“Checks and balances” in the context of US federal government just means that each branch has the ability to check the growth of power of the others. It’s not “a lie” because it’s still true. Right now congress could, if they wanted to, impeach the president or pass laws preventing him from doing the things he wants. The SCOTUS could stop him too if they wanted to actually take up cases on the law instead of using the shadow docket to avoid making rulings.
Trump partisans hold a trifecta in government right now so they are not going to use their checks they have available to them. But one branch refusing to check another because its members were elected from the same stock of partisan lunatics is not the same as checks and balances not existing.
The executive is exceeding its power. Whether the other branches are just ok with it doesnt matter, they fail their obligation to the constitution. The executive does not have the power to rewrite the constitution. The executive does not have the power to write law. The executive does not have the power to deploy the military. The executive does not have the power to tariff. These are all things that are going unchecked.
The legislature doesnt even have some of these powers without a super majority. They are only stalling the process to prevent the checks from occuring.
The checks still exist to correct those abuses of power. Just because congress or SCOTUS is unwilling to use them doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
A law that can be ignored is not a law.
There are tons of laws that aren’t enforced
That’s a nice bromide but framing the current constitutional crises as the result of a “lie” about checks and balances fundamentally mischaracterizes the issues at hand. For one it diminishes the compliance of the other branches which is clearly critical for enabling the abuse that we see. And it also overlooks the general issue that about half the national actively enables the naked corruption and ascendant facism of the current government.
The problem of the present moment is not the structure of the government it’s the tolerance of the population.
One misconception I had about civil disobedience from what I’d learned in school is that it’s a reliable means of drawing attention to your cause: your willingness to expose yourself to legal consequences will communicate to the public how critical you consider the issue to be.
What I learned from witnessing it first-hand is that officials and the media will invent their own narratives about your actions out of whole cloth, and the statement the public thinks you’re making is subject to arbitrary filtering and distortion.
Civil disobedience is not meant to draw attention. It’s meant to fight back without violence.
Drawing attention is a protest or a boycott.
Civil disobedience can overlap with both direct action and protest. But that’s my point: we were only ever taught about the latter.
checks and balances is not a lie it just does not work when folks don’t do their job. its like they did the patriot act because bush jr. didn’t do his job. No system can work when a significant amount of the components are bad actors.
I read: “checks and balances do not work”
They arent working. Att least the checks and balances we have now.
Yeah you can’t be taught about future failures of a system. The only way for it not be able to not be working is for humans to not be in the equation of government. Which is one of the reasons ai taking over does not scare me. Either they kill us all. Win for the planet. Or they run things properly. Win for everybody.
Yeah, we entrusted too many shitty people.
Threat actors are colluding… Democrats included
I wouldn’t say democrats are in on it. I would say democrats are being lead by the same strings. It all ties back to the money. GOP and DNC alike are results of private interests. Now, how the private interests align cant really be known but it is something to think about. I mean its safe to assume thier only function is to amass more wealth but then we are just talking about capitalism.
Truth is, normal people arent part of the equation they are a remainder that gets deemed negligible or shuffled to the side. Its absurd, really, when they are the driving force but to consider them anything other than a statistic is against all modern theories of capitalism.
This is probably the wrong venue for this discussion but I just wanted to say, I dont think democrats are in on it but are just as much chess pieces being moved around as the GOP are.
Starting from middle school (15-ish years ago) I was always enraged by the fact that people blindly follow a lying dictator. How hard can it be to not praise shitty lying scumbags? They are simple creatures who eat and shit like the rest of us. Dems are just controlled opposition (mostly). When I told some candidates are puppets I was laughed at, but later on everybody was shocked that their beloved candidate is just a paid actor.
Truth is most people are stupid af. They will always be manipulated by other stupid but evil people. All this shit will prevent normal people from being cooperative and resilient community. Society is doomed and Carl Sagan agrees on that. The only solution is smart dictator as in China (yeah people will hate me for this statement). People will suffer but as community they will prevail upon becoming sustainable.
