Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
This year is going to be insanely busy for travel, with so much denied desire coupled with so much unspent money.
Whether this persists once the cost of living crisis really starts to bite across the world is another matter.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
DeSantis was already trailing Crist in the latest polls, the SC ruling likely ensures he loses the Florida governorship in November.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
If he falls, then - yes - Trump is the obvious beneficiary. But there'll be someone fighting him for the nomination: maybe Pence, maybe Nikki Hayley? Who else?
Ted Cruz probably
After getting his butt kicked last time, condemning Trump as a liar, and then bending the knee in excruciatingly servile fashion?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because the senate represents *the states* not the voters
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
On that note...
Percentage of US population represented by the senators voting to confirm -
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
I have to say I found the exchange of posts from @hyufd, @StillWaters and @PClipp really refreshing this morning. Excellent stuff guys.
b) Excellent response by @StillWaters in distilling the issues with it
c) Excellent exchange between @PClipp and @StillWaters which was very logical and very polite all around
d) And most importantly all against expectations (@hyufd not known for telling jokes, @StillWaters more from the right [I think], and @PClipp a liberal)
From my point of view (being from the Jeremy Clarkson wing of the LDs) I am not opposed to politically incorrect jokes that rely on stereotypes. I think it is all down to who is telling them and it is usually clear whether the person telling them is a bigot or just out for a laugh.
So I enjoyed @hyufd's joke and agree with @PClipp but I also found @StillWaters comments very persuasive.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
But that is only 1 opinion from the 6 judges who voted for the change...
It's perfectly possible that the other 5 have a different opinion.
Yes, but I'd hope not. I do understand the position of conservative literalists, and the idea that one state can tell another what to do is so alien to them that I can't see them endorsing it. It needs to be tested, though.
The recent New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen decision demonstrates that so-called Conservative literalists are very happy with telling Democrat-voting states what to do.
The fundamental problem is that the right to bear arms is explicit in the constitution and the right to an abortion isn't.
The right to bear arms is explicit in the context of a "well regulated militia".
And from the early 1800s until the late 1970s, the Supreme Court repeatedly ruled on that basis. That is, States had a wide degree of latitude to regulate the purchase of firearms, and when and where they might be carried, because the right to bear arms was on that basis of a "well regulated militia".
(In 1870, Texas passed a law that said "It shall be unlawful for any person to carry any gun, pistol, bowie knife, or other dangerous weapon, concealed or unconcealed, on any day of election, during the hours the polls are open")
It's only been a relatively recently, that the Supreme Court seems to have forgotten the first part of the sentence, and was willing to throw out two centuries worth of jurisprudence.
Or, they re-read it and realised it doesn't say "the right to keep and bear arms in pursuance of participation in a well-regulated militia shall not be infringed".
It's a stupid rule. But I can read it and understand what it actually says.
The way the Supreme Court currently interprets it is as though the words "well-regulated militia" don't exist. But they do exist. They are there. Logically they should have some effect.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
Surely the problem @DavidL is not that the states' system is broken - I don't think it is and it gives smaller states protection they otherwise would not have - but that the SC, and the whole US judicial system, has been used by activists to bring about changes that should be left to the voters? The right to decide on abortion should be left to the states, ditto the right over concealed weapons. The problem is not the US federal system, which has held up well, it is that a small but influential section of US society is using the judicial change to bring about change they know they wouldn't be able to get in the normal political way.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
I agree about UK constituency sizes, which work as a similar way to the US House, with regular revision (or Gerrymandering, if you prefer) to keep them roughly equal.
The Senate being composed of two people from each State, was set up specifically to give a voice to the smaller States. Originally, and until relatively recently, Senators were appointed by the governor of each State rather than elected directly.
The Senate is a reminder (or a relic, depending on your point of view) that the USA is a collection of States, and derives its power from the States themselves - rather than the other way around, as in the UK.
The UK is a collection of countries - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Surely the same applies?
All are equally subordinate to the UK.
Definitely not true. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are allowed to have their own parliaments. and governments.
So poor, powerless ickle England isn’t allowed to have its own parliament and government; I wonder if c.80% of the UK’s mps & voters might be able to do something about it? Also, who do you think is doing the allowing in the first place?
Can we all at least agree that the key thing this SCOTUS shambles shows is that the US Constitution is a badly written disgrace that would be unfit to run a kleptocratic dictatorship?
Perhaps an unwritten constitution is better ... (*)
Okay, so I jest. But written constitutions that can only be altered with extreme difficulty (as in the US at the moment) are not fit for purpose, and probably become less fit for purpose over time.
(*) Sorry, Ishmael. I know you don't like smileys, but that's your issue. Deal with it.
Feels like being hard to alter is necessary to prevent constant tinkering and losing the point of a core document in the first place, but when it is functionally impossible in modern times it's less constitutional document than holy writ, with high priests, aka Justices, responsible for re-interpreting it as convenient.
The Swiss system of referenda to amend the system seems to work well.
Reading the overnight threads this weekend, it does seem that the Glastonbury festival managed to book pretty much every band in the world this year, after the two-year hiatus for the pandemic.
Did anyone manage to bag tickets to Headingley today? With England bringing some aggression back to Test cricket, it should be over by lunchtime though.
I decided not to get tickets because it'll be over pretty quickly as you say.
I must agree with the people on here highlighting the danger the US is in when it comes to democratic backsliding.
It is easy to look at individual things and think “The electoral college is just a quirk of how the US constitution works” or “Roe vs Wade isn’t the start of Gilead”.
But the bigger picture has to be looked at. I implore the sceptics to think about Jan 6th and the sheer amount of Republican figures who haven’t disavowed it, and what they might do in power again.
