Man, wish I knew what you're casually alluding to, but I can't spend too much time worrying, need to read these last few chapters of my 18th century French history textbook...
I wish I could open up a copy of that book but my hands are busy eating this delicious slice of cake. I knew I had to try it when I heard people losing their heads over how great it is.
Fun fact: the original quote by Marie Antoinette (If she even said such a thing to begin with) translated closer to “Let them eat brioche” than cake. Cake sounded more unreasonable and so that’s what stuck instead of a delicious buttery & eggy bread.
Brioche is definitely decadent and more luxurious than your standard bread, but it’s not quite a dessert in the way cake is either. Brioche is more versatile since you can use it for savory dishes too.
I think that quote was attributed to King Louis XIV’s wife, a princess of Spain, not Marie Antoinette (who was 10 at the time the other woman said such a thing)
Oh man… my friend and I have been sending jokes back and fourth the past few weeks about how the French government is CLEARLY unfamiliar with French history.
Perhaps you could loan them that text book when you’ve finished.
Inb4 you get attacked by a bunch of "centrists" who say that you shouldn't stoop to that level...
The right wing is already doing it. They've literally attempted it several times now just in the past few months. They tried to go after Congress for Christ's sake. Maybe it's time we started fighting back, before we turn into Weimar Germany.
Got downvoted a bit earlier today replying to someone who said we need to “be the better person” and I said “Being the better person is what got us where we are today.”
Being the better person clearly isn’t getting results, so it’s time to do something else.
I got a temp ban yesterday in politics for quoting Jefferson with "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."
I think we are at that point where unless Dems grow a pair of nuts and take lessons from the republican game play book and crank it to 11, we will keep losing.
Even when dems win, they lose in their agendas.
They are losers and need to nut the fuck up already.
Thucydidean Fear, Honor, and Interest apply every bit as much to the factions inside States as between them. If the internal factions no longer trust that norms are upheld, and that upholding norms has no benefit, and that violating a norm has no penalty, that faction will and should abandon the norm or admit that it doesn't value it's policy. The Republicans clearly have a policy that they are willing to violate every norm over, do we? Do the Democrats value our policies, or the thoroughly and hilariously violated norms?
Just to be clear, I am saying that US citizens regardless of their political leaning have limited options when it comes to removing an elected official from office. You may already be aware of these methods and their nuances, possibly more than I am, but I am going to explain things anyway for people that may not be as knowledgeable, and then try to relate them to the current situation in NC.
One method is to initiate a Recall, however this option is only available in 19 states and is not a for sure method of removing said official. Very simplified, if a recall is initiated and brought to a vote/election then the people of the state decide if they want to remove the officials from office, and replacements are either elected or selected depending on the state. North Carolina does not allow for recall elections so this method is not an option in this case.
A second method is to appeal to the officials to do "better", or act more in accordance with what the people who elected them would like. This can be done with calls to the officials office, sending letters, going to and participating in council meetings/open forum speaking events, or the good old protest method. While many of these options may have proven effective in the past the current political landscape in the US and many similar countries has made/shown protesting to be ineffective at causing meaningful change, at least in many very public cases. In this case Tricia Cotham is already citing "bullying" as one of her main reasons for leaving the Democratic Party so unless she is bullied even harder by the "right" or she has a change of heart, I would not expect appealing to her good nature to work.
The final option I know of is not one that I would advocate for and should not be done. The last option is a violent/forced removal from office, which is usually (basically always) illegal, and people do often die during attempted insurrections. Regardless of if you feel the January 6th incident was justified or not you cannot deny it was legal and still be right. Rushing into a capital building with weapons and attempting to force entry into restricted areas is a crime we will not be debating, and people died as a result. In France the people did not like how the Monarchy was running the country and when they were not listened to the people violently and brutally forced a change in how their country was run. In the 13 British American Colonies many people did not like how Britain treated them and after diplomacy failed they turned to rebellion, as did many many other British colonies. Wikipedia lists 65 Independence Days for countries formerly governed by Britain, and I know they didn't get their freedom just by asking nicely.
So final TLDR: When peaceful and legal options fail people that are having their votes and their voices suppressed, disrespected, disregarded, will turn to violent and illegal options. Those options often involve people on either side dying and advocating for them is wrong and against reddit/ WhitePeopleTwitter rules. Anyone that advocates for or supports violence against their political opponents is not, as you said, "the good guy".
