• jballs@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Every once in a while, a great tragedy strikes and our government comes together across party lines. Either the polarization is getting stronger or the information cycles are getting faster, because that time is just getting shorter and shorter. 9/11 unified our government for a couple years. Then COVID brought unity for a few months. Then Trump tried to overthrow Congress and hang Mile Pence on January 6, and the government was unified against him for a few days.

          You had Republicans like Mitch McConnell giving a speech calling for unity and preventing “drifting apart into two separate tribes with a separate set of facts and separate realities.” He later went on to say there was no question Trump was practically and morally responsible for the events of the day, but at that point the cooperation was already fading, as he voted not guilty in Trump’s 2nd impeachment. He’s since endorsed Trump for president.

          I guess my point is, if you ever want to pass an amendment in today’s political environment, it’s gotta happen after something shocking happens - and even then you’ve got a few days to get it done at the most.

        • vala@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Meanwhile china…

          (I’m not a tankie but damn if they are not kicking the west’s ass right now with getting shit done)

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Congress votes on party lines

        Hey now. I bet you we could get some kind of bipartisan amendment through if it pertained to selling arms to Israel.

  • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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    I know fully grown adults who think the constitution has never been altered, the ammendments were always there and “just what the founding fathers worked on after signing it and sending it to king George”, and that any talk about congress changing things after the fact is just 'liberal propaganda" and at least one person, when asked why they think that, responded with “well I’ve never seen an Ammendment happen in my lifetime so obviously it doesn’t happen.”

    Several of these adults are related, so I can see why multiple people in the same family might hold that belief, but the fact that I know MORE THAN ONE is insane to me.

    I went to school in a non-religious school that was very much a religious area. Sex Ed was basically the scene in Mean Girls “If you have Sex you WILL GET PREGNANT and DIE”

    • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      well I’ve never seen an Ammendment happen in my lifetime so obviously it doesn’t happen

      The 27th Amendment was ratified in 1992

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          2006 was only 4 years ago, right? RIGHT?

          Still though, the average age in the US is 38 so for most people, there was an amendment ratified during their lifetime.

          Speaking for me personally, I would consider anything that happened in my parents generation to be a recent collective memory, at least until I get to the age my parents were when they had me. Sure I wasn’t alive during the moon landing or JFK assassination, but they’re still pretty recent events in the grand scheme of US history.

          • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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            3 months ago

            the average age in the US is 38

            Damnit now there’s something that I’m upset about being above average for.

      • homura1650@lemmy.world
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        The 27th amendment was sent to the states by the first congress allong with the 10 that would become known as the bill of rights. This group also included a still unratified amendment that would increase the size of the house of representatives based on population (as of the 2020 census, today’s house would have about 6600 members).

        The way the 27th amendment got ratified is a truly inspiring story of political activism. It was largely forgotten about until 1982, when Gregory Watson wrote a paper arguing that 18th century proposal could still be ratified. This paper received a C in Watson’s undergraduate political science class. This injustice led Watson to lead a 10 year campaign to ratify the amendment, which ultimately succeeded in 1992.

        This scandal was so big, that Watson’s professor fled academia [0]. Eventually, Professor Waite was tracked down to her family’s farm, and in 2017 submitted a grade change revising the paper to an A. Later that year, the Texas legislature passed a resolution on the subject:

        RESOLVED, That the 85th Legislature of the State of Texas hereby congratulate Gregory D. Watson on receiving a revised grade of A in his 1982 Government 310 class at The University of Texas at Austin

        Thus finally closing the chapter on one of this nation’s most infamous grading disputes.

        [0] Historians dispute the fact thar Proffesor Waite’s decision to leave Academia, which occured prior to the ratification of the 27th amendment, was in any way related to this.

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      it’s not a political document, it’s a holy text. you wouldnt alter the torah either, would you? :D

    • edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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      Fun fact: More amendments went into place in the 1900s (12) than any other century (1700s: 11, 1800s: 4, 2000s: 0)

      I’m surprised those people don’t at least know about Prohibition if they’re the types to throw around “liberal propaganda”

      • Miles O'Brien@startrek.website
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        Everyone knows you can’t store people in a pattern buffer.

        Just ask any transporter chief

        hand hovers ominously over panel

  • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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    It needs to be called out just how weird it is that US Senators like this don’t understand the very document they have sworn to uphold.

    • EndOfLine@lemm.ee
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      The bar has been lowered so much that I wouldn’t be surpised to learn that some of them couldn’t even read.

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        I don’t think Diane Feinstein could really even comprehend anything at the end.

        We should be careful about language like “can’t read,” when discussing taking away rights though. There are blind people who literally “can’t read,” but can comprehend information in an equivalent format and who’d be much more competent than someone like Feinstein.

