This “not a democracy, a republic” crap is becoming more and more popular on the right. They’re not even trying to hide the authoritarianism and fascism any more. They’re now openly saying they don’t support democracy.
It’s literally “democracy = Democrats” and “a republic = republican” to them, simple as.
The Democrats should rename themselves the “Freedom Liberty” party just to fuck with em. Take back some of their words.
This is great, call it the Patriot Party or something and talk about how government waste has turned “Citizens On Patrol” into a bunch of lazy, freedom-suppressing, union members.
We already have the Libertarian party, which is the actual Freedom Liberty party.
Libertarians are more interested in simping for our corporate overlords and removing the age of consent.
Nope that’s just the common Redditor’s prejudice against the party based on what they read on Reddit.
I encourage you to read the actual party platform, which has none of what you described in it.
Some of us have had actual conversations with “Libertarians” and found them to be pretty much in-line with the comment. Not all of us spent our lives on a website.
It’s always deregulate-fuck-you-i-got-mine sociopaths. Libertarians are about as realistic and level-headed as Anarchists. It’s great on paper or for a small group but once millions of people are involved the bad actors show up and ruin it for everyone.
Again, I refer you to the party platform. That is the only definitive thing that Libertarians as a party stand for.
Your hearsay is irrelevant to that fact.
Libertarians are just republicans who do drugs and are too embarrassed to call themselves republicans.
Can’t confirm. I consider myself Libertarian, I don’t do drugs, and I have been voting more Democrat than Republican in the last few elections because the Republicans consistently go against my libertarian values. I had to change my affiliation to Republican to get a primary ballot (I’m in a red state, so I wanted to vote to try to limit the damage my neighbors might cause), and ended up voting Democrat in the general. Many of my Democrat friends do the same because the Democratic primary here is a joke.
There are a lot of “libertarians” that are just edgy Republicans, but I doubt they even bother changing their party affiliation. An easy litmus test is if they support Trump, they’re not libertarian. That’s where I draw the line, and it has been pretty effective for me.
and you’d vote Obama a third time if you could!
Nope. I actually never voted for Obama. I voted for McCain in 2008, then I moved states and ended up not voting in 2012 (esp. when Ron Paul lost miserably), Gary Johnson in 2016, and then Biden in 2020.
I think Obama was a decent executive, I just don’t feel like he really represents much of anything that I want. If I could replace Biden with Obama 2.0, I’d take it in a heartbeat, but I don’t think any President should server >2 terms, even if it was legal.
Nah nah bud that’s the dumb toddler daydream party.
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No, republic just means that the role of head of state isn’t hereditary. Lots of dictatorships are republics, some democracies are as well. The actual political system of the USA is representative democracy (in theory at least).
The fact that these terms are so muddled in the minds of the average American is completely deliberate, because it makes it so much easier for them to subvert US democracy when people have been told that the US is not one.
There are a couple definitions. One I’ve heard most is a republic has a citizen as head of state, which disqualifies both monarchies and military dictatorships. Another is that the head of state is elected or nominated, which disqualifies non-representative systems entirely.
I’ve always heard that a Republic is one where power rests in the people and is exercised through their representatives. So more the latter than the former.
And it’s convoluted because governments are weird. For example, the UK is not a Republic, it’s a monarchy, though it’s effectively a Republic because the monarch has only symbolic power. To change the UK to a Republic would only require changing the position of head of state to an elected or appointed position subject to Parliament or the people (either one), which is largely a name change. On the flipside, Iran is a Republic, and it’s certainly less representative of the will of the people than the UK.
So using terms like “Republic” or “Democracy” by themselves isn’t interesting, what’s interesting is what level of control the people have over their own government.
republic /rɪˈpʌblɪk/ noun a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch.
from one of those Oxford ones
I just looked it up and did not find a concise definition. According to the German bpb even dictatorships can be republics.
https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/lexika/lexikon-in-einfacher-sprache/250057/republik/
Not necessarily, North Korea is technically a republic.