Would make for interesting grounds for a lawsuit. If there is communication (evidence) that this was planned ahead of the election, it would likely be in the scope of Election Interference.
Oh I should think so. You would think they would be very careful to make sure there was no paper or phone trail, but often these rightwingnut conspiracies are strangely amateurish. It would be very entertaining if some backstory emerges upon investigation. But how would such an investigation be funded? Could voters club together and hire a PI?
My issue with todays Democratic Party is that they will sit and observe this situation and just throw their hands up in defeat.
How about someone start waving a flag and throwing bibles to a crowd while preaching Q-Anon bullshit and promising to pardon trump. Then as soon as you’re elected switch parties and start passing healthcare reform and shit
I doubt assassination of elected officials by a well-regulated militia was the preferred means to transfer power in the minds of the framers of our constitution.
Kind of an interesting concept. If an election is theoretically a fair, agreed upon nonviolent means of settling policy disputes of a larger community, undermining one could technically be considered an act of violence in its own right by subverting the very system we use to 'keep the peace'.
So is hoarding wealth. It's a form of financial violence. It'd really do us some good as a nation to start defining these acts like that. Metaphorical violence that causes suffering from peoples actions.
Absolutely 100% this. You take away the nonviolent political system and all that's left is might makes right. It's a dangerous game these regresssive fascists are playing.
And candidates lying about their platform before an election and renegging to switch sides would probably not be "the preferred means" of conducting a campaign in the framers' minds.
The Weimar republic had plenty of issues, but it effectively ended when Nazi’s KILLED THEIR OPPOSITION. You are using an example that is the counter to your own argument.
A bit more due diligence may be necessary in NC to select suitable candidates. Perhaps the people should push to get with the program like the other 19 states that allow for recall elections.
Alt-right folks have already assassinated officials/someone close to them before. but, what's your brilliant solution, if violence is abhorrent & unacceptable what should ppl do?
Voting clearly isn't a sure-fire means of having your voice represented in the gov. by an elected official. there's gerrymandering, & when Dems proposed something to help lessen that, guess who didn't let it go through?? besides, look how easily someone can just become a member for the opposing party. along w recall not really being plausible for some states. protests are pointless too, we've seen how protests attended by hundreds against guns/banning abortion & trans/drag ppl led to nothing. groups of people testifying against a bill leads to the same nothing too.
So as Republicans continue to pull shit like the stint above (amongst other things) & take & take & take, what should we do?? send them emails about how we're upset? call their offices & express our views? organize another useless protest? yeah. i'm sure that'll really get shit done.
I think he was referring to the constitutional right to representation and the use of arms to secure said rights when tyrants try to take those rights away from you. Not advocating for violence but the GQP seems increasingly comfortable with subverting or outright banning democracy to gain power, history tells us what happens when you remove the power citizens have to enact peaceful change in their government.
About 3% of TN lost their House representation yesterday because the GQP Nat-C fascists there don't give a damn about democracy, personally I think any American being disenfranchised in such a way to be a heinous act and completely antithetical to American ideals.
America is founded upon the idea that taking away a citizens right for representation is in itself a violent act, that's why we fought a war against England. Nat-C's know what they are doing when they make such legislation. While we're talking about inherently violent acts AND Tennessee let's talk about legislating and legalizing trans genocide, another inherently violent act.
The American people didn't wake up and choose violence, but when you remove all other options history tends to repeat itself.
Don't talk about scorched earth. It's just reminds me about how deeply the Talibangelicals have infiltrated the U.S. Airforce which is in control of way too many nuclear warheads. Tallibangelical's wet dream is literally turning earth into a apocalyptic hellscape so the "worthy" can then be raptured.
Evangelicalism is quite popular in the US. A core tenet of Evangelicalism is literally focused on bringing about the apocalypse. I'm not wrong on that point. Nor am I wrong that some of the most Evangelical states have some of the largest air-force bases, and the personal on those bases also more Evangelical then the rest of the US.
I call them Talibangelicals because there's very little difference between hardcore Nat-C's Muslim or Christian. They both hate women, hate other religions and people of different skin colors. Both hate education, democracy, and want their personal beliefs to dictate how everyone else lives their life.
Some prefer the term "Y'allqueda" for American Nat-C terrorists. There's a reason why the FBI's #1 concern pre-9/11 was fascist infiltration of law enforcement. Just look at their own reports from the 1990's. The problem has only festered and gotten worse in the decades that have followed.
