I fully support the name "Gretacene" for the new era. If he's right, it'll cause a fundamental change in the global economy, which gets me wondering: what will the decline of late-stage plutocratic capitalism look like in practice? Obviously not the proletariat taking to the streets and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to bring about the socialist utopia, romantic as that may sound; will we see the billionaires retreating to their hideaways and the rest of the world shrugging their shoulders and getting on with things?

Of course Trump will do his best to immiserate the US and make sure it loses the technology race to China.

Inasmuch as it's possible to provide rational explanations for any of Trump's actions, is it safe to attribute this to stupidity rather than incompetence, or perhaps both?

[zompist]

Most interesting article I've read all week:

Cory Doctorow: Will Trump hormuz us into the full Gretacene?

Fascinating, and I fully support the name "Gretacene" for the new era. If he's right, it'll cause a fundamental change in the global economy, which gets me wondering: what will the decline of late-stage plutocratic capitalism look like in practice? Obviously not the proletariat taking to the streets and overthrowing the bourgeoisie to bring about the socialist utopia, romantic as that may sound; will we see the billionaires retreating to their hideaways and the rest of the world shrugging their shoulders and getting on with things?

Hmm, that's a big question. As Doctorow points out, the fossil fuel industry is a matter of permanent and increasingly harmful extraction, plus a heavy dose of centralization, and giving power to bad people. Renewables are infrastructure and thus only have to be done once, and can be controlled locally.

So that would be a huge shock to plutocracy, but might not be a fatal one. E.g. an all-electric economy wouldn't destroy the AI bros and might even encourage them. At the same time... what happens once companies realize that they don't have to buy Claude, they can run their own AI at 1/10 the cost?

Humanity being what it is, you generally need a huge failure before people abandon a system, like a depression or a war. But the plutocrats and right-wingers seem eager to create one disaster after another, and it's likely to create a tipping point.

An irony about the whole affair is another thing Trump doesn't understand: what keeps the oil bottled up, and what keeps the oil companies from grabbing oil with gusto, is not the Iranians or the Democrats; it's hard-headed American businesses— insurance companies and banks. Ships won't move without insurance, and banks won't loan money for huge new oil facilities in the current ping-ponging business environment.

Of course Trump will do his best to immiserate the US and make sure it loses the technology race to China.

Inasmuch as it's possible to provide rational explanations for any of Trump's actions, is it safe to attribute this to stupidity rather than incompetence, or perhaps both?

Let's call it learned stupidity. If you've read Orwell you're familiar with his discussion of the topic re the 1930s British leadership. Or review Mencken's dictum: "It's hard to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it."

A lot of modern conservatism is simply irritated annoyance at liberalism. Liberals go on and on about climate change, racism, sexism, better health care, etc.; the conservative hates all that talk, so convinces himself that it's all wrong. You're not gonna make a million bucks as a conservative influencer by taking the liberal side on these things.

Trump doesn't personally care about all that, but the third-tier people he surrounds himself with do.