No, it’s not. They have a hereditary head of state who enforces his rule with control of the military.
That is why it is technically a republic, but not in practice. The constitution says it is a republic, and they actually have an election for the role of head of state, well “election”, but of course in practice that is not how it works at all.
The US is also technically a representative democracy, but in practice, well…
I’m saying it’s just a lying monarchy.
A pile of shit isn’t a rose because you call it a rose. You’re just lying.
Your reading comprehension leaves something to be desired. We are in agreement, you are just a moron who can’t read.
Also I am not lying, I am stating facts.
It’s not “technically” a republic because it has a hereditary ruling line. Period.
You weirdly angry goon.
Who was the third head of state again? (Hint, it isnt Kim Jung Un)
Well cited effortpost on hexbear about the dprk: https://hexbear.net/post/196389
Now I see what they got defederilized from Lemmy, so much blatant malinformation.
They literally are federated with the main lemmy instance.
It’s not just a Republic its a people’s Republic.
So you know like way better. That’s why they don’t need elections it already says it belongs to the people
They literally hold elections following a concensus process.
Well cited effortpost on hexbear about the dprk: https://hexbear.net/post/196389
Sigh
Sorry you prefer to choose between bad and worse every election over reaching concensus in a constituent meeting and then voting to confirm the candidate in an election, but that doesn’t make the dprk’s system less democratic
That’s a hell of a rant for an obvious joke comment
Fucking tankie scum
Racist “believe anything the US says about a state enemy they’ve previously committed genocide on” bootlicker
Two words: Tienanmen square. If you have anything that resembles a defense of that you’re a POS. And you do.
The hand job place near me is also technically a foot job place.
Yeah, they really should pop open one of those dictionaries – if they know what those are – and look at the definition of republic.
Some grade 9 ass shit. A republic IS a democratic structure of government. It’s representative democracy.
I think what they’re getting at is that majority does not neccesarily rule in the US. You can have an election where a majority of voters go one way but the electoral college (your representation) goes another.
Idk why they want to harp on that right now but whatever.
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Well, we’re both. But if you had to pick just one, Republic is probably more informative than Democracy since citizens rarely actually vote for laws and usually just vote for representatives. The correct term is a combination of the two: democratic republic. Wikipedia uses the term “Federal presidential constitutional republic,” which I think conveys it pretty well, though I’d prefer the term “democratic” somewhere in that word salad.
The main point is that GOP is starting to use this as justification to prevent people from electing their representatives.
Sure, the GOP absolutely twists definitions to suit their goals. You can see something similar with Democrats calling Republicans “fascists,” so the problem is political theater.
That’s a separate discussion from educating people on what the terms actually mean. We should be fighting misinformation on all fronts.
When most of a party is literally pushing to overthrow the popular vote and instate an unelected autocrat, it’s ok to call it fascist.
Maybe, but it’s applied so liberally (ha!) that it starts to lose its meaning. I worry that a significant portion of the population doesn’t actually know what fascism means, so it’s starting to lose its impact.
What else would you call it?
This isn’t a teenager calling dad a fascist for grounding them, the GOP is literally taking pages out of the historical fascism playbook.
I’m saying the term “fascist” is used for pretty much any policy the left doesn’t like, such as abortion restrictions, spending cuts, etc.
Refusing to honor the results of an election is fascist. Passing policies that the left doesn’t like isn’t fascist. However, labeling conservatives as “fascist” is politically convenient, in much the same way as labeling progressives as “socialists” is politically convenient. I worry that the public doesn’t actually understand what those terms mean, so calling out actual fascism or socialism is an issue.
This take is stupidity.
If the American electorate was slightly less stupid, I’d be ecstatic, because he made himself effectively kryptonite to reasonable, intelligent people with that statement.
Unfortunately, the American electorate is, on average, that stupid.