Put it this way, if we had say, Bernie Sanders as the nominee in 2020, and he won, the extra fears of a ‘socialist in the White House’ might have been enough to sway some of the Republicans at a State and National level when it came to certifying the 2020 result. I really don’t think we were that far at all from it all going to shit in that moment.
So what happens when it’s 2024 or 2028 or whatever, and people have had their brains poisoned by fake news for another bunch of years? Or if the result is even closer than in 2020? And projected demographics play their part. We may see a Republican candidate lose by 9 million votes in the popular vote, and lose the electoral college narrowly as well, but ‘win’ through a combination of gerrymandering, dodgy decisions and maybe just outright declared the winner with a Republican trifecta daring the Dems to do anything about it.
(Look at the David Shor / fivethirtyeight stuff on how the Electoral College will likely get even more imbalanced in the coming years)
The temptation is to write off this as something like Bush v Gore Florida 2000 but it’s far, far bleaker imo.
Everyone who facilitated, supported or simply failed to act to prevent Jan6th should, in my view, be banned from political office for life, as an absolute minimum. Those who instigated it really should be in jail. The inability of American law and politics to properly address this shows a democracy in peril.
You'd think if there was one thing that would unite both parties in Congress it would be the principal that people should not storm the Congress to force them to do things, and during which someone died.
They don't even seem that mad about it after mouthing some platitudes immediately afterwards.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
Shocking - it's Wight.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
An inevitable consequence of democracy is that the right to vote for whoever you want means there is no right to vote for a winner.
The idea a vote is only worth something if it elects a winner is beyond bizarre.
Your whole premise, that it should be about winning and losing - rather than about effective representation and good government - is part of the problem.
I'm not the one who talks about "wasted" votes.
I'm also realistic enough to understand that effective representation may be incompatible with good government, which may in any case be impossible to achieve in the social media era.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
If it was suggest a gay couple would notice a cute guy walking down the street then sure - in the same way that most heterosexual men notice a pretty woman, or - for reasons I don’t understand - many women like Diet Coke adverts.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
Utah's attractions are almost entirely natural - and impressive, from the salt flats to Arches, Bryce and Zion Canyons and other geological wonders. There are also very wide roads in Salt Lake City, if you're into that sort of thing.
Utah is one of the most beautiful states in America, with magnificent contrasts from the snowy peaked north to the burning red rocks of the south.
But the humanscape is also interesting, from the orthodox polygamous Mormons of Colorado City to the neo-hipsters of Salt Lake and the Hollywood types of Sundance Film Fest
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
Shocking - it's Wight.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
An inevitable consequence of democracy is that the right to vote for whoever you want means there is no right to vote for a winner.
The idea a vote is only worth something if it elects a winner is beyond bizarre.
Your whole premise, that it should be about winning and losing - rather than about effective representation and good government - is part of the problem.
I'm not the one who talks about "wasted" votes.
I'm also realistic enough to understand that effective representation may be incompatible with good government, which may in any case be impossible to achieve in the social media era.
I think that's changing the subject.
The current system clearly isn't delivering good government either here or in the US.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
I have 2 daughters and a wife all of whom I love dearly. I do not regard their bodies as vessels for another, over which they have no autonomy, no right to choose, even when their physical or mental health is at risk. This is the underlying premise of the Handmaid's tale and in many parts of the US, an actual reality. I do not think it is possible to overreact to this to be honest.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
Let's hope conjugal 'rights' is not in the constitution.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
As an aside, there is a worrying tendency for some feminists to argue as if women could not enjoy sex, so must always have been coerced.
There will probably have been lots of women who did not enjoy sex because of ignorance, their menfolk making no effort to make it enjoyable for them and sex being associated with repeated pregnancy, childbirth and some of the painful physical consequences of that. Women were often worn out from repeated childbirth. It will have been seen as a marriage duty rather than as something to be enjoyed. That does not mean that they were coerced.
But, undeniably, the ability to control one's fertility, good maternal and gynaecological healthcare, good sex education and an understanding that women are sexual beings not mere vessels for the enjoyment of others are essential to women's sexual happiness. And to happy relationships.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
If it was suggest a gay couple would notice a cute guy walking down the street then sure - in the same way that most heterosexual men notice a pretty woman, or - for reasons I don’t understand - many women like Diet Coke adverts.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
Utah's attractions are almost entirely natural - and impressive, from the salt flats to Arches, Bryce and Zion Canyons and other geological wonders. There are also very wide roads in Salt Lake City, if you're into that sort of thing.
Utah is one of the most beautiful states in America, with magnificent contrasts from the snowy peaked north to the burning red rocks of the south.
But the humanscape is also interesting, from the orthodox polygamous Mormons of Colorado City to the neo-hipsters of Salt Lake and the Hollywood types of Sundance Film Fest
I went there in 1999 aged 18, so I guess the humanscape made less of an impact that the physical landscape. But it is an extraordinary place.
People often mock Americans for having a very low rate of passport holding, but when you live in a country of such incredible cultural and physical variety you don't really need to go abroad.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
Shocking - it's Wight.
The 'worth' of your vote depends mostly on which party you vote for, and in many cases for many people is precisely zero.
An inevitable consequence of democracy is that the right to vote for whoever you want means there is no right to vote for a winner.
The idea a vote is only worth something if it elects a winner is beyond bizarre.
Your whole premise, that it should be about winning and losing - rather than about effective representation and good government - is part of the problem.
I'm not the one who talks about "wasted" votes.
I'm also realistic enough to understand that effective representation may be incompatible with good government, which may in any case be impossible to achieve in the social media era.
I think that's changing the subject.
The current system clearly isn't delivering good government either here or in the US.
That in itself isn't sufficient justification to change the system.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
It wouldn't happen in the Commons as the House of Representatives is the US equivalent of the House of Commons.
