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Closest America ever got to ‘for the people, by the people’ was in the 70s. They have never been a great example of equal rights for all. Much like the USSR lots of words which the deeds don’t match.
Trump administration 2024-2028
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daftandbarmy
Army.ca Fossil
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Because Vietnam, record inflation and job loss, and all the domestic chaos around civil rights etc, was so awesome...
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FJAG
Army.ca Myth
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Congress did impose various limits but the Republican US SCC decided this interfered with billionaires' constitutional rights to buy politicians.
Gordon Dundas/
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Buy politicians? Surely Billionaires are more likely to lease . Far better from a tax point of view ?Congress did impose various limits but the Republican US SCC decided this interfered with billionaires' constitutional rights to buy politicians.
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I never said it was awesome, just it was the closest the States got to ‘we the people, for the people’.
Before that a large percentage of the population was not equal citizens and after that much of the checks and balances they started to impose on government in the 20s-70s were slowly eroded in favour of oligarch favouring policies and corruption.
They got upset at Carter because he had a family peanut farm and made him put it in a blind trust for ethics reasons. Today we literally have the president selling cars for a oligarch who donated tons to the Republicans on the white house lawn and not much is said about it.
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What the USSC decided was that people don't lose their right to use their money for political expression just because it's tied up in a business entity.
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Because Vietnam, record inflation and job loss, and all the domestic chaos around civil rights etc, was so awesome...
I’m guessing the post-Watergate reforms helped level the playing field for a little while.
FSTO
Army.ca Fixture
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That’s the USA for you. No limits on anything because the people can police themselves right?
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Eye of a continuing storm. Americans were putting Vietnam, the civil rights turmoil of the '60s-'70s, and Watergate behind them for a while. They had a bicentennial to celebrate. And, yes, the median Democrat and median Republican were closer together in political and social views.
It is not possible for one political faction to keep pushing the progressive envelope at a much faster rate than other political factions without losing some general political and social cohesion.
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Not no limits; but in seriousness, the USA is a country which evolved from the bottom up with respect to governance. They've always imposed limits on themselves, just like everyone else, but in ways that depend much more on local elected government and positions. A foundational principle is that people institute government to enable themselves to order their own lives. European countries have only weakly, if at all, tried to get away from top-down rule, and mostly failed. Canada is failing. Arguments can be made that people in those countries want that, or something in between, because they do have similar democratic institutions. No question that American dominance in so many spheres has to be more than advantageous circumstances (sparsely occupied continent, cities not rubbled by wars), though. Lots of countries in this hemisphere had the same advantages and failed to prosper as much. Institutional choices matter.That’s the USA for you. No limits on anything because the people can police themselves right?
Drilling down, there are a lot of communities where people own a lot of firearms but there is not much firearm violence (or any violence). At least some can "police themselves". Social expectations and enforcement matter.