You might disagree, laugh at me and call me a doomer, but I am already desensitized to it.
Oh for fuck’s sake, if you want to start a revolt then fucking start it already. Fascism is here right now, so you need to fight it right now. You’re doing no good by sitting around and saying “I would have totally joined the Revolution if one had spontaneously formed around me.”
If a violent resistance isn’t feasible in the here-and-now (and it isn’t) then you need to find other ways to resist.
Ok I go do a revolution now, thanks for the pep talk.
We will join if we hear about it
I’ve been out here being revolting for almost 2 hours now. Not much progress. Let me know if you hear something.
lemme know where and I’ll come join you. I’ll bring a 6 pack and some chips.
yep, I need to polish my rifle before I go out, wouldn’t want it to jam when its hero time. Will be right behind you. Actually I need to buy that rifle then polish it. Actually I need to decide which rifle. AR15 right? I heard they are heavy though? and probably do some mandatory classes and paperwork, license fees. Practice at the range. Etc. The point is, I am right behind you… We all are.
seriously though, why are we all so sedate about fascism and losing our rights? I think its because we dont imagine ourselves to be in imminent danger yet? Its all still very abstract. And yes, I am white and male, and have enough resources to be OK on a day to day basis. the price of eggs being higher and the news sucking every day, and our country’s participating in war crimes are each unbearable, but on a day to day basis, its still mostly just expensive eggs. I can always worry about the rest… later.
Its sad because if we were smart we would act now before a single bit of blood is shed… and all you would have to do is not go to work.
We are getting to a point of no return… or at least a return that would be very, very difficult to achieve. But it’s all done in a very calculated way to make you feel like everything is going fine if you’re not directly affected. It’s fine if the Supreme Court approves of these power grabs, right? And, how can I pay attention when there’s so much going on, right? But Trump is demonizing groups of people as enemies, defying constitutional rights, and making power grabs never before seen from the executive branch in this country. It’s only been a few months and it keeps getting worse.
We’re in very deep shit. Sign a strike card! https://generalstrikeus.com/
Bruh, it sounds like you and OP are both on the same side. Like the point of this post is to kind of -nudge nudge- that “disobedient” thought that’s teetering on the edge of realization, without making a direct call for action. You call for it one way, they call for it another way, but both of you seem to be attempting to conjure the same idea.
Why in the world waste time complaining that your teammate isn’t using the same tactics as you? We have to stop letting arbitrary shit divide us. If we all have the same goal, we should be aiming toward it together.
The OP isn’t suggesting any tactics at all. They’re just saying “we should do anything” and expecting kudos for that. If you want to do something then do something. The time for hypotheticals is over.
There was actually a pretty good comment here once about how MLK and Gandhi only really succeeded with progress when a visible and difficult threat to the system was perceived.
Civil rights stagnated until the ramp up with the march to Washington and widespread riots from groups like the black panthers were damaging public society.
Similarly, Gandhi had trouble convincing the British to even consider independence until widespread communal violence swept the nation in the aftermath of WWII.
Both figures were touted as succeeding in history books due to their non violent movements, but in reality they simply became the center of attention for media at the time which solidified them as icons of their respective movements.
Ironically, both were assassinated which means their opposition definitely viewed them as a a powerful political threat, and not just some supporters for peace.
Gandhi had trouble convincing the British to even consider independence until widespread communal violence swept the nation in the aftermath of WWII.
What are you talking about?
Gandhi was the peaceful alternative that gave Britain a place at the table.
Where do you get that from? All the violent resistance like Subhash Chandra Bose and revolutionary movement were not big enough to be a major concern. Civil disobedience was more concerning given how widespread it was.
Civil Disobedience was the peaceful alternative; it is a show of force that only works if it carries the implication of a more violent alternative. Nobody ever won their freedom by appealing to the morality of the oppressor.
