By previous countries’ standards. I meant advancement in terms of damage done, not strictly timewise. Humanity is speedrunning mass extinction, and America has been at the forefront.
Stretches of the Mississippi River within the park corridor exceed water quality standards for mercury, bacteria, sediment, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl), and nutrients. Unfortunately, these “impairments” can make the water unsuitable for fishing, swimming, and drinking. Mar 6, 2023
The state has the highest obesity rate, is the least developed state, the life expectancy is at age 74.4, has the lowest high school graduation rate, one of the lowest tax rates in the country, one of the lowest unionization rates, the state government has been under republican trifectas since 2012.
Mississippi has been known for poverty and a lack of education and safety standards for quite some time now, not to mention the rampant sexism and racism that goes hand in hand with said lack of education
You guys (Americans) need to stop with the personality cults. It was cute and funny when it was sports stars and actors, but it slipped down the slope when it’s dangerous malignant narcissists like Trump and Musk. The attitude is the same, though, stop glorifying other people so much, whether it’s on the left or right. No amount of democracy will fix that loophole for populists.
You can fix the american democracy by upgrading it ranked choice voting, abolishing the electoral college, ending citizens united, giving all prisoners the right to vote, reforming the supreme court, make Washington DC and Puerto Rico states.
Eliminating the senate, massively increasing the size of the house, making registration automatic, executing anyone caught disenfranchising voters, etc
… Introducing proportional representation and majority elected president, enfranchising all people, ending politically appointed judiciary, making intentional lies with the intention to mislead the public a criminal offence…
Nah, don’t tie provable intent to it. Just knowingly lie should be enough. If it’s not under national secrets or some other thing, lying SHOULD be illegal out of representatives. Always.
They can always say, “no comment” if they feel the urge to lie.
Eliminating the Senate might seem like a good way to reduce the outsized influence that voters in smaller states wield, but the Senate helps keep those states in the union.
Also, the death penalty should be eliminated, not expanded.
We obviously need to address the fact that our government doesn't represent the country, but drastically increasing the ability of larger states to ride roughshod over the interests of smaller states is not a recipe for stability.
The absolutists are wild… Some people absolutely deserve to never have influence over someone else ever again. There are only so many ways to actually accomplish that…
Have a look at the German system. They are also bicameral. Their primary house, the Bundestag, is like the US Congress. The secondary house, the Bundesrat, is representing the 16 German states. The votes the representatives there cast are bound to decisions of their State governments. So the state government decides yes or no on a question, and all representatives of that state are bound to that decision of their state.
This way, the first chamber represents the overall interests if the people on a federal level, while the secondary chamber represets state interests.
Yeah, I don’t think the state governments in the deep south represent any of the interests of the citizens of the south, anymore than Vladimir Putin and his oligarchs represent the interests of the citizens of Russia.
The deep south are just failed states we’ve let limp on since we lost the stomach for reconstruction and left them in the 19th century.
And exactly how peaceful do you think the scrapping of the entire system will be? Will you sign up for the inevitable fight? Or do you just like talking big?
Anyone with a brain understands that would only bring further pain and death.
Well, if you wanna call the religion evil, you do you I guess, but at least be accurate about it. The Bible doesn’t condone fascism (in fact, much of the point of the New Testament is that laws are not the way to save people,) so using christofascist as a term to refer to Christianity in general is diluting the definition of fascism. If you wanna use that term to refer to the people who use Christian branding as an excuse to push fascist laws, that’s fine, just don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
All it condones is slavery, incest, murder, the divine right to rule and a theocratic state, and the genocide of all non-Jewish people in Israel. Not fashy at all.
Slavery: Not condoned, not condemned, just regulated. See here for details. But that’s a fair argument to make.
Incest: Only condoned in the early generations of humanity when it was necessary, directly condemned afterwards. I guess I can see how you’d be confused if you heard about it secondhand, but any familiarity with the cases in question ought to show this. Incest in and of itself (discounting other problems like rape and pedophilia it tends to coincide with) is a problem primarily because it leads to a higher incidence of genetic defects, and there were no genetic defects in the first batch of humans as God created them perfectly.
Murder: Obviously against the ten commandments. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Is it the death penalty? Are you trying to gish gallop me? I don’t mind answering your points, but I’d appreciate it if you be more specific so I don’t have to guess what you’re referring to in order to address it.
Divine right: In the strictest sense, that God gives authorities their right to rule, sure, but they’re not above accountability like divine right typically says. The Bible says to follow the laws of men only where they do not conflict with the laws of God.
Genocide: That’s a tricky one, where the Israelites were to wipe out the Canaanites. I don’t have a good answer for it. What I do know is that God’s judgment is righteous, and that this one case is not justification for genocides at human convenience (though non-Christians might interpret it that way, including but not limited to a certain state. I’m not defending them.)
Also, just so we’re clear, incest is gross, but it’s not fascist.
Exodus 20:2-17? Deuteronomy 5:6-21? They’re exactly what Sunday School told me they were (and what I’ve found through reading the Bible on my own,) and there are exactly 10. Is there supposed to be some kind of gotcha there? “You shall not murder” is written there plain as day. What are you trying to say?
Are you trying to draw attention to the fact that God’s judgment is fearsome? Because that’s a thing, God is both fearsome and forgiving. His wrath is justified because His judgment is unerring, while we shouldn’t pass judgment because we are flawed. His forgiveness is offered because He doesn’t want to see us go to Hell, while many do anyways because they don’t accept it.
I guess a lot of people try to sugercoat the Bible and downplay God’s judgment because it’s not fun to tell people hard truths, but that’s not a fair portrayal, and it can lead to crises of faith when people have an image of a super chill pacifist God and then read about things like Noah’s ark.
Come check out Oklahoma! Where you can be both the Secretary of Transportation and head the Turnpike authority (at least for a year, until the attorney general gets off his ass)! You can opt out of complying with state law (the Open Meetings Act) if you really really want to bulldoze thousands of family homes to build a toll road and don’t like that people have opinions on it.
There’s no guarantee that your kids teacher is even background checked, much less that they are qualified to teach the subject they are teaching! Thousands of dollars in COVID funds earmarked for education went to buying Christmas trees and TVs. (State superintendent and Secretary of Education also got to be positions held by the same person - with two paychecks!) We also are trying to be national leaders in ignoring the first amendment and establishing a religious online charter school!