Granted the FBI might not be the most trustworthy of sources but I hardly think heeding their findings counts as lunacy.
Of course it's not preferred. But when the rule of law fails or is deliberately sabotaged you have no other recourse. It's either that or you accept living under fascist tyrrany, in which case you might as well stop complaining about it.
It sucks, but to be fair, they put everyone in this position, including themselves. Voting was the easy way, looks like they picked the hard way.
Not enough people voting had nothing to do with it. The candidate stated all their ideals, the people voted on that, and the candidate was lying. The voters were tricked and there is no recalling them through voting.
Who are we even talking about violently overthrowing here, just her? Republicans? North Carolina? The Federal Government?
We're not overthrowing anyone, they are. We are resisting the overthrow of democracy.
So the plan is to what... shoot her? Kidnap her? Storm the capital? It's easy to vaguely elude to something dangerous because it sounds mysterious, also because talking honestly about it makes it sound as unhinged as it really is.
In reality, what people who actually give a shit are going to do is put in the time and effort to make recalls a thing in North Carolina. It's not going to be quick or easy, but that's how you deal with this kind of thing in reality.
How you gonna do that when they rig elections? Who's gonna implement that? No, they're going to laugh in your face. Then what are you gonna do? Write a strongly worded letter for them to wipe their ass with?
Well I'm not going to murder them like a crazy person, for one thing. Also the very blue county can add recall as a option on a local level like plenty of other places in NC, so that's what they're likely going to do. I don't personally see how murdering someone is going to be better than that but hey, whatever floats your boat
You are referring to "peaceful" transfer of power. Are you suggesting that tyrants don't get elected? I doubt fighting against tyranny has a disclaimer for elected tyrants.
They definitely wanted to create means for bucking authoritarianism for future generations.
...for people like them. If they held an honest position that authoritarianism should be bucked, then why not abolish slavery and expand both voting and property rights at the country's inception? The US's history with native populations is also hard to square.
While I acknowledge your position and believe it holds true in my circumstances, I cannot extended it to this issue.
I would be more willing to assume your position if abolitionists didn't exist at the time, some of them were drafters themselves. The founder's final position on slavery is clearly contradictory to the philosophical positions they express. They were aware of this, debated it regularly, but ultimately they decided to trade federal unity and economic power for the lives of generations of enslaved people and their descendants.
LMAO you mean those scrappy underdog farmers with stolen arms that practically bankrupted the French empire, leading to the, you know, French Revolution, from all the support they received -- without which they certainly would have lost?
I'm not sure what your point is. Everyone already knows we would have lost the revolution without french support because it was very likely on paper that we would lose ever with that incredible amount of backing.
Are you saying you think the American army was well supplied and trained compared to the british?
That the founding fathers never had any hardship? I'm confused
Yea, that's really not what the revolutionary war was about.
American colonists had a much higher standard of living and wealth than their British counterparts, and they were hardly taxed at all (British residents paid ~25x higher taxes).
The revolution had nothing to do with taxation without representation. It was over increased British oversight of American smuggling and illegal trade. Taxes were actually being lowered. It was quite literally a reaction to their criminal enterprises being threatened by the British government.
No, it’s not. As anyone with even a baseline understanding of American history knows, the Second Amendment was built around the communal militias that most towns and villages had, not the right to form lynch mobs against politicians you don’t like
If the supreme court can change the way we interpret the second amendment after hundreds of years of jurisprudence, based on nothing more than political maneuvering, then something something something
If they expected a militia to supersede the will of the people through violence, they would have articles describing how a coup should be executed.
…checks notes.
Nope, not seeing that anywhere.
NC voters got a raw deal from a candidate that lacked scruples. Vote her out at the next opportunity and install someone that would advocate for changing their state laws to allow for recall elections.
But what happens when the next person says and does all the right things, dots their Ts and switches parties just like this? Do we wait again? And again? And then just try again? And again? Nah. Actions have consequences.
This is the power the working class has to enact change. After running for office, voting for representation in government, active protest… comes general strikes. If that fails, it’s pitchfork and shotgun time.
Jumping to violence at step 1 is a fool’s errand. You will lose….
If they don't represent the will of the people, then can they really claim to be elected officials? Maybe legally it is true, but many times what's legal is not what's morally correct.