However I could perfectly see a scenario where a future elected Senate replaced the House of Lords with Wales and Northern Ireland and the East of England getting the same number of Senators as London, the South East and North West despite much smaller populations.
Plus also don't forget Republican Texas has far more EC votes and Representatives than Democrat Vermont too but Vermont has 2 Senators just like Texas has
The UK has an undemocratic second chamber, that we've spent over a century trying to reform. However, the big difference is that it has very limited powers. A big question is what would happen if we (finally) reformed the Lords into a Senate of some sort. Would it have more powers than the current Lords?
The US Senate has as much power as the House -- arguably more in some ways. Imagine if the current House of Lords regularly voted down Boris Johnson's government's legislation. None of that manifesto commitment nonsense. Who cares that Boris won a majority in the Commons? He doesn't have one in the Lords, so tough.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
Splitting CA used to be a GOP idea, I think it was Peter Thiel who was pushing it.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
It wouldn't happen in the Commons as the House of Representatives is the US equivalent of the House of Commons.
However I could perfectly see a scenario where a future elected Senate replaced the House of Lords with Wales and Northern Ireland and the East of England getting the same number of Senators as London, the South East and North West despite much smaller populations.
Plus also don't forget Republican Texas has far more EC votes and Representatives than Democrat Vermont too but Vermont has 2 Senators just like Texas has
The UK has an undemocratic second chamber, that we've spent over a century trying to reform. However, the big difference is that it has very limited powers. A big question is what would happen if we (finally) reformed the Lords into a Senate of some sort. Would it have more powers than the current Lords?
The US Senate has as much power as the House -- arguably more in some ways. Imagine if the current House of Lords regularly voted down Boris Johnson's government's legislation. None of that manifesto commitment nonsense. Who cares that Boris won a majority in the Commons? He doesn't have one in the Lords, so tough.
If the Lords became a fully elected second chamber its members would certainly seek more power to block legislation not just delay it
I must agree with the people on here highlighting the danger the US is in when it comes to democratic backsliding.
It is easy to look at individual things and think “The electoral college is just a quirk of how the US constitution works” or “Roe vs Wade isn’t the start of Gilead”.
But the bigger picture has to be looked at. I implore the sceptics to think about Jan 6th and the sheer amount of Republican figures who haven’t disavowed it, and what they might do in power again.
Put it this way, if we had say, Bernie Sanders as the nominee in 2020, and he won, the extra fears of a ‘socialist in the White House’ might have been enough to sway some of the Republicans at a State and National level when it came to certifying the 2020 result. I really don’t think we were that far at all from it all going to shit in that moment.
So what happens when it’s 2024 or 2028 or whatever, and people have had their brains poisoned by fake news for another bunch of years? Or if the result is even closer than in 2020? And projected demographics play their part. We may see a Republican candidate lose by 9 million votes in the popular vote, and lose the electoral college narrowly as well, but ‘win’ through a combination of gerrymandering, dodgy decisions and maybe just outright declared the winner with a Republican trifecta daring the Dems to do anything about it.
(Look at the David Shor / fivethirtyeight stuff on how the Electoral College will likely get even more imbalanced in the coming years)
The temptation is to write off this as something like Bush v Gore Florida 2000 but it’s far, far bleaker imo.
Everyone who facilitated, supported or simply failed to act to prevent Jan6th should, in my view, be banned from political office for life, as an absolute minimum. Those who instigated it really should be in jail. The inability of American law and politics to properly address this shows a democracy in peril.
You'd think if there was one thing that would unite both parties in Congress it would be the principal that people should not storm the Congress to force them to do things, and during which someone died.
They don't even seem that mad about it after mouthing some platitudes immediately afterwards.
Protestors trying to break the glass and break into the building, and being dispersed with tear gas.
The GOP say they had to go into hiding and end the session, and talk about it being the AZ version of Jan 6th. The Democrats say 'well, we continued as normal' and it wasn't a big deal even though there had to be an obligatory sentence about condemning violence. Both sides have a point. How do you reconcile those sorts of views in modern day America?
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
If it becomes illegal to travel out of state for an abortion then the state has extended its jurisdiction into states where abortion is intheory legal to make it illegal for some women to have an abortion there. It would be the exact parallel to Dred Scott, which meant that slaves who escaped to free states were still slaves, ie extending slavery to the free states. It doesn't matter what excuse a woman may find to travel, if prosecutors find evidence that she had an abortion that would stand up in court then she faces a murder charge.
Your argument is “if I am right then I am right”.
The SC would absolutely protect the interstate commerce clause. Otherwise Congress has virtually no power outside of wartime - everything it does is based on that principle...
That's quite unlikely. The SC has interpreted the commerce clause (as with many others) quite narrowly. And has almost always done so to favour commercial considerations rather than individual rights (note Alito's comments on "legitimate reliance interests"). Notably Kavanaugh doesn't mention the commerce clause at all in relation to interstate travel when he discusses the issue in his Dobbs concurrence.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Fantasy analysis, completely misjudging British culture and politics. The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. The christo-fascists bogeymen/women/other simply have no leverage or support in mainland Britain and not much in NI. I think your attempt to import or project into Britain the worst excesses of US politics is misguided and if it has any effect it will be a negative one. One more atom of online polarisation and debasement of debate.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Fellow member of my U3a has just been. Liked the wine; I think she's organising a sample for our next meeting!
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
DeSantis was already trailing Crist in the latest polls, the SC ruling likely ensures he loses the Florida governorship in November.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
If he falls, then - yes - Trump is the obvious beneficiary. But there'll be someone fighting him for the nomination: maybe Pence, maybe Nikki Hayley? Who else?
.
Ted Cruz probably
After getting his butt kicked last time, condemning Trump as a liar, and then bending the knee in excruciatingly servile fashion?