Nope, nope, nope. It is not a show of force, it’s making the society ungovernable, like not paying taxes, growing/making/selling anything to anyone etc. There was no implication of anything more violent. It is not appealing to the morality of the oppressor.
If that was true, the British would have had their puppets shoot and starve them until they were governable.
And they tried. Look at the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the salt raids, the mass imprisonments. But the point wasn’t to wait for mercy, it was to make the cost of control so high, through sheer non-cooperation, that ruling became practically impossible. The system depends on participation. Remove that, and power collapses under its own weight. It’s not about violence, nor about moral appeals. It’s about leverage. When millions stop obeying, even bullets can’t fix the math.
You can read the constitution of the united states for free. You can also read the constitution of every US state for free (except probably some red states; but I’m just assuming that. ((You can also find that out for yourself for free…)))
Checks and balances are real, they have just been exploited from time immemorial. Go ahead and civil disobedience as much as you want you sweet summer child / foreign agent!
You might be mixing up civil disobedience and full fledged rebellion.
What did you guys not learn about civil disobedience?
It’s non-violence, but it breaks the laws “designed to keep things civil.” It’s meant to disrupt, it’s means to obstruct, it’s meant to annoy the shit out of the people you are protesting.
I haven’t seen any civil disobedience. Which is weird because the boomers did it all the time.
A protest isn’t civil disobedience. Boycotts aren’t civil disobedience.
A crowd of hundreds blocking a bridge is. People blocking entrances to government buildings is. People surrounding bases is. People flooding the capitol or disrupting the discourse of policy is. The reason they use the military and ICE is because they are terrified that people will remember that even 1% of the US doing this far outnumbers them.
Non violent protests work if the alternative is violence. Otherwise they just keep sending in violent bullies to dismantle the protests.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justice
There’s a reason why Marsha P. Johnson is remembered.
For throwing the first fucking brick.
A crowd of hundreds blocking a bridge is. People blocking entrances to government buildings is. People surrounding bases is. People flooding the capitol or disrupting the discourse of policy is. The reason they use the military and ICE is because they are terrified that people will remember that even 1% of the US doing this far outnumbers them.
The absolute whining from people when they are moderately inconvenienced is depressing. “Sure, death camps are bad but did they have to block the bridge? I’m going to be late for my brunch!” Well, the person in a camp is going to be late for stuff, too.
I’ve seen someone on this platform, call out people who block bridges as having a “lack of empathy because you’ve never had to be somewhere on time”
You’re so right, how dare I make someone late for their dentist appointment. Let the genocide continue, by all means.
On a more practical level, it can be counter productive to the protester’s cause though. I used to work at a busy convenience store in a city where I would talk to many people throughout the day about what was going on in town, including one day when a small group of protesters shut down the major freeway in the area. It only turned the majority opinion against them and increased support for police. Literally no one so much as even mentioned what they were protesting about, let alone gaining support
Which is why it’s effective if coordinated and done well. It makes things relevant immediately for the public, for officials, for businesses.
It will annoy them to the point of either joining them out of frustration, or at least saying “do something!” To the government.
I have no misconceptions that they will happily massacre civilians when those orders arrive, but until those orders arrive they are only trying to intimidate. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the current orders are quite simply: “Walk and look scary.”
They are clearly more afraid of us than them. They’re nothing more than buzzing insects with stingers.
Mlk jr got cameras.
Malcolm X got results.
Except not really
It is much harder to label a peaceful protester as a terrorist
You weren’t paying attention three months to four years (& 3months) ago.
Let me remind you of trump holding an upside down Bible while peaceful protestors were getting tear gassed.
? no it is quite easy to do so.
Their combination got results. You think they’re ever going to give Malcolm what he demanded? Fuck no. They give it to King and then shoot the both of em for good measure. King made the movement to sympathetic to just start shooting.
and that’s cool, just don’t stand in the way of the people who push Malcolm X, so we can have both
Thiiis. The insiders need to laud the goals of protesters and the protesters need to ease off on the “complicit” insiders a bit. We are on the same team, and the combination of approaches is more powerful. Disagreeing on methods is fine, you pull, we push, momentum baby.
