Rights were not taken away; they were shifted to the states. The states are making individual rulings, many of which are being challenged in the courts in the moment. I, for one, do not believe the government should be between a woman and her physician, but also think that has to be weighed in consideration of the rights of the child. If you do not like SCOTUS rulings, then you vote a president who will be naming the next justices.
[quote=“raven1, post:21, topic:104933”]
The Book Ban Bill HB 900 threatens students’ freedom to read books
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That ruling is about CHILDREN, raven. Do we need to discuss this in a separate thread?
Wondering again, where were you born and reared? Are you a U.S. citizen?
That’s actually known as the “Doctrine of the Separation of Powers”, the balance of power is the position of the different forces within the legislature.
As I understand the complaint in this forum from the US is that the Legislature and Judicial branches are not separate. ie Trump is being prosecuted for political reasons. I am not sure I buy that myself but I do think the hand picking of justices by the President and the election of members of the executive and judicial system is a flaw in the US system of government.
Absolutely (no single party has held the balance of power in our senate since the 1990s), the problem is that some countries in Europe have a history of forced election after after forced election because the various groups will not work together and compromise.
I don’t know if that is true of France yet, only time will tell.
While I disagree on the election of the executive branch, the appointment of Supreme Court Justices is one worthy of consideration. There is check with Senatorial approval and impeachmentl of justices, and I believe a few dozen have not been approved by the Senate or withdrawn after vetting in the last two-hundred years. One justice has been impeached, though I confess that I don’t remember who or why.
While there are philosophical differences in the way that justices approach their interpretation of the law (originalists vs. living constitutionalists), they are supposed to be apolitical. Until recently, many have respected that, though most justices tend to rule more liberally over time. To minimize the influence of politics, I’m opposed to the election of judges and think that appointments and rigorous vetting is the way to go until we come up with a better option. I believe that all reasonable people want the judicial system to be impermeable to politics and that need rigorous
What if we formed a committee of impartial citizens who could create a list of recommended potential nominees for the President? How would we do that and how could we keep them protected from influence? I am sure we all know a lot of fair, educated people who would perform that duty very conscientiously.
As an aside, I just want to say how impressed I am with the forum’s understanding of the U.S. government, its politics, and the ramifications of both. I wish that depth of knowledge and understanding went both ways!
41 state have abortion restrictions, so the 9 remaining state should dictate other state laws.
That’s not the way it works.
The people in the school districts make the rules and we have seen how some school districts try to use Federal resources, to stop the people from speaking out, trying
to stopping rules that the School districts wrote with out the people consent.
It is so simple, if you can not read a book out loud, in a school meeting. That book should not be available in the school.
HB 900 defines sexually explicit and sexually relevant material and requires library material vendors (any entity that sells library materials to a public school in Texas) to assign sexually explicit and sexually relevant ratings to any material the vendor determines meet the law’s definitions.
Don’t like the law, change it!
It did say the parents could not buy it somewhere else. Your just not to have access to it in school! ???
To be honest I am not entirely sure I understand it, I don’t understand how the President is elected because it doesn’t seem to be a simple majority but based on the number of delegates he gets from each state. Even more complex is the way those delegates are selected as it appears sometimes the winner takes all other times (s)he get a proportion.
Even sillier is the time it takes to select the two candidates, the election is 5 months away and this selection process has been going on for months (only millionaires need apply). Why can’t the political parties just chose a candidate from people that apply for the job? all these rallies and hoopla seems such a waste of time and money. The party officials should be able to tap Biden on the shoulder and say, “Sorry mate but your time is up, we are looking for someone more electable, thanks for your contribution”.
I also don’t understand why posts like chief of police or attorney general are elected (I am going by TV shows here) surely such public officials should be appointed on their merits?
You have to understand I am in a country where virtually no one talks about politics, it is just not a topic of conversation other than an occasional passing reference, where turnout at elections is nearly 100% and we don’t fly flags outside our house,
Truthfully voting for any President is only chance, and also balanced by the ideology of a prevailing Congress which is more about ideology than justice, which goes back to a prevailing majority of Congress / House of Representatives which is manipulated by the electoral college which has naught to do with the will of the people., as was traitor Don’s election. Donald Trump never won the popular vote, and was elected primarily due to GOP political manipulation.