What’s worse is that the average is weighted further toward stupid by gerrymandering. They’re right that the game is rigged, it’s just not rigged against them.
Every accusation is an admission.
Gaslight. Obstruct. Project.
Yup. That about sums it up. You guys wanna talk about something else or?
He said it in 2016 though and has still been re-elected and elected speaker of the house regardless. Hopefully this has an effect on the republican party at large though now. It might fly where he’s from, but it won’t in the US at large. We just need to make sure people know what they’re voting for.
I work with a few atheist/agnostic republicans that are incredibly confused right now.
I’ll never understand voting for the party who wants to eradicate you.
Log Cabin Republicans say “Hi.”
On average? 35% of people believing lies makes us all “on average” as stupid as they are? By your own logic, you just be American
This is terrifying.
This is seditious.
This is the scariest part about it
Remember when people were saying that Ron DeSantis was “very intelligent”?
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Under his eye.
They treat the Constitution like they do their bible.
They don’t read it.
If they do read it, they just read the bits they agree with.
If they read the parts that don’t fit their desired narrative, they engage in mental gymnastics to reinterpret what was written to fit their desires.
Edit:
Jefferson’s reply did not address their concerns about problems with state establishment of religion — only of establishment on the national level. The letter contains the phrase “wall of separation between church and state,” which led to the short-hand for the Establishment Clause that we use today: “Separation of church and state.”
Which led to the Establishment Clause…
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…
And also The point of Article 6 wherein no religious test is to be given to hold office.
Better?
From article VI (3rd paragraph)
"The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executige and judicial officers, both of the united states and of the several states, shall be bound by oath of affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."
It literally couldn’t be any clearer. I guess he’s the shittiest constitutional lawyer ever. But nobody will care. They eat up his arguing from authority fallacy bullshit
They’re lawyers, they are idiots and they twist every word to suit their agenda - that’s what lawyers do.
I don’t want to be that guy, but in fairness, ol’ boy didn’t actually say “biblical republic” (He just wheeled out the old “constitutional Republic” bit).
Doesn’t make this any better, but I want to be sure we criticize with facts.
Amen
Over under on this guy being a pedophile?
He’s either a pedo or dogfucker, there was some statement from him about how homosexuality was bad because it makes people want to have sex with their dog.
So we have another Santorum do we? Anything need naming?
Santorum? You’re telling me a person had the same name that we use to refer to that mixture of cum and lube running out of someone’s asshole?
Has the word gone further than the man himself? Or do you joke?
Yes and what’s even funnier is that this wasn’t even common knowledge at first, there was a new story about how someone tried making a Rick Santorum character in an animal crossing game that had come out around the time, I think it was the one on 3DS.
And the game flagged Santorum as being a lewd word or slur for its online cuss word prevention. Which led to people looking it up, and figuring out what that word meant.
Here’s the deets:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_the_neologism_"santorum"
Which I recall vividly. Dude deserved it wholeheartedly
I’m thinking he’s just veeeery deep in the closet and hates himself.
Definitely fucks dogs, he might even blow goats.
Why not both?
Because I didn’t want to create a space in my mind to consider a pedophile dog fucker.
puppyfucker
Those poor puppies…
I’m thinking pedo.
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Why is it that every time a dumbass steps down from being speaker, you guys manage to find an even bigger wanker? It’s kinda impressive, honestly.
Not me bro. I voted for the other guys.
Pump the bilge pump, get bilge water.
So this is the alternative history they want to write eh?
Clown, it was called the “Enlightenment Age” for a reason, people started breaking the chains of organized religion. Yes they were Christians, but they knew enough to not trust religion as a form of government.
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the material world are some of the founding principles, not “death, misery and suffering but maybe get lucky choosing the right god and you’ll be rewarded with eternal paradise…”
If they founded the country on the Bible, we’d live in a theocracy with no elections and no opposition parties.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Founding-Fathers-Deism-and-Christianity-1272214
Britannica covers it pretty well. I guess they’d better, they have been covering shit for longer than we have been a country.
