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Goodguy  4d ago (text post)   Edited 4d ago   10264 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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I see once more we have thought of the novel idea, "What if we could make it so our enemies don't get to vote?"

I'm sorry to inform you that if the American people want to vote for communism or Shariah law or the Hunger Games, the Constitution does not in fact prevent that.

I think the clause speaks for itself, but if unclear, my appeal is to the logic that the Founder's intent should prevail and be respected. If someone is against personal property, the separation of powers, the rule of law, and frankly against Christianity, they are unable to honestly swear to defend the Constitution.

I don't advocate for banning anyone's religion or opinions. But certain positions just disqualify some from holding or seeking office under the Constitution.

I think the clause speaks for itself, but if unclear, my appeal is to the logic that the Founder's intent should prevail and be respected.

That logic is not in the Constitution. You may believe we should "respect the Founder's intent" (and that only Christians should be allowed to hold office) but that's not what they wrote.

the oath clause is pretty much pointless decoration, yeah?

Well, no, you are required to uphold and defend the Constitution, and if someone literally said "I don't believe in the Constitution and I want to destroy the Republic," there'd be a good case to deny that person office. But whatever you might suspect about certain elected officials, merely holding political or religious views contrary to what the Founders would have approved of doesn't mean someone isn't capable of following the Constitution.

"I put a foreign country above the country I swore to serve" is good enough for me that they are incapable of following the Constitution, but I am aware that too many people disagree. Those people are wrong.

I don't actually disagree, but I am not sure what you are specifically proposing. Jews and Muslims and Indians are assumed to be loyal to Israel/Palestine/India, or what? If someone declares their allegiance to a foreign country, yes, they are in violation of their oath. If someone talks about their deep cultural connection to a foreign country and you think that is a foreign loyalty, then you're going to have to exclude Irish-, Italian-, Swedish-, Mexican- etc Americans as well.

If someone talks about their deep cultural connection to a foreign country and you think that is a foreign loyalty, then you're going to have to exclude Irish-, Italian-, Swedish-, Mexican- etc Americans as well.

Roosevelt's speech about hyphens as daggers is a perennial classic for a reason.

Woodrow Wilson was the one who called them daggers, but Teddy spoke about hyphenated Americans as traitors four years earlier.

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