#Authoritarian rule

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 10, 2023

Heather Cox Richardson

Over all the torrent of news these days is a fundamental struggle about the nature of human government. Is democracy still a viable form of government, or is it better for a country to have a strongman in charge?

Democracy stands on the principle of equality for all people, and those who are turning away from democracy, including the right wing in the United States, object to that equality. They worry that equal rights for women and minorities—especially LGBTQ people—will undermine traditional religion and traditional power structures. They believe democracy saps the morals of a country and are eager for a strong leader who will use the power of the government to reinforce their worldview.

But empowering a strongman ends oversight and enables those in power to think of themselves as above the law. In the short term, it permits those in power to use the apparatus of their government to enrich themselves at the expense of the people of their country. Their supporters don’t care: they are willing to accept the cost of corruption so long as the government persecutes those they see as their enemies. But that deal is vulnerable when it becomes clear the government cannot respond to an immediate public crisis.

That equation is painfully clear right now in Turkey and Syria, where more than 380,000 people are homeless after Monday’s devastating earthquakes. The death toll has climbed to more than 23,000, and more than 78,000 are injured. So far. Just a month ago, Turkey’s president President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised that the country had the fastest and most effective system of response to disaster in the world.

But that promise has been exposed as a lie. As Jen Kirby pointed out in Vox yesterday, Erdoğan and his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), who have been moving the country toward autocracy, rose to power thanks to a construction boom in the 2010s that both drove economic growth and permitted Erdoğan to hand out contracts to his supporters. The collapse of more than 6,400 buildings in Monday’s quakes have brought attention to cost cutting and bribery to get around building codes. At the same time, since a big quake in 1999, homeowners have been paying an earthquake tax that should, by now, have been worth tens of billions of dollars, but none of that money seems to be available, and Erdoğan won’t say where it went.

“This is a time for unity, solidarity,” Erdoğan told reporters. “In a period like this, I cannot stomach people conducting negative campaigns for political interest.” He has shut down media coverage of the crisis and cracked down on social media as well. Elections in Turkey are scheduled for May 14. Erdoğan was already facing a difficult reelection.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad also has to deal with the horrific scenario. Aid groups are having trouble getting assistance to hard-hit areas controlled by opponents of the regime during the country’s ongoing civil war. Assad has blamed western sanctions, imposed against his regime because of its murder of his opponents, for the slow response to the earthquake, but his government has blocked western aid to areas controlled by his opposition. The U.S. has issued a six-month sanctions exemption for relief in Syria.

Russia is also in trouble as its recent invasion of Ukraine has resulted in a protracted war, but it maintains it will continue to extend its new imperial project. On Tuesday, Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian president Vladimir Putin, spoke openly of attacking Poland after conquering Ukraine. It was time, he said, for the West to fall to its knees before Russia, and he predicted Ukraine would be Russia’s before the end of 2023. Poland is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and an attack on it would bring the rest of the NATO countries, including the U.S., to its aid.

Today, Moldova, a former Soviet republic of about 2.6 million people that borders Ukraine and has been under tremendous pressure from Russia, enduring soaring inflation, an inflow of Ukrainian refugees, and power cuts after Russian attacks on Ukraines’ grid, saw its government resign. That government has worked to move closer to European allies and has applied for admission to the European Union. Russia has sought to destabilize that government and has recently appeared to be planning to invade the country. Moldovan president Maia Sandu has nominated a new prime minister, one that intends to continue orienting the country toward Europe.

The U.S. has stood solidly against Russia’s ambitions, but our own right wing is increasingly supportive of Putin, liking his stand against LGBTQ people, his embrace of religion, and his ruthless determination to impose that vision on his country. Yesterday the president and chief executive officer of Elon Musk’s SpaceX admitted the company has blocked the ability of Ukrainian troops to use the Starlink satellite system to advance against Russia. In October, Musk drew fire for proposing a “peace” plan that would give Russia the territory it has claimed from Ukraine.

Meanwhile, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil met with President Joe Biden at the White House today. (His predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, an ally of former president Trump, staged a coup against Lula and is now hanging out in Florida hoping to score a U.S. tourist visa.) In their meeting, Biden and Lula emphasized democracy.

