America could have avoided all of this with a functional justice system

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca⁩ to ⁨showerthoughts@lemmy.world⁩

But in their infinite wisdom, they decided former presidents and presidential candidates were a sacred cow and we cannot hold someone accountable for their crimes of they might become president, we must put them in a position to ruin everything

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originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
we were 2 inches away from not having to deal with any of this nonsense.

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- FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  He was almost assassinated the day before the national convention. I wonder who the candidate would have been
  
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  - goldteeth@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    God, we were truly robbed of one of history’s greatest power vacuums. That shit would’ve made the Death of Stalin look like a church picnic. It starts with Vance saying he should be the obvious front-runner because he was totally the pick for VP, you just gotta trust him guys, he doesn’t have anything in writing because it was a secret handshake deal but he was totally gonna be the VP, ask anyone, and it ends with Ron DeSantis burying Mike Pence in cement while Nikki Haley drowns the convention center in gasoline.
    
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  - WhyIHateTheInternet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I doubt that. That was all too convenient. Not to be a conspiracy theorist but it was literally perfect in every way. Down to the photo op. I might be 90% wrong but that 10% helps me believe the universe knows what it’s doing.
    
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- excursion22@piefed.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It would’ve been someone else if not Donny. Power has been consolidated in the executive branch for decades, while that of congress and the senate has eroded. A system designed to be trilateral is no longer so when one of the three can just nope out of whatever the other two say. The US has only been fortunate that it’s taken this long to have someone in that office with no morals.
  
  It was already evident in 2010 that something like this was increasingly possible, as noted in Executive Unbound by Eric Posner.
  
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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  We would still be dealing with genocide, environmental destruction, extreme inequality, etc.
  
  If you believe otherwise, then you must’ve been asleep during genocide joe.
  
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- TuffNutzes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It’s gotta be nefarious time travelers. I mean, there’s no other logical explanation that we could be in such a shitty timeline.
  
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SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
There’s no justice system that can withstand loyalists in every position of power.

Trump is doing illegal things. Congress, and SCOTUS need to put him in a cell, they won’t do that because too many memebers of those groups are also owned by the same people.

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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  It’s not illegal if there are no consequences.
  
  Laws are for the poors.
  
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Pavidus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
This is the point I keep reminding myself of. We had four years to do anything at all. We all knew version 2.0 would be back like deja vu but worse, and we (as a country) just let it.

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- givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  We fucking tried telling everyone Biden wasn’t good enough, no neoliberal is good enough to have a D by their name.
  
  Theyre conservatives who oppose change, but without all the stupid racist shit conservative voters want.
  
  So don’t blame it on us “as a country” blame it on the the people that kept shoving neo liberals down our throats as the only other option.
  
  It’s not some impossible task, the freaking DNC already kicked neo liberals to the curb, Schumer and Jeffries are coasting off their votes happening before the DNC vote, if it was the other way around wed have real leadership in the Senate/House already
  
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  - SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I wish we could have had Biden for a second term instead of this bullshit.
    
    Harris probably would have been amazing but people sat around and let Trump in and that’s a failure on the country and its voters.
    
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  - Pavidus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    I still stand by my comment. Four years later, and we are still sitting in the bullshit for round two. We, as a country, failed the task at hand.
    
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  - TrickDacy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    It was the voters. They chose this.
    
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  - Lightor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    You had a bad option and a Nazi option. There wasn’t a third. Who are we blaming?
    
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  - Best_Jeanist@discuss.online ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    We fucking tried telling everyone Biden wasn’t good enough
    
    What did you do that for!? I would have liked him better than Trump! It’s your fault we didn’t get him!
    
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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Who is “we”? I didn’t participate or support in any of genocide joe’s miserable actions.
  
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  - Pavidus@lemmy.world ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    This is like a group project in school. Is it your fault that another member didn’t complete their part and the project received a failing grade? Nope. Did you still receive a failing grade? Yup. We failed. All of us. I’m with you that regular people aren’t to blame for the actions of the state, but that changes nothing. Here we are…with an F on the report card. I didn’t earn this grade, and neither did you. Now it’s on us to drag that grade back up, as a group.
    
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freeman@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Or a proportional voting system, that doesnt produce a two party situation.

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- FearTheNoFear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Exactly. The red and blue corporations make so much noise that it drowns out other parties. On top of that, the belief that voting other party is just throwing your vote away.
  
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TingoTenga@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It’s all been down hill since they did Bernie dirty.

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- ChonkyOwlbear@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  It’s all been downhill since Florida rigged the election for Bush in 2000.
  
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  - solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Before that, everything bad in modern US has roots at Reagan.
    