Having no scruples, spine or sense of shame seems to have served him well so far
What I don't understand is how large parts of America have stayed so religious whilst almost the entire rest of the West has strongly moved in a secular direction.
As it is a vast country and some parts of Europe eg Poland, Greece and Italy are also pretty religious as was Italy until recently.
Note too the majority of the US Supreme Court justices are now Roman Catholic. The Vatican is also strongly anticipated abortion. Maybe just coincidence but
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
Surely the problem @DavidL is not that the states' system is broken - I don't think it is and it gives smaller states protection they otherwise would not have - but that the SC, and the whole US judicial system, has been used by activists to bring about changes that should be left to the voters? The right to decide on abortion should be left to the states, ditto the right over concealed weapons. The problem is not the US federal system, which has held up well, it is that a small but influential section of US society is using the judicial change to bring about change they know they wouldn't be able to get in the normal political way.
The idea that the US federal system "has held up well" is laughable. For just under 100 years, between the end of the Reconstruction Era and the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, large chunks of the US enforced an apartheid system and largely prevented Black Americans from voting. Is that federalism working well?
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
Splitting CA used to be a GOP idea, I think it was Peter Thiel who was pushing it.
That's correct. He wanted to split the State into three, creating two rural Republican states, and one state from LA to San Francisco that would be 80% Democrat.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
Splitting CA used to be a GOP idea, I think it was Peter Thiel who was pushing it.
Yes, the GOP idea was to split it vertically, into E Cali and W Cali. The Dem idea is to split it horizontally, into N Cali and S Cali.
You can guess from those making the proposals, what would be the effect on the Senate of each split.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
Splitting CA used to be a GOP idea, I think it was Peter Thiel who was pushing it.
It depends strongly on how you split the State as to who it favours. If redrawing State boundaries becomes a thing it will make the current arguments over gerrymandering electoral districts look like a harmless parlour game.
The central LibDem machine will be prepared to back perhaps 20 to 30 challengers with intensive effort. The goal will be to take the party from the 11 seats it won in 2019, to at least 20 and probably more like 30 seats.
Such a leap is possible, but far from easy.
There are just two non-Conservative seats in the top twenty LibDem targets: Dunbartonshire East and Sheffield Hallam. The former of those will be difficult because the SNP is polling meaningfully higher than in 2019, while the latter will no longer have the hangover from one of the worst MPs in recent memory.
That means that the top 20 real LibDem targets are all Conservative seats.
Now, sure, there are four with sub 1,000 vote majorities - Wimbledon, Carshalton & Wallington, Cheltenham, Winchester - at least three of which I'd expect to fall, but then their path gets harder.
By the time you get to seat 20 (Harrogate), you are up to an 8.5%/9,700 vote majority. Doable? Sure. But far from easy.
By the time you get to the 30th Conservative seat on the LDs radar, you're looking at majorities well in the five figures and 11-13% margins.
---
OK, now I've been a bit of a perma-bear on LibDem chances, but let's take a look at some of the seats, and let's ask the question:
What happens if the Conservative vote falls by a tenth, and the LibDems pick up half the Labour vote? That seems like an eminently reasonable assumption for 2024.
Well, that takes the LDs to 12 to 18 gains. They grab everything up to Hazel Groze (about ten gains), and then the path gets harder. Surrey South West, Sutton & Cheam, Wokingham... it all depends on the willingness of Labour supporters to vote tactically.
---
My forecasts for LD seats in each of the last three elections have been pretty accurate, although I thought it would be 12 to 14 seats in 2019, which was slightly high. For 2024 (and this is very much subject to change), I am going with 23 to 28 seats, with a slight bias to the higher end of the range. In other words, I expect the LDs to do very slightly better than they did when they were the Alliance or in 1992, but meaningfully worse than in the 1997-2010 period.
Don’t you mean: on topic I agree with dad?
Regarding East Dunbartonshire (note: not “Dunbartonshire East”), I’m not sure that it really would have been all that safe for the SNP. The reason being the Scottish Tory tactical unwind. We can see vast swathes of 2019SCon voters probably becoming 2024SLD voters.
However, Tory boundary changes have saved the day! The replacement Kelvin North seat in *much* more favourable for the SNP. Baxter predicts:
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
Your last point is an interesting one I hadn't thought about.
Separately, RvW probably plays well for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. That State is extremely pro-Choice (presumably for libertarian reasons), her competition to the Right is all anti-abortion, and there's ranked choice voting.
It’s often been suggested that the trans rights stuff started the day after the Obergefell ruling in 2015 - the activist groups achieved one aim and moved on to the next one. Will those activists now go back to fighting for abortion rights, is an interesting question.
Well, we'll see.
I always think there is more passion on whichever side doesn't have what they want. So Eurosceptics had the fervour when Britain was in the EU, while Remainers were practically catatonic.
We will also start to see some terrible stories out of the US, that will help swing the pendulum the other way. People forget that there will be some obvious and terrible tragedies - most commonly suicide - that happen when abortion is broadly prohibited.
Some laws will allow an abortion if a woman's life is in danger. So let us say a pregnant woman threatens suicide and maybe even tries but fails. Or starts seriously self-harming? Will an abortion be permitted in those circumstances? Would anti-abortionists prefer both woman and child dead rather than allow an abortion and the woman to live? As you say, there will be some awful cases.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
Splitting CA used to be a GOP idea, I think it was Peter Thiel who was pushing it.
It depends strongly on how you split the State as to who it favours. If redrawing State boundaries becomes a thing it will make the current arguments over gerrymandering electoral districts look like a harmless parlour game.
We tend to see it as blue states and red states. But it isn't really. It's urban v rural. Swing States tend to be the ones which are balanced in population between the two.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Montenegrin is Serbian, though Montenegrin has 2 additional letters in the alphabet. The differences are mainly cultural -- Montenegro historically was under Italian influence much more than Serbia.