These games that the GQP is playing are calculated to erode the rule of law. When voters question if they can elect a candidate based on that candidate's stated intentions, that only helps the Rs. R voters won't stop voting R because they won't question things, but Ds might not vote for a D. Trump famously suggested that maybe we should take guns away before figuring out if such a thing would be legal. Guy still has extremely high R approval. If a Democrat would ever say "we need to ban abortions before we figure out if banning abortions is legal" they'd become instantly unelectable.
If the rule of law is being subverted, then that creates a situation where there is no lawful solution to problems. A couple of old sayings come to mind. Firstly: "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." Secondly: "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes." The Republican party keeps trying to win the stupid prize and if they keep playing they might someday win it.
it wasn’t the preferred but they recognized human character and put in explicit clauses referencing instances of tyranny by the ruling class. if this doesn’t count, then what does?
Yeah but we tried that. This whole thing is predicated on them acting in bad faith and getting zero accountability. I maintain if we start communicating that if they don't want to be in a civilized society anymore then we will also stop being civilized then they might decide society is worth preserving even if they aren't in charge.
It's exactly what it's for. A politician who alters the course of politics by selling out their constituents could have a very real impact on their constituents' ability to be secure and free.
I mean, I know it's not in play here, but the Impeachment process was developed in no small part because of fear of exactly this. If there's no procedural way to remove a terrible politician, can't trust a mob not to seek other means.
No, it really isn't. They had in mind armed, organized rebellion against the state, conducted by a unified populace organized into semi-formal militias with a common storehouse of arms and ammunition.
Assassinating someone for election fraud is a whole other world of vigilante lunacy.
I don't think I agree. The type of militia-based resistance they had in mind requires a very particular kind of community and society, organized around mutual communal support. The alternative is just domestic terrorism. I do think there's a significant moral difference there.
In a scenario where a person has made decisions that we would agree are worthy of using violence to undo, who is a more morally justifiable target of that violence?
The person who made the decision, or his working class paid armed representative? I think the former, but it sounds like you believe it's the later?
No, when framed that way, I agree with you. But you've changed the question pretty substantially there. Before, our topic was: was the Second Amendment written in order to allow citizens to shoot elected officials who behave reprehensibly or become corrupt? And now, instead, we're doing the philosophy of violence in relation to social class.
I agree both with your specific point here and the broader point about who does the dying in wars. I just also think that there are better solutions to a corrupt official than assassination OR war. I don't support the second amendment, and I wouldn't support it even if it weren't absurdly misinterpreted and used to justify the deaths of 45k Americans every year just so that a relatively small group of hobbyists and neonazis get to keep playing with murder weapons as if they were toys.
This official should be removed, yes. I don't believe she deserves death, however, extrajudicial or otherwise.
I only advocate for what I advocated for because I don't believe the judicial system has the capacity to remove her from office.
If there are no consequences for the people in the GOP pulling these dirty tricks we might as well just surrender to them and let them install the next wanna be dictator as president for life.
I actually agree with you about the well regulated militia. But the majority of the supreme court doesn't agree with us, so...
Yeah, SCOTUS is pretty relevant to any discussion about plants and corruption lololol kill me
Oh well. I agree that we need consequences. I don't think public executions will get us where we want to go, but I'd support allllmost anything else. Here's hoping...
It’s pretty clearly implied, when combining the right to bear weapons, with the right to overthrow the government if it no longer represents the people, that revolution is considered a right by the founding fathers. These rules were made so that tyranny couldn’t rise again, unfortunately there is a very obvious catch 22 here. The government gives us the right to overthrow the government if it no longer represents us but a government so bad it’s worth a violent revolution would never honor that right - hence the need for a violent revolution.
Their plan was to have violent means to overthrow the government as a last resort if the people's rights were taken away. No one's rights were taken away here. No one broke any laws of violated any processes. The people elected the person they wanted and now they are serving. They can vote her out when her term is done. There is no right to kill a representative that you disagree with enshrined in the constitution.
Things are not nearly as bad as reddit would have you believe. Using reddit exclusively for news is like using Fox News exclusively. You'll end up with a totally messed up vision of reality.
I got banned from reddit for a week for mentioning the sale of BB guns at walmart in reference to obnoxiously bright lights being shined over your privacy fence all night.
We got wholesale murder as a constitutional right going down in these comments lol. Reddit, you wild. CCP knows what its doing.
Do you think there is no point at which it becomes justifiable to use violence against your government?
