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They are indeed, and then can assign criminal or civil penalties on that basis. It's a truly excellent system, very orderly.
The system isnt failing the people, the people are failing the system.
How so? Looks to me like Trump is going to jail, and that should solve the problem.
Can't tell if you're being sarcastic or still playing the bit, but if the latter you've pushed it far enough that I'm officially confused.
The system is fine; much as there are changes I'd like to make, I'm not so naive to think that they'd genuinely solve our problems. A large enough group of people acting in bad faith will tank any political system you try to build.
Call it extending what charity remains to the people whose perspective is driving the outcomes here.
Think of the system as a lever. Blue Tribe has a pretty good hold on the lever, and they're trying to use it to shift an object around to where they think it should be. The fact that they're doing this reveals a lot of assumptions about the nature of the lever, the object, and the environment, and whether it's a good idea or not depends heavily on whether those assumptions are reliable.
They're doing this because they think it will actually solve the problem, right? I think they, collectively, genuinely believe that. There's various permutations and interpretations of what that belief really means, from naïve to actively villainous, but leave those aside. Do you think it's going to solve the problem? Do you think they think it's going to solve the problem? It seems to me those are the sorts of questions that are more useful than all the previous arguments about minutia, none of which seem to me remotely dispositive.
You say the people are failing the system. Don't they always? How does this particular use of the system measurably improve things? At the end of the day, it's the same problem from either perspective, isn't it? Is this going to work, for a given definition of work? And if not, why don't people understand that? My answer is that they lack imagination. What's yours?
No, not necessarily. People in my circle explicitly aren't thinking in terms of realpolitik (and in my experience very rarely do) which seems to be what you're gesturing at with 'solving the problem.' Many genuinely believe that Trump broke the law, that he trampled on democratic norms that undergird our system and that there need to be consequences for that. For what it's worth, I believe they have a point, although I fear the consequences of putting Trump in jail more, bringing us to...
No, of course not. Even for very expansive definitions of 'problem.'
No idea. Probably, although they engage with red tribers and conservative media even less than I do so I expect *surprised pikachu face* come election time.
I'm unsure, again depending on how narrowly you're defining system. If you're specifically referring to the American political system, then...maybe? There certainly seem to be times in our history when norms were more respected and others where we strain against the letter of the law to eke out any kind of short-lived advantage against each other. Maybe just rose-tinted goggles though.
There are plenty of smaller-scale examples where we all manage to hit the cooperate button.
From a strictly functional perspective, it doesn't. The problem isn't Joe Biden or Donald Trump - hell, their policies are nigh indistinguishable outside of a few culture war topics that they indulge their supporters in. Corruption is remarkably low compared to most places in the world, the economy is doing great, people are living good lives when they manage to stop seething about toddler drag shows and a lack of access to late-term abortions. The solution isn't first past the post voting, admitting DC as a state or more rights for gun owners. The solution...well, you probably know what I think already and I doubt I can articulate it without sounding any less trite and naive than the previous times.
No idea. Isn't understanding tribalism and the culture war one of the stated goals of this forum? And if so, why is it that even we can't seem to discuss politics productively, let alone spread our ideals to the masses?
We've discussed plenty of manifestations of tribalism, of people failing to update even when clearly shown to be wrong, all the other culture war topics that have been done to death by authors much more competent than I. My personal bugaboo is people falling for simplistic, monocausal narratives to describe massively complex systems like the economy, geopolitics, the US government, etc. Perhaps it's born of a primordial need to make sense of our world, but God/Nature never gifted us with the mental horsepower to comprehend the hideously complicated social systems we've built. Grasping for simple, obviously wrong, explanations is more comforting to our monkey brains than the agony of having to admit that we just don't know.
Or perhaps I'm falling victim to my own fallacy - all our problems boil down to oversimplification! Follow this one weird trick to enlightenment, philosophers hate him!
The real answer is probably beyond any of us short of Asimovian-psychohistory-level knowledge. All there is to do is put our shoulders to the grindstone and do what we can to make the world a better place.
Is that what you meant by a lack of imagination?
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