It is not too dissimilar to the relationship between the Russian language and Ukrainian.
When two languages genuinely are very different -- like Welsh and English in Wales, or French and English in Quebec -- I believe the correct response is to assert everyone speaks English anyhow.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The Pope heads the Roman Catholic Church which has 1.3 billion members and the Vatican has already welcomed the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. As have the most hardline Protestant evangelical churches. In many Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East abortion is also illegal.
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
Islam is happier with abortion than Catholicism in general. Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East have some limits on abortion, but rarely ban in outright. If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Independent_countries and look at the first column, abortion is only completely prohibited in Catholic countries.
Fair enough, though the only nations with the death penalty for homosexuality are Muslim.
Roman Catholics bete noire no 1 is abortion, Islam's bete noire no 1 is homosexuality
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
Your last point is an interesting one I hadn't thought about.
Separately, RvW probably plays well for Lisa Murkowski in Alaska. That State is extremely pro-Choice (presumably for libertarian reasons), her competition to the Right is all anti-abortion, and there's ranked choice voting.
It’s often been suggested that the trans rights stuff started the day after the Obergefell ruling in 2015 - the activist groups achieved one aim and moved on to the next one. Will those activists now go back to fighting for abortion rights, is an interesting question.
Well, we'll see.
I always think there is more passion on whichever side doesn't have what they want. So Eurosceptics had the fervour when Britain was in the EU, while Remainers were practically catatonic.
We will also start to see some terrible stories out of the US, that will help swing the pendulum the other way. People forget that there will be some obvious and terrible tragedies - most commonly suicide - that happen when abortion is broadly prohibited.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Fantasy analysis, completely misjudging British culture and politics. The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. The christo-fascists bogeymen/women/other simply have no leverage or support in mainland Britain and not much in NI. I think your attempt to import or project into Britain the worst excesses of US politics is misguided and if it has any effect it will be a negative one. One more atom of online polarisation and debasement of debate.
" The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. "
IME this is a misreading. Trans rights has thoroughly split feminism in the UK, with some feminists believing strongly in trans rights; others believing that trans rights thoroughly trample on women's rights. Part of the reason the debate gets so febrile is that *both* sides think they are speaking out on behalf of all women.
And the anti-trans feminists can be just as extreme as the committed transfeminists.
Then there is the issue of not only what a 'woman' is; what is 'trans' ? Someone post-op, pre-op, someone going through the process and living as their chosen gender, or someone who chooses to be a certain gender on a certain day? People seem to pick whatever group best matches their argument.
On the Supreme Court: I'm old enough to remember when referring to judges as 'enemies of the people' was frowned upon. In social media it seems to be open season on Clarence Thomas in particular. I disagree with their decision in a personal sense but can understand it constitutionally, though as others have pointed out, if abortion laws can vary from state to state gun laws ought to be allowed to as well, given the words of the constitution ('well-regulated militia') are open to flexible interpretation.
I feel like a lot of the issues being devolved to state level would help to diffuse the rather poisonous national debate in the USA, but it is difficult to see how this gets accomplished any time soon, as whichever party is elected to the presidency is constantly pressured by its base to enact as much as possible on the federal level, partly to 'get one over' on the other side.
I don't agree that even the US Supreme Court Justices should be labelled as enemies of the people. But one key difference between there and here is our judges are not explicitly, openly political in their appointment and rulings.
They are politicians. Usually more intelligent and erudite politicians, and they will even go against their party position more often than the elected, but they are still very clearly acting with their political goals principally in mind (and this is shown by the logical inconsistency of their decisions). It has been noted that it is not only conservative justices who act so.
So while such attacks can still be frowned upon, that they are both judges and politicians does blur the lines around acceptable criticism, since politicians have to accept sterner criticism. The Justices no doubt don't like that, they want to present as nothing but impartial arbiters of the law, but their own dissents at each others decisions frequently imply its all about poltiics and not law.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
…
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Such shit legal drafting
Judges have been making common law for centuries. That's a more insidious evil than forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term against her will?
What?
Sorry. Quoted the wrong block. But this was in response to....
" I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law."
What I don't understand is how large parts of America have stayed so religious whilst almost the entire rest of the West has strongly moved in a secular direction.
As it is a vast country and some parts of Europe eg Poland, Greece and Italy are also pretty religious as was Italy until recently.
Note too the majority of the US Supreme Court justices are now Roman Catholic. The Vatican is also strongly anticipated abortion. Maybe just coincidence but
Like many things in Italy, religion is mostly for show, except for the elderly.
You could wonder whether, when we shipped off our religious nutters to the Americas in the 16-1700s, we didn't fully think through the long-term consequences?
The striking thing about America is the coincidence of apparently strong religion with much behaviour that is decidedly unchristian. Bruno Maccaes in his recent book argues that religion in the US is more cultural and political than actually spiritual.
On the subject of Roe v Wade and the effect on the electoral map, I think we should divide the US into four groups of States:
1. Republican States who are anti-abortion 2. Democratic States who are pro-Choice 3. Republican States which are either only mildly pro-Choice, or where abortion is unlikely to have an impact and 4. Republican States that are more vehmently pro-Choice, and where it could have a significant impact.
The most anti-abortion states (Utah, and the South) are all Republican.
Pretty much every reasonably reliable Democrat state is pro-Choice, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. (Where, ironically, the Republicans have chosen a pro-Choice Senatorial candidate.)
There are lots of Republican US States where abortion is unlikely to have a big impact. The Mountain West, for example, is pretty pro-abortion, but the Republican margins are huge there. And some other States (like Texas) have only very slight pro-Choice leanings.
