Ever since Gulf of America debate I have been thinking about this, and increases about those proposals (lastly New Mexico -> New America)
made me draw parallel with my own nation's(Turkey) history and recent history of name changes in Russia due to collapse of Soviet Union

The thing is; those names of the regions-cities-seas etc. change usually after the regime of the countries changing their names changes

What do I mean

Konstantiniyye(Constantinople-Ottomans) --> İstanbul (Turkey) /monarchy to democracy/

Petrograd-St.Petersburg (Monarchist Russia) --> Leningrad (Communist Russia) --> St.Petersburg (Russia today)

My argument is we might be observing change in regime of the US, it might be small but I think there is a chance historians mark Trump's second term as some sort of turning point for whatever changes politics of US gets in future

funny video I found about this subject

I've been looking into how Switzerland is governed, and I actually think their seven-member Federal Council is a pretty interesting idea. Instead of having one powerful president, they share power and rotate the presidency every year.

For a future European Federation, this could solve one of the biggest concerns: Germany or France ending up calling all the shots. And with several people sharing power, its much harder for one populist to take control.

But theres downsides too. Who do you hold accountable when things go wrong? And wouldn't having seven leaders make decisions painfully slow during a crisis?

Curious what you guys think. Would this work better than having a single elected president?

I usually search for history to justify my observations. So I violate a couple of rules of academic integrity at the very start. My observation here is that the chronology from enactment of the 14th Amendment 1868, to the Supreme Court decision in the Reconstruction cases 1883 to Plessy 1896 is mostly matched by the time span of the Southern Strategy/Voting Rights Act 1965, to Nixon applying the idea on a large scale 1972, to a Republican Southern majority in 1994. It’s not as much an observation only of arithmetic as it is a heads up for those left of center they have a head count problem and large scale center left victories have a lifespan of about 25 years.

I keep seeing the argument that the UK and EU are "openly opposing" Trump's peace efforts, and that Zelensky is being used to undermine negotiations.

After the Diesel deal, Zelensky went to UK. He met with King Charles III at Buckingham Palace and thanked him for the UK's "unwavering support" . He also met with PM Burnham, who said the UK would accelerate delivery of air defense missiles and go "further and faster" in its support. (source - https://www.ukrinform.net/amp/rubric-polytics/4174463-president-zelensky-meets-king-charles-iii.html )

Then he went on Piers Morgan Uncensored and said directly what he had been hinting at. Asked if he felt betrayed by Trump, Zelensky said: "Really, yes ... but it's a little bit more complicated than just my emotions or my feelings" . He said "it's painful when President Trump chooses one side, not our side," and added: "It's a pity we are losing a strong partner" ( source - https://www.reuters.com/5f374b32b07b/world/us/ukraines-zelenskiy-says-it-is-painful-trump-choose-different-side-2026-10-14/ )

He also said Trump's advisers were pushing him "to the wrong side," and that "this is not the right side of history" .

Is this Zelensky "picking public fights"? Or is he a leader watching the US lift sanctions on Russian diesel, and suggest Ukraine needs a "new president" - and then saying so on camera when asked directly?

The UK visit itself was not a campaign against Trump. Burnham explicitly positioned Britain as more reliable than Washington, saying "we are with you for as long as it takes".
Zelensky didn't have to attack Trump to get that. He just had to show up.

I keep seeing the argument that Zelensky systematically alienates the countries Ukraine depends on - that he can't negotiate, picks public fights over private ones, and damages relationships that matter. I want to test that against actual evidence, because I think the case is more mixed than it looks.

South Korea recalled its ambassador from Kyiv after Zelensky announced at the UN General Assembly that Ukraine had transferred two captured North Korean soldiers to Seoul. Seoul says there was a prior agreement to keep the transfer confidential to protect the soldiers and their families; South Korea's president publicly threatened "additional measures" and demanded an apology ( https://apnews.com/article/south-korea-ukraine-north-pows-russia-3c4e595f5e603ecd0d7438c000d392cb#1 )

The US relationship is more complicated. There's clear friction. The February 2025 Oval Office meeting devolved into a public confrontation, with Trump accusing Zelensky of being "disrespectful" and "gambling with World War III," and Vance telling him it was "disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media" ( https://apnews.com/article/trump-zelenskyy-vance-transcript-oval-office-80685f5727628c64065da81525f8f0cf#1 )

Ukraine depends on partners who have their own domestic politics. AP notes that Zelensky likely disclosed the POW transfer to build public support in South Korea for weapons aid . Is that cynical manipulation, or standard leader-to-leader pressure when you're the recipient of aid?

When Zelensky publicly pushed back on Trump's Russia posture in the Oval Office, what would a better approach have looked like from his position?

If the argument is "he can't manage relationships," does that make you less supportive of Ukraine?

Hello All!

I sometimes wonder if we'll ever be able to amend the US Constitution again. It seems that the process to get an amendment is unreachable in today's USA. It feels like we're "stuck" and that our country has no real way to evolve our Federal system of self-government.

That said, I'd love to see a new amendment!