Biden noted that both democracies had been tested lately and that we stand together, rejecting political violence and putting great value in our democratic institutions: the rule of law, freedom, and equality.

Through an interpreter, Lula expanded on what that means. He noted that Brazil had “self-marginalized” under Bolsonaro, rejecting the world and turning inward. But, he said, “Brazil is a country that people enjoy peace, democracy, work, and Carnival, and samba, and a lot of joy. This is the Brazil that we’re trying to reposition in the world.” He called for making sure no more right-wing insurrections undermine our democracies, as well as fighting racism “so that we can guarantee some dreams for the youth.” He called for protecting the natural world to combat climate change, and creating a world governance to enable us to work together against existential threats.

“This is not a government program,” Lula said. “This is a faith commitment of someone that believes in humanism, someone that believes in solidarity. I don’t want to live in a world where humans become algorithms. I want to live in a world where human beings are human beings. And for that, we have to take care very carefully what God gave us: that is the planet Earth.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#earthquake #disaster #planet earth #democratic rule #governement #authoritarian rule #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American

[jaideepkhanduja]

Trust in Venezuela: A Historical Analysis of Eroded Trust and Its Impact on Society

Trust in Venezuela: A Fragile History of Erosion and Crisis Trust is a fundamental aspect of any society, serving as the foundation for social, economic, and political interactions. In Venezuela, however, trust has been an elusive and fragile concept throughout its history. The country has experienced a tumultuous journey, characterized by political instability, economic crises, and social…

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#Authoritarian rule #Corruption in government #Economic instability #Historical analysis #Human rights violations #Oil boom and bust #Political polarisation #Social unrest #Trust in Venezuela #Venezuelan politics

[spiderlegsmusic]

To my friends who are women:

The media is saying you’re more concerned about the temporary state of the economy (something no president or congress has ever controlled), than you are about your rights as US citizens, as human beings. The same media says you’ll vote Republican or stay home even.

This can’t be true, right? The republicans are taking away your rights obtained for you by your grandmothers, and great grandmothers, some of whom never voted until the 1920s. They think you’ll vote for them because gas is a little high.

Please show them how wrong they are and that they made a huge mistake fucking over women by exacting your revenge at the ballot box. Please VOTE, women.

You are the exact measure of change needed by this country to triumph over the republicans plans to take even more of your rights away as try to change the US into an authoritarian autocracy.

#2022 midterms #women's rights #republicans #autocracy #authoritarian rule

[contemplatingoutlander]

"The gerrymandering alone undermines Wisconsin’s status as a democracy. If a majority of the people cannot, under any realistic circumstances, elect a legislative majority of their choosing, then it’s hard to say whether they actually govern themselves."

--Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

Jamelle Bouie points out the disturbing way that Republicans in Wisconsin have basically destroyed democratic representative government on all levels by:

Creating an unbreakable gerrymander to ensure a Republican legislative majority, even if more people vote for Democrats.

Weakening the power of a Democratic governor,.

Targeting a liberal Wisconsin supreme court justice for removal or suspension so that the state SC won't have the power to rule against gerrymandered districting maps, and won't be able to prevent a 19th century ban on abortion from becoming law.

This is chilling. Below are some excerpts from the column:

For more than a decade, dating back to the Republican triumph in the 2010 midterm elections, Wisconsin Republicans have held their State Legislature in an iron lock, forged by a gerrymander so stark that nothing short of a supermajority of the voting public could break it. [...] In 2018, this gerrymander proved strong enough to allow Wisconsin Republicans to win a supermajority of seats in the Assembly despite losing the vote for every statewide office and the statewide legislative vote by 8 percentage points, 54 to 46. No matter how much Wisconsin voters might want to elect a Democratic Legislature, the Republican gerrymander won’t allow them to. [...] Using their gerrymandered majority, Wisconsin Republicans have done everything in their power to undermine, subvert or even nullify the public’s attempt to chart a course away from the Republican Party. In 2018, for example, Wisconsin voters put Tony Evers, a Democrat, in the governor’s mansion, sweeping the incumbent, Scott Walker, out of office. immediately, Wisconsin Republicans introduced legislation to weaken the state’s executive branch, curbing the authority that Walker had exercised as governor. Earlier this year, Wisconsin voters took another step toward ending a decade of Republican minority rule in the Legislature by electing Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee county judge, to the State Supreme Court, in one of the most high-profile and expensive judicial elections in American history. [...] “Republicans in Wisconsin are coalescing around the prospect of impeaching a newly seated liberal justice on the state’s Supreme Court,” my newsroom colleague Reid J. Epstein reports. “The push, just five weeks after Justice Janet Protasiewicz joined the court and before she has heard a single case, serves as a last-ditch effort to stop the new 4-to-3 liberal majority from throwing out Republican-drawn state legislative maps and legalizing abortion in Wisconsin.” Republicans have more than enough votes in the Wisconsin State Assembly to impeach Justice Protasiewicz and just enough votes in the State Senate — a two-thirds majority — to remove her. But removal would allow Governor Evers to appoint another liberal jurist, which is why Republicans don’t plan to convict and remove Protasiewicz. If, instead, the Republican-led State Senate chooses not to act on impeachment, Justice Protasiewicz is suspended but not removed. The court would then revert to a 3-3 deadlock, very likely preserving the Republican gerrymander and keeping a 19th-century abortion law, which bans the procedure, on the books. If successful, Wisconsin Republicans will have created, in effect, an unbreakable hold on state government. With their gerrymander in place, they have an almost permanent grip on the State Legislature, with supermajorities in both chambers. With these majorities, they can limit the reach and power of any Democrat elected to statewide office and remove — or neutralize — any justice who might rule against the gerrymander. [color/emphasis added[

"It’s that breathtaking contempt for the people of Wisconsin — who have voted, since 2018, for a more liberal State Legislature and a more liberal State Supreme Court and a more liberal governor, with the full powers of his office available to him — that makes the Wisconsin Republican Party the most openly authoritarian in the country."

--Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

[edited]

#wisconsin #republican party #authoritarianism #one party rule #disrespect for we the people #gerrymandering #weakening the power of a democratic governor #political removal of a newly elected state supreme court justice #jamelle bouie #the new york times

[crimeronan]

people being like "hunter needs structure and stability" respectfully hunter DOES need stability - in that he needs an environment where he's no longer afraid of the people around him & is confident that he'll always have a safe place to stay n safe people to call - but the kid absolutely DOES NOT need structure. if anything hunter needs LESS structure. this is mister "teens are probably into the same things as me, like authority and rules" please be nice to him.

my absolute favorite hunter darius dynamic is one with like, hunter asking to stay out late on a school night or whatever bc luz has some cool-as-shit event happening in the human world that he wants to attend & darius is just like "you can do whatever you want forever" & hunter's like "aren't you...??? going to....??? give me a curfew????"

darius: why would you need a curfew?

hunter: because i-! what if i'm TIRED before SCHOOL

darius: then you can skip a day.

hunter: [HORRIFIED GASP]

darius: kid. look. you already extensively weighed the risks and benefits of going to this thing on a school night. right?

hunter: ......i did make three charts.

darius: and you determined that the benefits outweigh the risks. with your three charts

hunter: .....yes

darius: ok.

hunter:

darius: so.

hunter:

darius: in conclusion. you can do whatever you want forever.

#and rheyre perfect. thank you. #toh #dadrius #hunter toh #darius deamonne #hunter does not need anything even REMOTELY approaching authoritarian and/or heavily structured parenting. #hunter needs a parent he can call to be like 'i may have overestimated my human alcohol tolerance' and have them come get him without #getting him in trouble. and darius is that! darius covered for hunter wrt flapjack u think that man has RULES?? #or that it's a bad thing that he doesnt?? maybe it's just because i grew up with an authoritarian dad and extremely permissive mom #but i'm still friends with one of my parents and it's not. the one who wouldve cared if i was home by ten. #hunter needs someone to tell him it's literally fine to make his own rules and not sweat the small stuff #long post ?

[booasaur]

For the third time, the US has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution related to the violence in Palestine.

Imagine the people who would have still been alive after the first one. Even the second one. And instead, it won't even stop now, at confirmed 29K, but most likely beyond 33K.

#israel #palestine #free palestine #us politics #I disagree actually #I think it'll have many terrible concrete consequences #it's shown there's no such thing as international rules of engagement #good luck to journalists and humanitarians and healthcare workers in conflict zones #no humanitarian laws need to be followed #good luck trying to pressure any other despot or authoritarian to treat their people better #associated liberal ideals with the worst of humanity #good luck to women and LGBT groups and everyone trying for progress

[secular-jew]

This was Iran before medieval clerics somehow took control.

