• mozz
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    5 months ago

    Honestly, I think that impeaching all 6 justices is the right thing to do.

    Just explain it to people in congress. You WILL lose your power when the whip comes down. You MAY be imprisoned or killed if you don’t get in line, and even if not, any power you had in congress will be stripped and discarded. There is no safety, even for the most extreme of the true believers. This is your chance. If you don’t try to stop it, then I think it’s better odds than 50/50 than within a couple of years you’ll be saying you’d do ANYTHING to be able to go back to today and do it, and have your old life just hanging out in Washington and doing legalized insider trading and collecting bricampaign contributions and not having to worry about what will happen to you or your family or your home, again.

    I don’t know if the people will believe if it is explained to them. Groupthink and complacency are powerful things. But that is absolutely what’s at stake.

    • TWeaK
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      755 months ago

      Why bother with impeachment? Biden should just exploit their most recent verdict and round them up as part of an emergency official act.

      • mozz
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        445 months ago

        This is the fascism trap. It’s tempting to fight back “in kind” once the rules start going out the window, and obviously by the letter of their decision it would be perfectly legal for him to just assassinate them as an official act and then nominate all new justices. But this is a trap. The further we all abandon the unspoken rules that keep things on the rails, the worse it gets. You have to fight back on the tilted table without yourself breaking any rules you can avoid breaking.

        It’s a shitty situation but that is the strategy, as far as I understand it.

        (And I know, or I assume, that you weren’t serious - but still it applies, even to more minor things like solving the problem by nominating 10 new justices or things like that.)

        • @[email protected]
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          655 months ago

          Isn’t this the same “taking the high road” strategy that has consistently put democrats at a disadvantage when dealing with a side that doesn’t care about the rules? I bring this up because I’m trying to get an understanding for this framework of thinking. In my heart, I know it’s probably the correct path, but I know it’s not the best one when dealing with the current political game.

          • mozz
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            5 months ago

            So I am basing this on a book “How Democracies Die” that describes a series of case studies of nations that were threatened by a fascist movement, and those that succumbed, and those that defeated it, and what were the differences and tactics involved.

            It’s fairly depressing, because a lot of times once it reaches a certain point there aren’t a lot of good options, but it is based on real outcomes and I think it’s instructive.

            The Democrats’ “taking the high road” that they like to do is different. Assassinating the justices would be responding in kind. Growing the court would be a dangerous escalation. Making a crash priority out of impeaching them, like equal in priority with taking your fucking vacation for July 4th or passing a resolution honoring National Snails Day or whatever useless thing that are doing instead, would be a proper response (to me). Holding a hand-wringing press conference and then doing more or less nothing other than crossing fingers and hoping that this November doesn’t bring the end of the Republic - I.e. taking the high road, i.e. apparently what they’ve decided to do - seems like a pretty sure road to calamity. That, I’m 100% not advocating as the right course of action, although I can see how it might have sounded like I was.

            • kurikai
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              105 months ago

              You gotta screw the whole system up. But not like how the fascists would. Going to filibuster the SCOTUS? Fill it with 99 judges.

        • Tar_Alcaran
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          375 months ago

          But this is a trap. The further we all abandon the unspoken rules that keep things on the rails, the worse it gets.

          The left: “we can’t break decorum and unwritten rules, or the right will do it even worse!”

          The right: does it even worse anyway.

          • queermunist she/her
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            115 months ago

            the left

            Liberals.

            Leftists have been screaming at them for ages to fucking do something.

            Liberals refuse to break rules that exist entirely within their own heads.

          • @ReallyActuallyFrankenstein
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            25 months ago

            If you’re afraid republicans are going to shoot democracy in the face, the answer is not to shoot democracy in the face before they can do it.

            Everyone seems to think that it’s naïve to not do first what we expect the republicans to do once they get the power. But just because the Supreme Court made fascism legal, that doesn’t make it any less fascism to do it.