        • EndOfLine@lemm.ee
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          Out of curiosity, what word do you use to describe the act of run fingers over brail characters to process their meaning?

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            We do not know exactly how many people can read Braille, but at one point it was estimated to be 10% of blind people could read Braille. So 90% of blind people cannot read Braille. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0145482X211071125?journalCode=jvba#:~:text=Another source for the 10,the United States” (p.

            Braille is also expensive and takes up significantly more paper. It is more time consuming to use. Compared to audiobooks, Braille is typically considered inferior and outdated in many circles. I already knew about Braille before I commented, yes. Reading should not be the bar to deny someone rights. It also was a classic racist tactic too. It’s a bad thing to advocate for (denying rights based on reading ability).

            • LemmyAtEmLemmyAtEm@lemmy.world
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              Being unable to read shouldn’t be the bar to deny someone rights. But maybe it should be considered when we’re talking about placing them in a position where they have power and influence over millions of people??

              Honestly, I have no idea how you turned someone shitting on idiots into this attack on the blind.

                • LemmyAtEmLemmyAtEm@lemmy.world
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                  Ok dude. If you want to be mad about this, then be mad.

                  By all means, let’s invite more incompetent morons from the right into political offices. Wouldn’t want anyone to think we hate blind people somehow. Because wanting the leaders of a country to be literate is apparently ableist and as morally reprehensible as transphobia and literal slavery lmao. No slippery slopes here!

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      At this point I’m almost for requiring at least some sort of legal degree for these positions.

    • Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
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      a LOT of the people most important to governing within the constitution, enforcing it, and specifically hired to protect your rights granted by it, know little, to nothing, about it

  • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world
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    But I know also that laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths disclosed, and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also, and keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

    -Some stupid idiot who never read the Constitution, probably

        • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          Need to timestamp that too. Native Americans weren’t white. Then Columbus came, and he wasn’t white. The Spanish/Portugese were here for what, 100 years before England. Really gotta ignore at least the first 75% of years after Mary got knocked up till now.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              The Spanish he sailed under weren’t considered white. The Portugese where he came from wasn’t considered white. And Italians weren’t really considered white in the U.S. until late 1800s early 1900s. The terms WOP, Dago/Dego, Polac are terms I was still called in 90s, early 2000s as my father’s side is from Sicily, and my mother’s side was from Poland. Those terms stem from the not being accepted as white.

              Many people who discussed culture in the early 1900s believed to become white and treated as such you would have to earn it over a few decades of proving prosperity in the U.S. It was all pretty shitty.

              • Tja@programming.dev
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                There was no US in the 1490s to give their opinion on this topic. Why judge this on some arbitrary period of history which is neither contemporary with the facts nor current? What a weird take.

                • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  The discussion is about the U.S. constitution. What the U.S.'s opinion was, is the topic. The arbitrary time period discussed was from the constitutions existence till now. What are you discussing?

  • Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world
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    Funny how the people who scream “you can’t change the second amendment” seem to be perfectly OK with nationalizing Christianity…which would violate the first amendment

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      I’ve already read their mental gymnastics how America is a Christian country because blah blah blah. They specifically say that treaty that says it’s not is a treaty and not part of the US something or other.

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        What’s really fun is that for a big chunk of them, the first three Presidents (at minimum) were not Christian by the definition a lot of them prefer. Washington was a deist. Adams and Jefferson both explicitly rejected the Trinity, which a lot of them hold as being central to the definition of Christianity. Also, Jefferson made his own bible translation that took out the parts he didn’t like, and he wasn’t coy about saying so.

      • WhiskyTangoFoxtrot@lemmy.world
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        This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;

        - Article VI, US Constitution

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      I’m not OK with either of those things, but I will tell you that the 2nd Amendment is here to stay. Read up on the process for amending the Constitution for reference. It only takes 13 states voting No to ratification to block it. A majority of Americans support the 2nd Amendment, including VP Harris.

  • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    You’d also not be able to own guns, or have freedom or religion or speech. Look up the meaning of Amendment why don’t you.

    • frezik@midwest.social
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      States could also do whatever they wanted until the 14th Amendment incorporated the Constitution down to them. Yes, that does mean states could have all the gun control laws they want (pursuant to their own constitutions) until it was explicitly incorporated in 2010.

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    Eh, a rewrite is not the same as an edit.

    If I start talking about rewriting our code base, I’m not asking to fix a big or add a new feature, I’m saying we need to scrap everything we’ve got and start again.

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        According to the math he laid out in that document, it would be a longer period today to account for the increased life expectancy. At the time, it was only assumed that the average life expectancy was 55 years. Google says it is now about 78, so the suggestion for today’s world would be to rewrite the Constitution every 31 years or so.