Tehran, 1970 ⬆️👆🏻⬆️👆🏻

#iran #israel #secular-jew #jewish #judaism #israeli #jerusalem #diaspora #secular jew #secularjew #islam #iranian #iran news #sanaya irani #smriti irani #middle east #syria #lebanon #damascus #united nations #jihad #theocracy #totalitarianism #authoritarianism #despotic #despots #religious rule #dictator #misogyny #misogny

[khaotunq]

Seduction 101, according to Ayan: Step 9/?: Nap in his chair while wearing your banned earphones.

#the eclipse #theeclipseedit #bldramaedit #the eclipse the series #akkayan #my gifs #my edits #mine: akkayan #mine: the eclipse #mine: akk #mine: ayan #mine: thai bl #mine: seduction 101 #akk's expression in the bottom gif #he knows his authority is a joke to ayan #and has absolutely no idea what to do about it #bless his little authoritarian soul #the fact ayan has made the conscious decision to move over into akk's chair at some point #it just. i love it #i'm going to break your rules and sit in your chair #what are u gonna do about it

[canichangemyblogname]

Israel ignoring Egypt's warnings, Israel's chaotic "recovery" (a.k.a. their explicit non-recovery and bombing of hostages), and the IOF's chaotic engagement with Hamas fighters on Oct. 7th and 8th that caught hostages and civilians in crossfire should be proof enough that Israel cannot and will consistently fail to provide for the security and welfare of Jewish people. It should also be proof enough that Netanyahu's government doesn't give a shit about Israeli lives unless they can be weaponized to serve his political and regional goals.

The argument that the only way for Jewish people to have safety and comfort is through a Jewish ethnostate ignores how the violence necessary to establish an ethnostate breeds extremism and a cycle of violence. It ignores how Israel consistently fails to protect and provide for its citizens, how vulnerable the Israeli state would be without US support, and how politically and numerically insecure settler-colonial populations are without ethnic and genocidal violence to reproduce their position in the social hierarchy. This argument also allows countries in the Global North to wipe their hands of their own country's antisemitism. For them, Israel is the solution to their country's "Jewish Question."

Some of Zionism's basic assumptions about Jewish people and the need for a Jewish state come from antisemitic assumptions. Advocates for a Jewish state frequently invoke antisemitic stereotypes to make their case. Like... literal fucking fascists in the US support Zionism because they want to empty their country of Jewish people and then watch them die in Israel.

The largest group of Zionists in the US are Evangelical Christians. Not just in sheer numbers, but as a percentage of their population. And you know what they believe? They believe that all Jews need to return to the Holy Land to be massacred and raptured so Jesus can return. The majority of Zionists in the US are Zonists because they're antisemitic. Their antisemitism informs their support for Zionism, and their belief in Zionism informs their antisemitism.

It boggles me how the US government, literal fascists, and Evangelicals have so many of you legitimately believing that critiquing a man and a government that throws their lot in with Holocaust deniers is antisemitic.

There are experts out there who attest that Zionism encourages and spreads antisemitism around the globe and that it is a contributing factor to increases in antisemitism in the Global North. Some have gone so far as to say it is a literal threat to the well-being of Jews worldwide and a roadblock in the fight against antisemitism.

#israel #zionism #in college the professor who taught me about authoritarianism and right-wing violence stressed that Zionism would get Jewish people killed #he is a Jewish man himself #he spoke about how few in the region actually support extremist groups in the area #and about how Zionism and the violence in the West Bank was poking a great bear #he talked about how if the radicalization from violence mobilized. it could mean the blood of Jews worldwide #especially as the Zionism popular in the Global North encouraged and reproduced common antisemitic tropes #he explained that if the Israeli state does not agree to two people of equal rights under one democratic & pluralistic state #they would be faced with both Jews and Palestinians living under the authoritarian and reactionary rule of an extremist govt. #i remember him talking about the (at the time) regional insecurity of the position of the Israeli state #he was more concerned about the exportation of extremism from Saudi Arabia or Iran than a group like Hamas or Islamic Jihad #he was firm about Hezbollah being more of an existential threat than any of the reactionary groups in Palestine

[feckcops]

No, capitalism isn’t democratic

“The progress brought by democracy and capitalism was supposed to give rise to yet more democracy. Checks and balances would put an end to corruption. An educated population would choose the ‘right’ leaders. And rather than campaigning based on outdated ideologies, those leaders would compete for votes by appealing to the ‘median voter’, bringing moderation to previously divided societies.