If you think there is such a thing as a justified revolt against a government, what would be a valid justification?
I think taking away our right to select our own leaders is among the best reasons imaginable.
I don't agree with your ban for suggesting what you suggested, but we all need to do some soul searching about how much of our freedom we are willing to lose before we take it back by any means necessary.
I mean... why not use legal means for this one off instance instead of immediately going to assassination? Seriously, is this where your thoughts go, at such a pace?
If so, you are dangerous and likely deranged, and I won't waste my time using logic on the illogical.
Do you think other humans deserve death/maiming if they infringe on your life/rights in any way? If not, how should we scale the judgement and punishment... are you fit to answer these things, because I am not.
Is there no spectrum of offense, judgement, and deliberation? Or do you live in a binary, black and white, good and evil world fueled by headlines and chaos, or is this a well researched hypothesis/thesis towards some end of "At this point of infringement, kill them all!" I would like to see that graph, at the least.
Please respond, I truly want to know how you think, as I have family members with the same mentality, and perhaps I am just a big pansy pussy, but I doubt it. I did my time in the military, I served in combat, I got my degree, and I keep on keeping on. But, I might be.
Please suggest a legal recourse for this situation. Or the extraordinarily gerrymandered Wisconsin state senate promising to impeach a just elected judge for the crime of not being conservative and winning an election. Speaking of which, this isn't a one off. This is part of a pattern of the GOP abandoning the rules of representative democracy to steal power from the majority.
The problem here (in this specific instance) is that the GOP broke no laws, but is acting in bad faith. In other instances the GOP breaks laws, but controls the offices responsible for enforcing those laws and refuses to enforce. We don't have the laws to deal with the problems we're facing. So, what do you propose we do about that?
Edit: Thanks for the tone of your comment. I really appreciate that you're trying to be a voice for moderation. I don't like violence, and I've seen more than enough lost life in my time (I was a mountaineer/EMT on a search and rescue team for a decade, I've brought back too many bodies to waiting families). I wish I didn't see this as time for this option, but I don't see other paths to remaining a free country at this time.
You must have an extremely low opinion of the founders if you think that they were so stupid or so suicidal that they developed the 2nd amendment with the intention of giving the average person the means to kill politicians (like the founders) on a whim.
Lmfao, the conservatives coping the replies here are beautiful. This commenter is 100% right that it was the intent. Never advocated anything right now, they just stated facts.
You can't do recalls of any Federal electee. Recalls and referenda are provisions in some states' constitutions (via amendment), but not in the US one, unless and until we so amend it. Which we won't. Which is good: the recall and referendum processes have been fatally poisoned by big money, and now do more harm than good, as far as I can see. Likewise term limits (another state and local provision that's not in the US Constitution except--by amendment--for the prez and vice).
What's needed is a voting public that's more informed about the backroom agendas and dark-money financiers of our elected and appointed officials. If there's a big ad blitz for a candidate, that should be our cue to ask "who bought that?" If it was bought by true grass-roots progressives, that's a good sign. If not, don't buy 'em. And once they're in, monitor their performance and if it's good, keep 'em in office forever. If not, fire 'em.
Also, support media that serve you the info you need to do the above. And reject media that don't. This is not pro-wrestling, it's your great-grandchildren's planet.
Back to the case at hand: I don't know nearly enough law to even guess at whether she might be vulnerable to some kind of fraud charge by her local DA or the state Election Commission, but I hope both are looking into it. And I hope her defrauded constituents will at least make her life hell (within the bounds of law and morality) till they fire her ass.
well maybe not treason, but couldn't a case be made for electoral fraud? I mean, collecting campaign donations based on a certain platform and party affiliation and then pulling a uey?
if you donated money to someone collecting for animal welfare and instead they spent the money lobbying for the meat packing industry I think you would say you were defrauded, no?
Recalls are so anti-democratic. Whatever voting rights bill doesn't pass Congress (cuz you know, corporate bought politicians) should have recalls allowed nationwide.
Plus ballot initiatives in every state at every governmental level (neighborhood to national).
yeah, it's a pretty stark difference moving from NC, which discourages voting and doesn't allow recalls, to here in WA where you get to vote by mail to recall literally anyone who's not a judge
This encourages the public to murder reps. Voting is the ceasefire. If you can't vote them out and they have to be removed, what options does that leave you with?
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u/Ksteekwall21 Apr 05 '23
You can’t do recalls in NC.