But there are a couple of States where abortion could have an impact, by far the biggest of which is Florida. By about a 3:2 ratio, Floridians favour legal abortion. Indeed, it is more pro-Choice than the country as a whole. It also enacted a law that aped Texas's criminalising abortion. (And similarly with no exceptions.)
It is far from impossible that this could derail Governor DeSantis's chances for the Presidential nomination: would he be selected if he had just (in a generally great year for the Republicans) lost the swing state of Florida?
That is a great description @rcs1000. It's a good question on DeSantis, plus the question of whether recent entrants to Florida (who are probably quite socially liberal but are fleeing high tax D states) will react strongly.
One thing that might - and I say might because I don't know how it plays out - impact the political consequences is the relative ease of internal travel in the US. I realise that may seem daft but Americans are very used to crossing state to state for a variety of reasons, including work, family, holidays etc. If those who are mildly pro-Choice but are not particularly motivated come to look at the issue as one where it involves a similar 'inconvenience' (and this is not my view), it may dilute the electoral impact.
Slightly tangential - I wonder whether this will take some of the sting out of the whole trans issue. Now the activists have something to else to play with, and one which involves basic biology, I can see some of the vocal support for trans rights quietly slipping away,
DeSantis was already trailing Crist in the latest polls, the SC ruling likely ensures he loses the Florida governorship in November.
That then sets up the way for Trump to run again in 2024 if he wants, with Pence running as the candidate to take forward the new pro life agenda for the GOP and Haley as the leading moderate candidate
If he falls, then - yes - Trump is the obvious beneficiary. But there'll be someone fighting him for the nomination: maybe Pence, maybe Nikki Hayley? Who else?
.
Ted Cruz probably
After getting his butt kicked last time, condemning Trump as a liar, and then bending the knee in excruciatingly servile fashion?
Having no scruples, spine or sense of shame seems to have served him well so far
It's not about scruples, it's about humilating himself by doing it all again with even less chance of beating Trump.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Montenegrin is Serbian, though Montenegrin has 2 additional letters in the alphabet. The differences are mainly cultural -- Montenegro historically was under Italian influence much more than Serbia.
It is not too dissimilar to the relationship between the Russian language and Ukrainian.
When two languages genuinely are very different -- like Welsh and English in Wales, or French and English in Quebec -- I believe the correct response is to assert everyone speaks English anyhow.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
If it was suggest a gay couple would notice a cute guy walking down the street then sure - in the same way that most heterosexual men notice a pretty woman, or - for reasons I don’t understand - many women like Diet Coke adverts.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
I'm sorry but as a gay man I have to say I find your taking offence at HYUFD's joke offensive!
A lazy analysis by the Times. It might have done better to compare Boris to Trump, or even to Tony Blair in that both Prime Ministers had a transactional relationship with their parties rather than being seen as true believers.
But that's the whole point of the article.
Middle England had long feared that the natural instincts of the Labour Party were anti-patriotic, anti-enterprise, anti-the common sense of the saloon bar and the suburb. Blair did superbly well at allaying those fears, but they were resurrected at a stroke when an IRA-sympathising, Nato-loathing, pro-Communist pacifist was made party leader.
There was always a hyper-alertness to Tory sleaze and lies — and then came Johnson, who has been remarkably productive at churning out stories of both sleaze and lies
The similarity is that BoZo and Jezza both precisely embody the worst fears of voters about their respective parties.
Middle England still fears that the natural instincts of the Labour Party are anti-patriotic, anti-enterprise, anti-the common sense of the saloon bar and the suburb. Starmer is doing kind of ok at allaying those fears.
The difference between the 1990s and now is that Middle England also now fears that the natural instincts of the Conservative Party are anti-patriotic, anti-enterprise, anti-the common sense of the saloon bar and the suburb. Remember “Fuck business!”
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
Surely the problem @DavidL is not that the states' system is broken - I don't think it is and it gives smaller states protection they otherwise would not have - but that the SC, and the whole US judicial system, has been used by activists to bring about changes that should be left to the voters? The right to decide on abortion should be left to the states, ditto the right over concealed weapons. The problem is not the US federal system, which has held up well, it is that a small but influential section of US society is using the judicial change to bring about change they know they wouldn't be able to get in the normal political way.
There is quite a lot to disagree with there. Historically, leaving matters to States resulted in an incredibly bloody civil war. The Gileads have managed to get their way in several States and have brought in additional legislation already. A Federal system with a written Constitution must give basic rights to the citizens of all States; not only was that established by the Civil War but if it were not so what is the Federal Government for. The way that the SC has undermined protections in the Voters Rights Act and has refused to intervene in both gerrymandering and voter suppression techniques mean that there is a glaring hole where the rule of law should be upholding democracy.
I can agree, at the risk of a charge of sychophancy, that activists on both sides have certainly made these problems worse!
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
You joke but that would sort it. They'd cave in 48 hours, RMT eat your heart out.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
The critical point, as we have found to our cost, is that the state of Wyoming has exactly the same number of votes to determine the appointment of SC Justices as California. I remember @rcs1000 reporting that there was a possibility of California splitting in 2. It may be that there is a need to revisit that so the Senate has a slightly better reflection of the US in the 22nd century.
There is some interesting reading to be done about Texas too, with the suggestion that it has the right to split itself into up to 5 States within the USA.
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
If states prevent women from travelling to other states and if this is upheld by the Supreme Court, it is hard to see how the US can survive as a single country.
Kavanaugh's concurrence makes that unlikely I'd have thought.
Yes, Kavanaugh did seem clear that it would not be constitutional for States, having being handed the power to legislate on abortion, could legislate to prevent people travelling to other States.
And yet crossing State lines to commit an offence is a pretty fundamental concept in US Federal law, specifically in cases involving minors. I wouldn't be so confident.
Isn’t that concept simply to allow the Feds to enforce Federal Law, because two States are involved.