School is indoctrination. I’m surprised so many of my peers don’t realize it.
When I was in China (country of birth), they did national anthem like either weekly or daily. I think it was every week, they would also do a flag raising ceremony. They then did a weird ceremony where first graders did wore little red scarfs, which I as an adult looked it up and its apparantly called the Young Pioneers program where they attempt to brainwash children into their “communist” ideology. (“communist” in quotes because it wasn’t even real communism). So yea I always get weirded out by these weird rituals.
Then when I immigrated to the US, they do the “pledge of allegience” and the national anthem of the US, of course, being a foreign national at the time, I didn’t do the pledge, but just stood up to sort of fit in, but I remained silent. I thought these rituals, national anthem, pledge of allegience, making kids wear red scarfs, was normal, just part of every country.
Then I grew older and went online and apparantly Europeans tell me the flah of allegience wasn’t considered normal.
I eventually got US citizenship derived from my mother’s naturalization. I did eventually get attached to the concept of the constitution and rule of law, checks and balances (I did NOT have any attachments to the US administrations or congress btw, that’s a whole differe t thing). But there was always something very uncanny about the way they teach things.
They keep saying “freedom” “freedom” all over everything they teach, and when they teach civics, teachers say that “police cannot do X if they don’t have probable cause” “you have rights” “innocent until proven guilty”, but we know for a fact that these things do happen, but of course, they are brushed off as “mistakes”, and yet cops don’t seem to get held accountable.
So again, I slowly see the same pattern all over again, different country, similar indoctrination.
And to top it all off, while the US (pre 2025) was considered “democratic”, schools are anything but. Schools admin and teachers always have a lot of draconian rules and some doesn’t even make sense.
Like wtf is school uniform, teaching conformity and just “obey” the rules, no questions asked? Also, you aren’t allowed to wear any outerwear even if its winter and you’re cold unless you purchase the school’s sweaters, wtf? This is a liberal city btw. So much for freedom. Freedom to get a fucking cold.
Security cameras everywhere in school, they had fucking security patrolling inside the school, like wtf its K-12.
The fucking police the bathrooms so much. They sometimes LOCK THE FUCKING BATHROOM because “drugs”. LOL FUCK YOU. I’M GONNA PISS ON THE FUCKING FLOOR. (sry for caps).
Its just, when you’ve seen so much shit from schools in 2 different nationalistic countries, and also have to deal with your abusive parents’ bullshit, you quickly develop the pattern recognition to recognize authoritarianism.
Public school is indoctrination. (And private school would be much worse, especially religious ones). Sad that people don’t recognize this.
You ever read any Foucault? He famously called schools prisons
School uniforms are absolutely NOT the norm in usa cities for the record
They’re not uncommon though. The only good rationale I’ve heard is its good for stopping students for feeling bad/getting bullied because their parents don’t buy them the most expensive clothes.
Except that doesn’t even work. They’ll compare who has the newest and most expensive iPhone. Or who has the most expensive $500+ designer sneakers (seriously tho, what the fuck are kids doing these days) and somehow shoes are not part of the uniform code. Or some other ways to bully.
Poor kids tend to get given second hand school uniforms so they still get discriminated against for what they wear.
they never taught people “civil disobedience” but refer to them as “protests, or deadly demostrations” its all whitewashed.
they did teach use about checks and balances, in order to placate the masses, so they dont anything that threatens the status quo. more or less its, just “dont ruffle the feathers, keep your head down” kind of rhetoric.
I was taught that the founding fathers’ did not take into account a two-party political system when they designed the system of checks and balances.
They did take it into account and George Washington himself said it was a terrible idea because it would lead to exactly where we are now.
If by “take it into account” you mean they said “political parties sure are bad” then not implement anything into the system to discourage their formation, then proceed to form political parties themselves a decade or so later, then sure.
The time for civility has passed