    (And war on drugs, and Jim Crow, and slavery, and genocide of native populations, and puritanism, and)
    
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- KaRunChiy@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I was in high school when it happened. Been in the work force for 6 years now, still fucking pissed
  
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- givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  The fucked up thing is in 08 Obama could have got a progressive DNC chair…
  
  But he just ignored the DNC out of spite, which is why in 2016 they were broke and took Hillary’s deal for funding in exchange for complete control over the DNC.
  
  Voters did our part and elected Obama, and then he fucked us
  
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- PagPag@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Been paying dividends ever since. Nothing gonna change
  
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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  since a bunch of enslavers genocided the native population…
  
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MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
And a functional taxing system. And functional market rules.

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- Cheems@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Really if we just made half of our systems functional we’d be in much better shape
  
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  - squaresinger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Any systems would already be an advantage. Except of systematic corruption. That one works just fine.
    
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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  And a functional taxing system. And functional market rules.
  
  These are functioning spectacularly for the people who rule.
  
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TuffNutzes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Maybe American could learn something from more advanced, mature democracies like Brazil and Korea. They apparently know how to deal with traitorous insurrectionist authoritarian trash.

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fodor@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
That’s only partly true. Even if Trump had been locked up, and the courts hadn’t said he can do whatever he wants, there could still be someone almost the same as him doing a ton of bad stuff right now.

Of course it is a disaster when the judicial branch fails, but we need to keep that in context of the complete lack of limits on campaign financing, of money coming from corporations and billionaires getting into politics, and how that guarantees the system will be corrupt in short order. In other words, Citizens United was one of the big steps towards the present disaster in the US. You simply cannot have a stable government when the ultra-rich have all of the power. And that, pushes us back to the destruction of anti-monopoly legislation in the '80s and '90s. Which is to say, the bad shit happening now was predicted by many, involves many aspects of government, and took a long time to unfold.

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W3dd1e@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The fact that the other two branches decide the third branch’s members makes no sense. Congress doesn’t decide the president and the president doesn’t pick senators. So why does the president pick the judges and congress vote on them?

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- clay_pidgin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  How do other countries pick them?
  
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  - ChairmanMeow@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    In the Netherlands, to become a judge you must first study Dutch law at a university, then get at least 2 years of work experience in a law-related job. Then you take a second study of 15 months to at most 4 years to become a judge, which also has very strict selection criteria.
    
    After that, you can become a judge. The judiciary branch selects its own members in that way.
    
    If you want to become a higher level judge, you need 10 years of related experience and another study taking at most 2 years.
    
    There’s no supreme court in the Netherlands. The legislative may make laws that supersede the constitution, but only if a very strong argumentation as to why is provided. The Raad van State (Council of State) can judge whether the cabinet has properly applied the law when writing new laws or taking executive decisions. The cabinet can suggest who should join the council, but the council determines if they are a good candidate (ranging from judges to scientists to former lawmakers). They then serve “for life” meaning until they turn 70, after which they retire. There can only be 11 members at a time.
    
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Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
and the biden administration could've decided on a top-down instead of bottom-up approach to prioritizing prosecution

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- nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  As soon as the supreme court made that stupid ruling about presidential immunity, Biden could have cleaned house with inpunity.
  
  Look at where we are now.
  
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  - Aatube@kbin.melroy.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    That would've set a bad precedent. But then again he pardoned his son.
    
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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Yes genocide joe could have done lots of stuff. But he allied with fascists instead because that’s his class.
  
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Kage520@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Could have avoided it with one single (major) change: keep money and politics separate. Have an elected position that can control stock prices? No individual stock picks for you. Campaign contributions, ~~bribes~~ gratitude payments, etc, gone.

We need the good hearted intelligent people back, not the well funded candidates that then get to make more money from the position. But the underfunded well meaning people cannot compete. Take the excessive money away and it wouldn’t be this way.

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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  keep money and politics separate.
  
  Never been the case, never will. The primary function of the state is to violently enforce capitalist privilege.
  
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bss03@infosec.pub ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
That why the Federalist Society attacked the justice system first! They saw that “just” getting a corrupt puppet (Reagan) wasn’t enough to assert the power they wanted.

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niktemadur@lemmy.world ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
A court system packed with right-leaning and downright right-wing judges, rammed in there by hook and by crook with “party over country” appointees.
Remember Merrick Garland? A name made meaningless by the non-voting masses in 2016 and unbelievably, again in 2024. Every time the republicans dared risk themselves by cheating while either packing or blocking the court system, the dire consequences they were dealt was… re-election. Nothing happened! They were REWARDED for their CHEATING!