So a murder is an issue for the State where it happened to deal with, but someone crossing State lines to commit a murder means that the FBI can investigate it?
Also IIRC if you go from Texas to Alabama to commit murder it’s an offence in Alabama not in Texas. The Feds get involved before of the crossing by boundaries but they don’t typically prosecute
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
I agree with this up to a point.
But I would remind you that you (and I) have fought relentlessly for more equal constituency sizes in the UK, regarding it as undemocratic that the denizens of Walsall's vote should be worth four times that of someone from the Isle of White. Why, you might ask, should a denizen of Walsall accept equalisation of constituency sizes?
There's another point: eventually systems become some unrepresentative that a break becomes inevitable. Now, 48-52 is not that point (and nor is 45:55), but if one political party was regularly getting 50% more votes than the other (i.e 60:40), then I think the system would end up breaking. It has to work for both the big states and the small states.
On that note...
Percentage of US population represented by the senators voting to confirm -
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Fantasy analysis, completely misjudging British culture and politics. The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. The christo-fascists bogeymen/women/other simply have no leverage or support in mainland Britain and not much in NI. I think your attempt to import or project into Britain the worst excesses of US politics is misguided and if it has any effect it will be a negative one. One more atom of online polarisation and debasement of debate.
" The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. "
IME this is a misreading. Trans rights has thoroughly split feminism in the UK, with some feminists believing strongly in trans rights; others believing that trans rights thoroughly trample on women's rights. Part of the reason the debate gets so febrile is that *both* sides think they are speaking out on behalf of all women.
And the anti-trans feminists can be just as extreme as the committed transfeminists.
Then there is the issue of not only what a 'woman' is; what is 'trans' ? Someone post-op, pre-op, someone going through the process and living as their chosen gender, or someone who chooses to be a certain gender on a certain day? People seem to pick whatever group best matches their argument.
I would agree with some of that. I didn't state or imply that a majority of committed feminists are opposed to the Trans extremists (how could I measure that?) but it is notable that the most coherent critics who have been subject to intimidation are female feminist campaigners and academics. Partly this is because they have a thought through analysis of sex and gender. I think initially a lot of people and politicians just vaguely went along with what they thought was a simple equality campaign like anti-racism. They then were bemused and out of their depth versus Stonewall (mark2) etc. Can you imagine the average backbencher trying to articulate a deep philosophical argument?
I disagree that there is equality of aggression from both sides of this debate (in the UK). The intimidation, cancel culture, closing of free speech is overwhelmingly from Trans extremist side. Not surprising as an intelligent debate would expose their intellectual and moral incoherence.
Raining at Headingley and looks like it will do for quite a while! Dry at Taunton for the women's Test though!
Yeah that's why I laid NZ rather than backed England yesterday.
Surely the draw should be favourite?
Not yet. This match probably only requires a maximum of 30 overs to resolve it one way or another. In short, if we start at tea a result is pretty much guaranteed.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
What I don't understand is how large parts of America have stayed so religious whilst almost the entire rest of the West has strongly moved in a secular direction.
As it is a vast country and some parts of Europe eg Poland, Greece and Italy are also pretty religious as was Italy until recently.
Note too the majority of the US Supreme Court justices are now Roman Catholic. The Vatican is also strongly anticipated abortion. Maybe just coincidence but
Like many things in Italy, religion is mostly for show, except for the elderly.
You could wonder whether, when we shipped off our religious nutters to the Americas in the 16-1700s, we didn't fully think through the long-term consequences?
The striking thing about America is the coincidence of apparently strong religion with much behaviour that is decidedly unchristian. Bruno Maccaes in his recent book argues that religion in the US is more cultural and political than actually spiritual.
I must admit that the exporting our religious nutters point crossed my mind too.
I must agree with the people on here highlighting the danger the US is in when it comes to democratic backsliding.
It is easy to look at individual things and think “The electoral college is just a quirk of how the US constitution works” or “Roe vs Wade isn’t the start of Gilead”.
But the bigger picture has to be looked at. I implore the sceptics to think about Jan 6th and the sheer amount of Republican figures who haven’t disavowed it, and what they might do in power again.
Put it this way, if we had say, Bernie Sanders as the nominee in 2020, and he won, the extra fears of a ‘socialist in the White House’ might have been enough to sway some of the Republicans at a State and National level when it came to certifying the 2020 result. I really don’t think we were that far at all from it all going to shit in that moment.
So what happens when it’s 2024 or 2028 or whatever, and people have had their brains poisoned by fake news for another bunch of years? Or if the result is even closer than in 2020? And projected demographics play their part. We may see a Republican candidate lose by 9 million votes in the popular vote, and lose the electoral college narrowly as well, but ‘win’ through a combination of gerrymandering, dodgy decisions and maybe just outright declared the winner with a Republican trifecta daring the Dems to do anything about it.
(Look at the David Shor / fivethirtyeight stuff on how the Electoral College will likely get even more imbalanced in the coming years)
The temptation is to write off this as something like Bush v Gore Florida 2000 but it’s far, far bleaker imo.
Everyone who facilitated, supported or simply failed to act to prevent Jan6th should, in my view, be banned from political office for life, as an absolute minimum. Those who instigated it really should be in jail. The inability of American law and politics to properly address this shows a democracy in peril.
You'd think if there was one thing that would unite both parties in Congress it would be the principal that people should not storm the Congress to force them to do things, and during which someone died.
They don't even seem that mad about it after mouthing some platitudes immediately afterwards.
Protestors trying to break the glass and break into the building, and being dispersed with tear gas.
The GOP say they had to go into hiding and end the session, and talk about it being the AZ version of Jan 6th. The Democrats say 'well, we continued as normal' and it wasn't a big deal even though there had to be an obligatory sentence about condemning violence. Both sides have a point. How do you reconcile those sorts of views in modern day America?
