There's checks and balances, and then there's what's been happening in Congress. It's not 'checks and balances' to have to rewrite Senate rules because of partisan stonewalling, nor is it 'checks and balances' to treat the Supreme Court as a political football. Calling some of the fuckery 'checks and balances' is disingenuous at best.
It would help if we had term limits. As far as SCOTUS is concerned, I think the politicization of it is a recent phenomenon that took off under Obama but I could be wrong; in any case,
it's not the right-leaning Justices that are getting all political when they're supposed to be impartial.
And in this case, it's nationalism. A lot of the groups in Charlottesville weren't even hiding it, they call themselves nationalists or fascists or other such terms, in addition to bandying about nationalist symbols.
calvin was talking about the Weimar Republic - do you think he was referring to Charlottesville or overall to the US? Methings it was the latter (that would make more sense). Yes, what happened in VA was nationalism (among other things) but overall we're nowhere near it. This is a huge issue recently - make outlandish statements that promote generalities about all Trump voters, all Republicans, the whole country, etc, and then pretend like you were talking about a specific person/incident/etc; the left thrives on this.
"Armed resistance" to the left. Like the NRA ad that wanted people to fight the "violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth". Along with using other words like "assassinate" and "Hitler", it was a thinly veiled threat.
Ironic that you find truth to be threatening. Seriously, drop the act - the NRA is as non-violent as it gets; how many homicides have been committed by NRA members??
Add in
op-eds that say a new non-metaphorical civil war is about to start, and the call to arms is pretty damn obvious.
The left has called for civil war, secession, presidential assassination, murdering cops, etc - they are the side pushing violence. I don't understand how you can brush off such "hate speech".
To the second point, it would be funny if it weren't so gobsmacking that you question the need for armed resistance and then claim that all the gun owners elected and presumably support the president.
I was just surprised at the implication that a violent revolt of some sort is coming, when the side that would be leading it is the one that hates guns.
Sounds like the veiled threat of oppression with arms against a disarmed populace...
You're reading way, way too much into it. Take some deep breaths.
That it's ok because the left can simply arm itself because 'muh 2nd Amendment'? Do you lack the imagination to see how incredibly close such an action would be to actually start the 2nd civil war? The armed already see a threat from the left, the left arming itself will simply confirm their prejudices and, in the right's heads, give them the ok to start seeing them as targets since "they're obviously arming themselves to take away what we've gained".
Except the left IS arming itself and no one on the right gives a damn. It's pathetic that this is what it takes for the left to finally appreciate their rights.
That was evident throughout the campaign. When Trump campaigns on "bringing back coal", trashing NAFTA as stealing jobs, holding up that Carrier deal as an example of what he'd do for the underemployed and unemployed American manufacturing workers, etc etc etc. This is speaking to the US in general, not the Charlottesville violence specifically.
Ah, so topics completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Gotcha.
Let's: the fascists were the bad guys, the antifascists were the good guys. Saying "Germans vs Americans" is generally true but discounts the Americans who supported the Nazis and the Germans who resisted the Nazis.
By and large the Americans were the good guys and the Germans were the bad guys. I'm sure there were some Nazis who secretly disagree with Hitler - are you going to suggest that Nazis weren't the bad guys? Also, the antifascists were only the good guys on the Western front - out East they were equally bad (and left-leaning).
Good talk. That's really insightful commentary, thanks for this detailed, well thought-out response.
The Soviet flag wavers weren't the ones who killed a person in Charlottesville. The infighting doesn't quite garner the same attention.
What do I mean by that? Imagine a hypothetical where Trump goes for a naked power grab and tries to repeal the 2nd amendment so no one can rise up against him. Then you'd "team up" with the Soviet flag wavers and Antifa. You wouldn't really "team up" with them, you wouldn't support them; it's more of an "enemy of my enemy can be useful in the short term for a better chance at defeating the common enemy but we're not friends". You'd still think them dumb and say so, but the infighting that causes would be drowned out almost entirely by the arguably more important news of the situation.
Why would I need to team up with Antifa? They can't figure out which bathroom to use, what good would they be fighting for rights? Horrible example.