“Instead, corruption is on the rise, ideology is back, and people keep picking the ‘wrong’ leaders. Perhaps the creation of societies so stratified that the ruling class can barely comprehend the concerns of ordinary voters was not such a foolproof recipe for democracy after all ...

“Despite the fact that it is blindingly obvious that capitalist democracies require some measures to reduce inequality while tackling climate breakdown, the progressive capitalist vision for the future stands no chance of being implemented.

“There’s only one conclusion left to draw—that capitalism and democracy were never really all that compatible to begin with.”

#capitalism #democratic #democracy #authoritarian #authoritarianism #corruption #populists #populism #inequality #workers #working class #ruling class #global elite #extractivism #colonialism #global economy #economy

[age-of-moonknight]

“Soldier,” Vengeance of the Moon Knight (Vol. 2/2024), #3.

Writer: Jed MacKay; Penciler and Inker: Alessandro Cappuccio; Colorist: Rachelle Rosenberg; Letterer: Cory Petit

#Marvel #Marvel comics #Marvel 616 #Vengeance of the Moon Knight #Vengeance of the Moon Knight vol. 2 #Vengeance of the Moon Knight 2024 #Moon Knight comics #latest release #Soldier #Tigra #Greer Nelson #I love this distinction between what Moon Knight does/did in vol. 9 compared to other heroes #don’t get me wrong I obviously love Spider-Man (and only to a slightly lesser extent Daredevil) but this is a cool difference #feels a little more grounded almost like community defense as opposed to a high-flying cape issue #also fascinating comparing to a drug implying these low level villains are thrill seekers/adrenaline junkies #but most critically…hmmm….this may just be more indicative of my own perspective than anything (bear with me) #but interestingly those last two text boxes on finding the balance between keeping a group too scared to make a move #and not so scared that they get desperate/have nothing left to lose #is very similar to the basis of a theory of counterinsurgency #that an iron fist can keep a group from developing means + will to organize but the ruling regime must be careful #to not be too cruel or else it will push the group into survival mode/win it sympathy from the local or international population #(it’s very reminiscent of Machiavelli’s The Prince) #Mind you it’s a theory usually entertained by authoritarian regimes where people have few de facto civil rights #and its efficacy/sustainability’s debatable as it takes one hiccup with the regime (markedly weak ruler/secession crisis/natural disaster/ #excessive use of force/etc) for the insurgency to flair up again #Marc’s past with the CIA is mentioned in this issue so I wonder if that’s what this is all about #but uuuuuh yeah do with that info what you will sorry hahaha #don’t mind me rambling in the tags

[spiderlegsmusic]

#donald trump #corruption #republicans #authoritarian rule

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 22, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

The Alabama Supreme Court on February 16, 2024, decided that cells awaiting implantation for in vitro fertilization are children and that the accidental destruction of such an embryo falls under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act. In an opinion concurring with the ruling, Chief Justice Tom Parker declared that the people of Alabama have adopted the “theologically based view of the sanctity of life” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

Payton Armstrong of media watchdog Media Matters for America reported today that on the same day the Alabama decision came down, an interview Parker did on the program of a self-proclaimed “prophet” and Q-Anon conspiracy theorist appeared. In it, Parker claimed that “God created government” and called it “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.” 

Parker referred to the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theory that appeared in 1975, which claims that Christians must take over the “seven mountains” of U.S. life: religion, family, education, media, entertainment, business…and government. He told his interviewer that “we’ve abandoned those Seven Mountains and they’ve been occupied by the other side.” God “is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now,” he said. 

While Republicans are split on the decision about embryos after a number of hospitals have ended their popular IVF programs out of fear of prosecution, others, like Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley agreed that “embryos, to me, are babies.” 