The phrase is “we the people.”
There is nobody else coming to decide things for humans.
Of course, he’s from Louisiana… The south always was the worst part of American, even in colonial times. The US might have abolished slavery much earlier if not for them. There was even a draft of the Declaration of Independence that critiqued the British slave trade as one of the moral failure of the empire and grounds for independence.
This is why they kicked out McCarthy. This batshit motherfucker is going to drive so many voters to the Dems. Keep amplifying his insane bullshit.
I admire your optimism.
It’s less optimism & more a concrete trend if you look at the elections that have happened since the GOP destroyed Roe v. Wade.
It’s a risky strategy though.
The Clinton team admitted to elevating Trump for an easy win.
How did that go?
The Clinton team had Clinton on it. If they’d run against anyone other than Trump it would’ve been an even bigger slaughter.
This batshit motherfucker is going to drive so many voters to the Dems. Keep amplifying his insane bullshit.
Surely boosting far-right candidates won’t backfire again
It worked flawlessly for Hilldawg
If we just keep platforming fascists eventually people will start voting for our milquetoast fascist-lite candidates who offer no solutions to any problems!
lol, lmao
This batshit motherfucker is going to drive so many voters to the Dems.
Rich Republicans will continue voting for whoever taxes them the least. Poor Republicans will continue voting to spite their perceived opponents (minorities, gays, “the woke mob”).
Yeah, I don’t think so Tim.
If Trump didn’t drive all the moderate Republicans over to the Democrats, this guy isn’t gonna do it.
Didnt almost very candidate Trump supported in the midterms lose?
No, most of them won because most of them were in uncompetitive districts.
Most of the candidates he endorsed in the few competitive districts that still exist did indeed lose, though.
Normies actually believe what he says.
Look at 4chan, there’s no shortage of idiots who want to believe that porky is our lord and savior and they’re actually the good guys when they go around ruining other people’s lives “for teh lulz”.
I am begging you to stop whinging about “normies”, as well as pretending 4chan is a reasonable representation of the general population when it’s q freaks and reactionary societal outcasts.
White Taliban gonna Taliban
Y’all Qaeda.
Christians always try to re-history the world in their favor. They are the most dishonest hypocritical fascists.
Then again, they stole most of what their religion allegedly stands for.Separation of church and state is both the first amendment and a clause in article six of the constitution:
First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
article six
no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.
Thomas Jefferson’s use of the words “separation of church and state” was to explain the purpose of the first amendment specifically but the actual legal text of the constitution is worded broadly enough to cover not only separation of church and state but separation of mosque/synagogue/ect and state rather than singling out Christianity.
the actual legal text of the constitution is worded broadly enough
Ahh, then you just engage in a narrow interpretation of it, hence allowing the combination of church and state.
It’s in the First Amendment. It’s more important than the Second Amendment. This guy is dangerous.
Yeah. I think what these people mean usually is that the phrase “separation of church and state” isn’t in the Constitution, which is true. They heard that somewhere and repeat it. Maybe that West Wing episode where Charlie does a bit about it.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
Seems pretty clear to me.
Well the good news is that just because this fuckbrain said it doesn’t make it true.
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This is literally frightening to read that any American politician would think this. I don’t see how any moderate R could support this train of thought.
There’s no such thing as a moderate R. They voted for Johnson.
The key is realizing that moderate Republicans don’t oppose evangelical wackos either (and Dems, at best, try to have it both ways)
Moderate R are an endangered and disappearing species. And even if you find one, you’d be safe to assume they’re “moderate” rather than moderate.
Do they even exist? Bacon voted for Johnson.
Lots of them think it. The more frightening aspect is the willingness to say it out loud.
Remember when Cheetoh-Man said things out loud and they loved him for it. Eight years later, they feel emboldened to do all kinds of shit that wouldn’t have been on the radar back then. We’re in trouble.