What is WRONG with these non-voting people?!!
Unable to see cause and effect. No memory. Just fucking blank. And memes. Sleepy Joe and shit. bOtH pArTiEs ArE tHe SaMe LoL aMiRiTe

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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  The system is pure trash. The candidates are both fascist. The votes of most people do not matter at all.
  
  What is WRONG with people who blame the victims?
  
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ohulancutash@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Or a functional electorate.

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Juice@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
It is functioning as it was intended to function. A thing is what it does

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technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

America could have avoided all of this ~~with a functional justice system~~ by not genociding the native population in order to establish an empire of slavery.

What sane person would rely on some ideologues in religious costumes to save them?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion

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GreenKnight23@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Canada can still avoid it but your country is just as dumb as us too.

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- Typhoon@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  We’re only a step or two behind. Especially with the leader of the Conservative party spewing Nazi rhetoric. He went into the last election looking like he’d win until Trump came along and we decided to dodge that bullet for now. But the guy we did elect is backing down on everything Trump related so I don’t see him winning again.
  
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- FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  We were dangerously close to electing someone like Trump until Trump scared us into voting liberal
  
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TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
What is a functional justice system? They all generally have little kings at the top. That’s the problem. At the bottom, the US legal system is (well, was) very rigorous.

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Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
If I had a time machine I’d have better things to do than warn George Washington about this.

There’s like a dozen concerts I’d rather go to first.

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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’d warn George Washington not to enslave and rape people.
  
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primrosepathspeedrun@anarchist.nexus ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Gotta preserve the sacred privileges of sacred hierarchy though.

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- technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Amen.
  
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
  
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1984@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Yet most American presidents have been bad people.

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frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Just gotta elect despicable criminals who aren't puritanical asshats, let them fight their own kind. Someone like that guy who took gold bar bribes, just let them go at each other mafia style so we can worry less about civil rights infringement. Politicians who might get garroted in a coatroom by the opposition wearing a rainbow pin should be less concerned about the woke agenda.

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thatradomguy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
A lot of things probably would’ve worked out if capitalism wasn’t a thing either. Oh well. We’re past that now. There’s only one way out.

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- shalafi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Capitalism was working just fucking dandy when we had unions to reign in the owners and a trust-busting government. You children annoy me.
  
  “sOciAliSM!”
  
  As if there’s any economic system that can’t be played to route the money upstream. As if your thin education and experience can replace real-world history with slogans.
  
  Capitalism is the best economic system we’ve ever invented. Democracy is the best political system we’ve ever invented. Problem being, both need serious guard rails. As with any other system you can imagine.
  
  The electorate has to be educated as to systems and morals. Cut the education? No system can withstand ignorance.
  
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  - M1ch431@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    
    Capitalism is the best economic system we’ve ever invented.
    
    If you limit yourself to only seeing the first-world and not the exploited third-world countries that produce the majority of our goods and provide us with resources, sure if you ignore first-world class-based inequality.
    
    Guess we also ignore that e.g. your cell phone was made in part with child slavery (unless you bought a product like the Fairphone). Out of sight, out of mind - am I right?
    
    Democracy is the best political system we’ve ever invented.
    
    Even in the best case scenarios, we’re still exploring how to implement democracy and have it actually reflect the spirit of the concept. Representative democracy in its current iterations is truly a farce and is far too corruptible. Increasing levels of direct democracy or decentralized governance would likely be desirable. Having the most-qualified experts empowered to solve our problems would be desirable, as well.
    
    Problem being, both need serious guard rails.
    
    Democracy needs less guard rails and capitalism needs more - if we can continue to justify its existence as the dominant economic system.
    
    The electorate has to be educated as to systems and morals.
    
    Indoctrinated would be a better way to put it. Indoctrinated that capitalism is the best system ever (so don’t hope for a system where people aren’t fundamentally exploited), indoctrinated to unquestionably accept fundamentally broken systems (and allow ourselves to be dominated by hierarchy), and identify with state-proscribed morals. Sounds like an amazingly free society that you are advocating for.
    
    People are far less stupid than you let on - we need open and fair discourse, we need to ensure fair media, we need to cut out partisan tribalism, and we need to stop acting like anything we’re currently experiencing is desirable or even close to being “the best”.
    
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- BaroqueInMind@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Name one contemporary country that truly DOES NOT operate on a hybrid-capitalist or true capitalist economy, that is desirable to move to and it is LGBTQ friendly. Don’t worry, we’ll wait for the answer.
  
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DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Not really, it’s the corruptions that dun it …even with a functional justice system the judiciary can keep stepping in for political reasons, lobbyists, money, corruption.

The problem will always be money and power.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

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