House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) identifies himself as a Christian, has argued that the United States is a Christian nation, and has called for “biblically sanctioned government.” At a retreat of Republican leaders this weekend, as the country is grappling with both the need to support Ukraine and the need to fund the government, he tried to rally the attendees with what some called a “sermon” arguing that the Republican Party needed to save the country from its lack of morality.

As Charles Blow of the New York Times put it: “If you don’t think this country is sliding toward theocracy, you’re not paying attention.”

In the United States, theocracy and authoritarianism go hand in hand. 

The framers of the Constitution quite deliberately excluded religion from the U.S. Constitution. As a young man, James Madison, the key thinker behind the Constitution, had seen his home state of Virginia arrest itinerant preachers for undermining the established church in the state. He came to believe that men had a right to the free exercise of religion. 

In 1785, in a “Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments,” he explained that what was at stake was not just religion, but also representative government itself. The establishment of one religion over others attacked a fundamental human right—an unalienable right—of conscience. If lawmakers could destroy the right of freedom of conscience, they could destroy all other unalienable rights. Those in charge of government could throw representative government out the window and make themselves tyrants.

In order to make sure men had the right of conscience, the framers added the First Amendment to the Constitution. It read: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….” 

Madison was right to link religion and representative government. In the early years of the nation, Americans zealously guarded the wall between the two. They strictly limited the power of the federal government to reflect religion, refusing even to permit the government to stop delivery of the U.S. mails on Sunday out of concern that Jews and Christians did not share the same Sabbath, and the government could not choose one over the other. The Constitution, a congressional report noted, gave Congress no authority “to inquire and determine what part of time, or whether any has been set apart by the Almighty for religious exercises.”   

But the Civil War marked a change. As early as the 1830s, southern white enslavers relied on religious justification for their hierarchical system that rested on white supremacy. God, they argued, had made Black Americans for enslavement and women for marriage, and society must recognize those facts.

A character in an 1836 novel written by a Virginia gentleman explained to a younger man that God had given everyone a place in society. Women and Black people were at the bottom, “subordinate” to white men by design. “All women live by marriage,” he said. “It is their only duty.” Trying to make them equal was a cruelty. “For my part,” the older man said, “I am well pleased with the established order of the universe. I see…subordination everywhere. And when I find the subordinate content…and recognizing his place…as that to which he properly belongs, I am content to leave him there.” 

The Confederacy rejected the idea of popular government, maintaining instead that a few Americans should make the rules for the majority. As historian Gaines Foster explained in his 2002 book Moral Reconstruction, which explores the nineteenth-century relationship between government and morality, it was the Confederacy, not the U.S. government, that sought to align the state with God. A nation was more than the “aggregation of individuals,” one Presbyterian minister preached, it was “a sort of person before God,” and the government must purge that nation of sins.

Confederates not only invoked “the favor and guidance of Almighty God” in their Constitution, they established as their motto “Deo vindice,” or “God will vindicate.”

The United States, in contrast, was recentering democracy during the war, and it rejected the alignment of the federal government with a religious vision. When reformers in the United States tried to change the preamble of the U.S. Constitution to read, “We, the people of the United States, humbly acknowledging Almighty God as the sources of all authority and power in civil government, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Ruler among nations, and His revealed will as of supreme authority, in order to constitute a Christian government, and in order to form a more perfect union,” the House Committee on the Judiciary concluded that “the Constitution of the United States does not recognize a Supreme Being.” 

That defense of democracy—the will of the majority—continued to hold religious extremists at bay. 

Reformers continued to try to add a Christian amendment to the Constitution, Foster explains, and in March 1896 once again got so far as the House Committee on the Judiciary. One reformer stressed that turning the Constitution into a Christian document would provide a source of authority for the government that, he implied, it lacked when it simply relied on a voting majority. A religious amendment “asks the Bible to decide moral issues in political life; not all moral questions, but simply those that have become political questions.” 

Opponents recognized this attempt as a revolutionary attack that would dissolve the separation of church and state, and hand power to a religious minority. One reformer said that Congress had no right to enact laws that were not in “harmony with the justice of God” and that the voice of the people should prevail only when it was “right.” Congressmen then asked who would decide what was right, and what would happen if the majority was wrong. Would the Supreme Court turn into an interpreter of the Bible?

The committee set the proposal aside. 