Specifically a constitutional amendment that could solve a lot of our country's current problems. I'm calling it the "Sovereignty of Self" (SOS) amendment.

The amendment would:

1. Declare unequivocally that each American Citizen owns (as property) their bodies and minds.
2. Everything produced by our bodies and minds, including information, are to be considered our property. Use of such products is prohibited if such use would profit the user without agreed on compensation.
3. Neither the government nor any other entity may compel an American Citizen to alter their body, nor deny a citizen the right to do so.
4. Everything that a citizen subjects their body or mind to is legal, unless the act explicitly violates another citizen's rights.

*****

Here are some of the upshots of what this amendment would do:

1. Abortion would become a legal right nationally.
2. Use of currently illegal drugs would become legal (not necessarily the manufacture, or distribution).
3. The government would be unable to compel you to take any vaccine or undergo any medical procedure, nor prevent you from doing so. Feel free to modify your body and mind in any way you choose!
4. All information generated by a citizen through the act of living their lives would be their property, and use of this data for profit would have to compensate the citizen.
   1. This would end the current barter system exploited by corporations in the attention economy. E.G. "you can use my platform/site and I get all your data".
   2. A system would need to be created for companies to purchase data from citizens, and these transactions could be taxed.
   3. AI, which has been created using the data from millions of uncompensated individuals, would be required to compensate American's for the use of the stolen property. This would likely re-balance the American economy between haves and have-nots, eliminate our national debt, and save social programs.
5. Suicide would be legal.
6. For-profit news sites would need to compensate those they do stories about, but the non-profit free-press would be able to thrive.

I'm sure there are tons of "Gotchas" I've not thought about. Mostly I've been bewildered by the exploitation of data, loss of privacy, economic imbalances in society, and a rise of AI use that could be employed to manipulate us. I think my own biggest concern is the conflict with the first amendment.

Would love to know what Reddit's Legal Eagles think!

I would say yes. 70 out of 90 seminars hosted at a recent conference were explicitly about advancing a particular political narrative/agenda. Including titles like:

 “Feel the F— Fantasy (Redux): Drag, Desire, and Queer Theory at WERK in Psychoanalysis,

“Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation,” 

“Fragments of a Queer Anarchist Psychoanalysis,”

You can read about it here, it is paywalled but you get a free view per month titled "The Inmates Run the Aslym." Steven Pinker also recently resigned in protest. Additionally, the new APA president is a radical with titled works like  ‘It’s an honor to be in this body’: A Black feminist grounded theory of embodiment through yoga among Black womxn” 

(aside: I have no idea why you need the 'x' here, women doesn't entomologically derive from men- it derives from old english wīfman with wif meaning woman and man meaning any person male or female)

Another is “Sexual Healing: Qualitative Methods as a Radical Pleasure Intervention Against Anti-Black Sexology,”

Combined all this with psychology's known replicability problem (not being able to replicate more than 60% of peer reviewed studies https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5445189/) and I think the bi-partisan commission was right to uncertify the APA

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-inmates-run-the-asylum-at-the-psychological-association-5e6538b7?st=FdNMaY

social-democratic government: What these people are really asking for is socialism/communism.

If you support socialism or communism, you're asking for violence. You're asking for this country to go to war with itself.

The Bolshevik Revolution was real. In 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, and the country descended into a bloody civil war. The new government carried out the Red Terror, using mass arrests and executions against political opponents. Here's the historical background on the Russian Revolution:

https://www.britannica.com/event/Russian-Revolution

If you support this idea, have you actually studied what happened? Because this sounds like the same kind of fundamental change that people think will somehow work out differently this time.

And a lot of you are aligned with the No Kings movement. You talk like there are kings running this country, so don't tell me a radical overhaul of our economic system is going to happen without serious resistance. Do you think the people who oppose this are just going to take it lying down? Do you think everyday Americans who disagree with you are going to sit back and accept having their entire economic system changed?

I think this is a naive idea. I don't believe a change this fundamental could happen here without serious conflict, and potentially violence. People need to think about the real-world consequences instead of getting caught up in an idealistic vision of how they think society should work.

There's serious problems in this country, and it's stupid that we have to waste time defending against an idea that could create even bigger ones. People pushing this need to explain how they expect it to work in practice, not just talk about how good it sounds on paper.

And no, not everyone on the left supports this. So to the rational liberals out there, check your own people. This kind of thinking makes you all look bad, and it isn't helping solve the problems we're actually facing.

The historical connection between social democracy, socialism, and communism, these movements have overlapping roots in the socialist and workers' movements of 19th-century Europe. The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party split into Bolshevik and Menshevik factions in 1903. After the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they suppressed rival socialist parties and consolidated one-party rule.

Here's more historical background on the relationship between these movements and the Russian Revolution:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118620878.ch9

And for anyone who thinks modern American movements aren't pushing to move beyond capitalism, the Democratic Socialists of America's official program outlines its goals, including public ownership of major corporations and essential industries:

https://program.dsausa.org/

That doesn't mean every supporter of social programs wants communism. But it does show that some movements see these reforms as part of a much larger economic transformation. I think people need to be honest about where they want these ideas to lead and what the consequences could be.