OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
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User ID: 359
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
We have to balance how much we hate Iran with the risk that China or Russia push back against us going after their preferred Middle Eastern country. And it is better for the Iranians if they have their own Revolution, not just an American putting a new Dictator in place for them.
With that in mind, I fully believe the Iranians can have a revolution if they don't starve first. The only thing the Americans should do is try to get the protestors food and water on a humanitarian mission. Given how hostile Iran is, doing even this without attacking Iran would be a feat in itself. But it seems like the moral option if we want to help out.
Meanwhile, we have others saying, legally speaking, there is no way the ICE agent is on the hook for murder based on previous case law.
https://shipwreckedcrew.substack.com/p/minneapolis-is-not-even-a-close-call
The ICE officer walked away when he was filled to the brim with adrenaline. That doesn't mean he was un-injured and didn't need to convalesce at the hospital. We have him getting hit by the car un-ambiguously on two videos. And even if he wasn't hit by a car, he was in the clear, if he is being judged by the same standard other police have been judged by (see above link.)
Edit: I'm not happy Good was killed, but the agent has the benefit of the doubt until they are proven guilty in a court, and given the facts established it seems unlikely that the agent deserves to be found proven guilty. Ultimately, none of this would have happened if Good hadn't been using her vehicle to obstruct government officials enforcing the law, so I understand why the sentiment is to blame Good. But it is entirely possible for there to be no bad guys here and someone still wind up dead.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
6d ago
And now for something completely different.
Ever feel like democracy's got you down? Ever read enough of Plato's Republic (or listened to people who claim they have ready Plato's Republic) to realize that Democracy always leads to a Tyranny? Afraid that you might be in a Tyranny right now?
You may be entitled to... course correcting your constitution via the process the founders prepared for us! Seriously, the US has gone a freakishly long time since our last amendment. It seems like the process is broken somewhere. Maybe a lot of somewhere.
But when many people propose a constitutional amendment they run into the trap of trying to enshrine their political cause of the day into the constitution, which is never going to work. What we need are structural adjustments that do not favor either side but rather incentivize more deliberative, rational, non-polarized decision making. And what better way to do it than updating the Senate!.
The Senate was never meant to be Democratic. It was meant to be the mirror to the House of Lords in it's day, just not hereditary. It was meant to check, correct, and slow down the work of the more populist House. The Senate was meant to be filled with the wisest and best of each State who serve the public interest without being beholden to popular opinion.
Originally each U.S. senator was elected directly by the legislature of their home state. This changed because state elections started to become proxies for Senate elections, so we passed the 17th amendment and now they are elected separately (though with how common it is to vote all of one party on a ballot, the effect of this change is minimal.)
This turned the US Senate from the original deliberative body to a highly polarized mess that is just like the US House but less representative. It solved one problem, but failed us in many ways.
What if we returned to the spirit of the 17th, with some tweaks to prevent the State Senate elections from turning into proxies for the US Senate again?
DeCivitate (who was featured in ACX a while ago) has been proposing some Constitutional Amendments that try to address the more structural issues with the government, without falling into the trap of "What can I enshrine in the Constitution that makes my side win forever?"
For the Senate, he has proposed a few possibilities:
First, no matter what, let's reduce the number of US Senators down to qty 1 per State. 100 is too many to have a close group of people deliberating together.
Second, let's change the way Senators are selected. Let's require that a senator needs to be a member of their State Senate (defined as the least numerous branch of the state legislature thereof, being composed of at least ten members, and whose concurrence is necessary for any act of the state legislature to become law. so no gaming that!)
From there, we have a couple options:
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Use a FORTRAN algorithm that determines based on past votes who are the most moderate members of the State Senate and then allows the State Senate to pick from them. Plus: almost impossible to game. Minus: Requires putting a specific computer algorithm into the US Constitution, which might be a plus to some people but might also come with its own vulnerabilities.
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Have the Senate vote based on a Condorcet method plus a group veto power to help steer a more normal-looking nomination practice into a moderate candidate.
The articles for each algorithm are worth reading, as each shows a strong consideration for all the nuances for each method and a focus on understanding why we got to this point and avoiding the pitfalls that steered us towards where we are now.
The goal is to have Senators who are serious people who solve problems instead of clapping back on social media. The goal is to have a Senate comprised of people representative of the median of each State, opposed to partisans of the majority party in each state. I think people of both major parties plus people of the minor parties would prefer this to what we have going on now. So... Let's have a Constitutional Convention!
Well, for one, he does not prefer the Republicans to the Democrats and has not for a while now.
He is trying to make less polarized candidates, not candidates of a specific brand. Surely 30 Republican-leaning centrist and 20 Democrat-leaning centrist Senators would be better than what we have now?
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