Now, once again, we are watching a minority trying to impose its will on the majority, with leaders like House speaker Johnson noting that “I try to do every day what my constituents want. But sometimes what your constituents want does not line up with the principles God gave us for government. And you have to have conviction enough to stand [up] to your own people….”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Letters From an American #heather cox richardson #theocracy #history #authoritarianism #American History #separation of church and state #rule of law #Alabama

[lith-myathar]

.

#i joke about it and all but like. i cannot emphasize enough what an impact it had on me to be uhhhhhb #micro-institutionalized in the way that i was for the first 14 years if my life #and i am honestly going to count the time i soent in ''elementary'' school bc it wasn't a normal school. it was a charter school #that began as a parent organized alternative and swiftly devolved into an authoritarian nightmare #a bunch of people who were simply not ready to educate children let alone ''problem'' children #of which there were MANY because that school got all the kids who had been turned out of public school for behavioral issues #there were hardline rules about literally everything. normal childhood behavior was pathologized and punished and as a kid #you had no way to understand WHY #and so many of your peers were having problems because ofc those ''problem'' kids were typically severely traumatized #or were actively being abused #so even if it wasn't happening TO you you were being exposed to it in a hundred little ways every day #so i was confused and miserable all the time AND was struggling academically bc i had undiagnosed adhd #(or possibly just trauma?? i honestly neither know nor care which came first at this point) #so my mom pulled me and my brother out. him at 11 and me at 6 and said ''i'll just do it myself'' and #raised us in a way that wasn't religious but resembled evangelical or lds stuff #i couldn't watch commercial tv or listen to popular music bc my parents didn't want me exposed to what they considered inappropriate #and while i still had extracurriculars i was always the odd one out bc i had no exposure to pop culture or normal socialization #for my age group #it resulted in me always feeling alone and like i didn't belong. and since most of my social life was my parents and their friends #that was the perfect soup for adultification #i was fine with adults. put me with my peers and i was a mess #it made the transition to high school incredibly difficult but i DID make it #but that was only 4 years still in an institution. everything began to unravel once i tried to move into anything resembling ''real life'' #and then my dad's suicide which was a major trauma in early adulthood which only made my mom's grip on us tighten #i did get to START life until 26. not really. and it's just been a game of catch up for the last 5 years #and im so *angry* at the unfairness of it all. at the time and experience and milestones that were taken from me. at how i blamed myself #for it for so many years and the problems i developed because of it all. dissociation and substance abuse and suicidality #the fear that still has a death grip on me #the courage required to just exist #it's *exhausting*

[jay-wasreblogging]

🗣️🙏🗣️ CAMBODIA MENTIONED!! 🇰🇭🪷 WHAT THE FUCK IS A DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT!??!! 🇰🇭🗣️ ARRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 🗣️🗣️🪷🙏

#sorry i had to do it - also biking in CAMBODIA? 😭😂😂 I mean you can but you're better off on motorcycle #we had a protest recently at the Victorian Parliament (in Aus) against the lack of action against the authoritarian ruler of Cambodia #he handed power to his son after 30+ ruling which is INSANE but expected - the Australian gov is being pushed to act due to the relations #also also Australia and NZ are two countries that took in many MANY Cambodian refugees during the genocidal rule of Pol Pot so...yeah #my grandparents - uncles aunties - and parents left a country during it's time of a genocidal fascist ruler and now its an authoritarian one #i hope one day that we can all go back when its a gov thats ppl elected and actually wants the country and ppl to live happier lives #anyways im venting in here my bad - but yeah some fun info #sherlock & co #sherlock and co #liveblogging #sherlock #sherlock holmes #john watson #goalhanger podcasts

[tears0fsatan]

lorddd indonesian politics are so bad you gotta pick the lesser evil out of the lot

you got a know it all, an actual war criminal who's trying to imprison his critics and was banned from entering the us at one point bc of human rights abuses, and then nutface who cant be any better if hes a politician in this fucking country

#៹ ࣪˖. 🎧 ramblez﹒💭 #bet americans can relate huh #sorry yall #love that the west is butting into other countries politics #this is actually vile guys #hopefully i leave this place before things go to shit #not gonna be ruled by an actual fucking tyrant #WHO BELIEVES INDONESIA NEEDS AN AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT BY THE WAY