Well, you have a good idea on the workings of the government.
The electoral college was the result of the framers spending months trying to determine the best way to select a the President. The very idea of a president made the framers edgy, having just come from the rule of monarch and the sometimes oppressive power of the colonial governors. Others were concerned that a direct vote would leave out too many people who lived remotely, so they were looking for another way to ensure representation and to put another check on the system that they wanted - everywhere. With technology giving us information everywhere, many of the reasons for the college are gone - plus the fact that we had someone change the vote she represented, cause many of us to wonder whether its time has come and gone.
The costs of running a campaign are outrageous, but the law is protecting campaign donations as a means of free speech.
I am in full agreement that the popular vote with photo proof of citizenship (leaving you out, correct raven?), and hyper-vigilant voting oversight. What manipulation? If you are referring to the electoral college, the only stakeholder alive when that was designed wasn’t a Republican . (kidding).
This is one aspect of voting in France that is simple - everyone has an identity card. I’ve never understood the objection to identity cards in countries such as the UK. Your social media company holds more data on you than is held through an ID card.
I am neither fond of the Republicans or the Democrats, they are both pawns of Corporatocracy, and I think the electoral vote should be done away with, which would eliminate gerrymandering (by either side), for it is nothing more than a tool to manipulate voting districts which in turn manipulates the electoral vote, return the vote to the people, let them decide., and for your information , I am a lifelong registered independent voter, and was a supporter of Ronald Reagan. I like keeping my options open, and am an ardent defender and supporter of the American way, but we are headed down the wrong path, we are concentrating more on special interest and extreme ideology (Left and Right), instead of the rights of all US citizens. I do not care if you are religious or gay, or even if you have horns, this great nation was founded on religious freedom and established on personal rights, but we are human beings also, but we seem to be lacking in compassion and empathy, and that has always been our strong point, but not anymore.There are no simple solutions in life, good things come hard, and we have a crisis at our southern border, no easy fixes, but our brothers and sisters are dying, just trying to seek a life.
Form topics tend to wander. Sorry about that. That said, I think that several nations, including our own, are facing very similar issues - elections, balance of power, immigration, etc.
I have a post in this thread that is under moderation and I am standing by for a reason for that, but we have mostly exhausted our perspectives.
Well written comments, @raven1. You and I, along with most Americans would agree that we need to veer away from the special interests and ideology.
I am not quite sure about your last statement except to say that if you are referring to the immigration problem to protect people on both sides, my belief is that the best way to solve the problem is to return the policy of legal immigration, maintaining a secure border, and rigorous deportation of illegals as part of the Remain in Mexico policy. I happen to have helped both of my children legally immigrate to this country, so I know those procedures very well.
When it comes to empathy and compassion, I don’t buy what the mainstream media its telling us; I see the opposite: people offering other common courtesies, taking care of each other - even strangers, and donating their time and money to help others. I also see a tremendous amount of tolerance and fairness…
I was fortunate to be reared in California in the golden days of Ronald Reagan’s governorship, and he was an exceptional governor and president.
You are wise to keep your options open; I think things are about to change…
Like it or not, in today’s world we are all interrelated, and the French election results stand out as a perfect example as to what Democracy is all about, I’m sorry you are bothered by the comparison, but this is going to happen with any debate on any forum which has an internationally diverse membership.
I don’t think the complaint was made about any wider discussion on comparing various democracies. I think it was because the discussion moved onto purely US issues with that democratic structure, parties and issues. As such, the discussion perhaps merited a separate thread at that point.
But thanks for your last post that brings the chat back to recent events in France. And I’d agree, the French two tiered voting and the surge of effort to deny the national front (sorry, s’emblement national) power does stand out.
Ironic heading after the far right and the far left combined to bring down the French government.
It has been argued that the political continuum is not a straight line but a horseshoe with the extreme right and extreme left a long way from the centre but close to each other in ideology, this might show that it is correct.
. (kidding).