        It makes sense. His logic is essentially that the Constitution is a contract that binds everyone in our society to a legal framework, but the rules were created for a specific time and people and binding future generations to the same rules would be the same as having a dead man continue to own all the property he aqcuired in life instead of having the ownership pass down to his descendants.

          • Mirshe@lemmy.world
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            Average lifespan was also seriously dragged down by child and infant mortality rates. Most historians and historical medical researchers agree that if you made it past 5 or so, you stood a decent chance of reaching your mid 70s.

            • GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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              Some people did some research and determined that if a male Roman citizen survived to 25, after childhood illnesses, youthful recklessness, and serving in the army, their life expectancy was about the same as ours.

    • dubious@lemmy.world
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      you can point out their hypocrisy, it doesn’t matter. you can make fun of them all you want, it doesn’t matter. you can debate their ideas, it doesn’t matter.

      if you want to save the world, there’s really only one solution.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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        I agree and disagree with that. If you don’t point it out and tell them (and others) that they’re wrong, then they go on doing it with zero pushback and it eventually becomes the truth.

        I completely understand what you’re saying, and it’s exhausting they just continue to shout over everyone, but nothing changes if no one does anything.

        • dubious@lemmy.world
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          you probably just got here like most lemmyists, but we’ve been pointing out the flaws in their ideology since the internet was birthed. no one’s listening. time for real solutions.

          • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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            “you’ve been here for over a year so you couldn’t possibly understand politics from the past four decades, or human nature”

            Wut

              • mojofrododojo@lemmy.world
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                then go for it high speed, stop beating around the bush and waiting for someone to do whatever you think is obvious and get to work.

                • dubious@lemmy.world
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                  I’m just the propaganda arm of the revolution. My only goal is to make people realize that our current methods of beating the right aren’t working. It will take a significant portion of the population to truly fix anything (even winning elections doesn’t make them go away, and they will always be a roadblock to meaningful change). I’m not even really advocating for anything as much as I am trying to make you all understand that the problem is never solved until it’s solved once and for all. Furthermore, we will never be able to reach our utopian future as long as there are a significant number of us trying to go backwards. Humanity has endured so much to get to the point that it’s long time goals are within reach. Some generation of us deserves to reap the rewards. Will it be your children, or will another century have to be one of suffering? Can we afford to endure another century of this dystopia? Can the world even survive it?

                  This isn’t edgelord shit. This is just facing the reality that we have no choice but to be good stewards. The alternative dooms so much life on this planet.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        you can point out their hypocrisy, it doesn’t matter.

        It matters quite a bit when you’re talking about Presidential politics wrt an ongoing genocide.

        Jill’s condemned Putin, which is what everyone wanted her to do. But we’re not sending Putin our highest end military equipment for the purpose of killing Ukrainians now are we?

        Meanwhile, Hasan is bending over backwards to shield Biden and Netanyahu from accusations of a genocide we are facilitating.

        And that’s his point. He’s trying to get Jill to shut up about Gaza, because it’s the rock Kamala is poised to trip over in November. If she loses the Muslim vote in swing states, she’s cooked.

        Hasan needs Jill to recant her position on Israel in order to turn that protest vote against her. And you’re playing into that delusion, because you’re terrified she might actually manage to draw a Muslim protest vote in sufficient quantities to cost Democrats the election.

        That’s the only reason anyone on her gives a shit about the Green Party.

        • GratefullyGodless@lemmy.world
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          Im confused as to why this comment is on this post, since this post concerns not a single thing you put in your comment. Commenting screeds like this in posts completely unrelated to what you’re going on about just gets you down voted and ignored, so nobody will see your comments, or take them seriously when they are actually relevant to the post you’re commenting upon.

        • TooManyFoods@lemmy.world
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          I read that, he starts his question asking if she thinks Netanyahu is a war criminal by saying that he believes he is. You are lying. He did not defend Netanyahu, he did ask why she thought he was one, but that wasn’t in a rhetorical sense, like he was denying it, but he wanted to know why she could say "is a war criminal " with no caveat on one, but not the other. He starts by calling him a war criminal in that interview.

    • Avatar_of_Self@lemmy.world
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      congress@US:/govdocs/$ chmod 754 US_Constitution
      
      justices@US:/govdocs$ sudo  chown justices:usg US_Constitution
      
      justices@US:/govdocs$ chmod 744 US_Constitution
      
  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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    There is a person here on Lemmy that seriously believes if you turn the constitution upside down it magically turns into Latin and has secret messages.

    So, yeah. Unfortunately I’m not surprised with this lady.