        • @[email protected]
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          275 months ago

          America’s dependence on unspoken rules and the assumption that people would abide by those rules is the weakest link in American democracy. It was just a matter of time until someone decided to exploit that…

          • mozz
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            75 months ago

            Part of the point of the book was, every country is like that. You can’t just write some stuff in a book and expect it to do anything. People will follow them, or not, or they will as the current Court is doing find absurd reasons to argue why they are following the rules when they are not. At the end of the day it’s just a book.

            Habits are strong, shared values are strong, codes and norms and laws and traditions are strong. But they’re not invulnerable. Fire up people’s loyalty and sense of justice and tell them that the leader is the law and that’s now the most important thing, and watch all the laws in the world crumble and tear like wet tissues. It doesn’t matter if it’s just in people’s heads or it’s written in stone on every street corner. It doesn’t make a difference.

        • TWeaK
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          75 months ago

          It’s getting worse either way it seems, frankly it’s getting to the point that drastic action now could prevent worse harm in future.

        • @[email protected]
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          65 months ago

          They don’t have to be dead. He can just declare they’re no longer the justices. If they want to argue that’s not how it works, good.

        • mozz
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          55 months ago

          And yet… you’re the one in this thread who’s stumping for the boot coming down on all our necks. But sure. Keep talking.

            • mozz
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              5 months ago

              And pay your power bill, and brush your teeth even though you already did yesterday, and try to prevent a horrifying fascist dictatorship with a credible chance at taking over the US from succeeding. I know I know it is oppressive to have to do these things.

              I mean honestly I’m not even saying you should do that third one, just that you should stop implying that the pro killing protestors and political opponents guy is basically the same thing as an identifiably old person who isn’t as on board with a good progressive agenda as I would want him to be. But yes, whichever version you want, all three of those things are among the things I would recommend to get in line with if you want a safe and happy life going forward for the next few years.

              • @[email protected]
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                35 months ago

                I was remarking on the fact that the guy I was commenting under was wanting the blue tie guy to do the same thing the red tie guy wants to do. Advocating for fascism-left.

    • @[email protected]
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      255 months ago

      Biden should use the 6 infinity stones Supreme Court judges to destroy the infinity stones fire the Supreme Court judges

      • veroxii
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        145 months ago

        I just looked up the inaugural oath and the president promises to defend the Constitution from domestic enemies. So if the president as part of their duties consider the supreme court a thread to the constitution then it’s his duty to fire them. And they already said he’d be immune.

        Not sure what he’s waiting for to be honest.

    • @[email protected]
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      85 months ago

      I agree that there are 6 Justices contorting their understanding of the Constitution but I don’t think impeachment is the answer. The political tit-for-tat has only grown more outrageous each passing year, from withholding SCOTUS justice confirmations to cabinet picks and budget brinksmanship. Our elected officials are more interested in scoring points than governing. Both sides of the aisle should be ashamed of how they are representing us, “We, The People.”

      I wish I had a solution but I’ve grown disillusioned by the one-upsmanship and grandstanding. There is no coming together anymore.

      This exchange from DS9’s Past Tense, fittingly set in late-August 2024, comes to mind.

      SISKO: It’s not that they don’t give a damn, Doctor. It’s that they’ve given up. The social problems they face seem too enormous to deal with.

      BASHIR: That only makes things worse. Causing people to suffer because you hate them is terrible, but causing people to suffer because you have forgotten how to care? That’s really hard to understand.

      SISKO: They’ll remember. It’ll take some time and it won’t be easy, but eventually people in this century will remember how to care.

      Call it Trekkie idealism but I still have hope. Live long and prosper, y’all 🖖

      • ASeriesOfPoorChoices
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        45 months ago

        impeachment or death. They are the only two options I’m aware of to get a SCOTUSee out.

        And the latter now includes assisted suicide with a Biden held gun.

    • @[email protected]
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      5 months ago

      Biden needs to dissolve the Supreme Court and recreate it with more justices and term limits as an official act.

      There is no federal documentation saying the President can’t. And thusly we see Biden should remove them to show them what naked force feels like to receive.