It's not hard - it was a protest which turned violent, and disrupted a session of the state senate. Probably several of those involved broke laws.
An attempt to overturn the government, it was not.
Raining at Headingley and looks like it will do for quite a while! Dry at Taunton for the women's Test though!
Yeah that's why I laid NZ rather than backed England yesterday.
Surely the draw should be favourite?
Not yet. This match probably only requires a maximum of 30 overs to resolve it one way or another. In short, if we start at tea a result is pretty much guaranteed.
I hope you're right; and it does look as though the rain is going to stop this afternoon.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Women aren't supposed to enjoy sex is I think one of the roots of this. Abortion makes it possible for women to enjoy sex without suffering the consequences. But fallen women should be punished for what they've done.
This also explains why contraception is immediately now also a target. It's another way for women to escape being punished for enjoying sex.
That is certainly a part of it.
Well, I suppose, if women are not supposed to enjoy it, they had better stop doing it altogether. No need for contraception or abortion. No more children of course but there are plenty of people in the world already and, anyway, heaven is where it's at.
So - a sex strike for US women it is then. Un marriage blanc for all!!
You joke but that would sort it. They'd cave in 48 hours, RMT eat your heart out.
Visual representation of what happens when chaps are denied an outlet.
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
Because why would Wyoming want to sign up to that?
Giving power to the smaller States is by design, to prevent national politics being decided only by what benefits half a dozen large coastal cities.
They should replicate it here: make the House of Lords an elected second chamber, beef up its powers significantly, and split the seats equally four ways between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
I’m not sure I would go equal given that England is 85% but you could (a) overweight the 3; and (b) have English “senators” elected by region not nationally
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
Maybe not but I doubt you would get any gay couples wanting to move from Connecticut to Utah, except to admire some clean cut young Mormons
If you think about it for a moment that is a really unpleasant post.
I’ll do you the courtesy of assuming it was unintentional
Having thought about it, I cannot see why you consider this post to be unpleasant. Perhaps I am just too innocent, and perhaps you could enlighten me?
What I do find unpleasant is the way some posters here go in for bullying others.
The insinuation that gay men (I assume) have a particular “thing” for “clean cut young Mormons”.
Suggesting that (a) they are unusually superficial; (b) that they have a particular liking for young men; (c) that they don’ have the capability of a stable marriage with a life partner; and (d) that Utah is the sort of place that there is no other reason to go to except for male eye candy
It treads pretty close to a lot of attacks on gay men that are used by people who are intolerant of their life choices
Thank you for the reply and the explanation, Mr Waters. Appreciated.
I do not know a vast number of gay men, but based on the sample of those I do know, I would have thought the supposition to be not without foundation. It would not hold true for everybody, of course, but as a generalisation, I would have thought it good enough. Especially for a flippant throw-away remark by young HY.
As for the attractions of Utah as a state, I wonder if our PB Travel Team can offer us any guidance on what these might be?
From your second paragraph, I infer that you are not intolerant of other people's life choices. So we have found some common ground. And that is positive.
If it was suggest a gay couple would notice a cute guy walking down the street then sure - in the same way that most heterosexual men notice a pretty woman, or - for reasons I don’t understand - many women like Diet Coke adverts.
But he was suggesting moving across the country solely for the purpose of ogling young men…
I’ve only been to Utah once, for lunch. It was a bit meh to be honest.
I'm sorry but as a gay man I have to say I find your taking offence at HYUFD's joke offensive!
I think what threw him was the idea of HYUFD making a joke. He's clearly better at deadpan than many of us suspected.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
If the overturning of Roe v Wade - and the gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County decision - show us one thing, it is that we can never take the rights we have - no matter how long we have had them for - for granted. It is foolish to dismiss small determined one issue groups. They can - precisely because they are so focused on one issue - get their way more easily than we like to think.
The Pope heads the Roman Catholic Church which has 1.3 billion members and the Vatican has already welcomed the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v Wade. As have the most hardline Protestant evangelical churches. In many Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East abortion is also illegal.
Opposition to abortion globally goes beyond just small one issue groups even if in the West the consensus now is generally for abortion with some difference on time limits
Islam is happier with abortion than Catholicism in general. Muslim nations in North Africa and the Middle East have some limits on abortion, but rarely ban in outright. If you go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law#Independent_countries and look at the first column, abortion is only completely prohibited in Catholic countries.
Fair enough, though the only nations with the death penalty for homosexuality are Muslim.
Roman Catholics bete noire no 1 is abortion, Islam's bete noire no 1 is homosexuality
I believe (predominantly Christian) Uganda has the death penalty for homosexuality.
Raining at Headingley and looks like it will do for quite a while! Dry at Taunton for the women's Test though!
Yeah that's why I laid NZ rather than backed England yesterday.
Surely the draw should be favourite?
Not yet. This match probably only requires a maximum of 30 overs to resolve it one way or another. In short, if we start at tea a result is pretty much guaranteed.
I hope you're right; and it does look as though the rain is going to stop this afternoon.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Fantasy analysis, completely misjudging British culture and politics. The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. The christo-fascists bogeymen/women/other simply have no leverage or support in mainland Britain and not much in NI. I think your attempt to import or project into Britain the worst excesses of US politics is misguided and if it has any effect it will be a negative one. One more atom of online polarisation and debasement of debate.
" The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. "
IME this is a misreading. Trans rights has thoroughly split feminism in the UK, with some feminists believing strongly in trans rights; others believing that trans rights thoroughly trample on women's rights. Part of the reason the debate gets so febrile is that *both* sides think they are speaking out on behalf of all women.
And the anti-trans feminists can be just as extreme as the committed transfeminists.
Then there is the issue of not only what a 'woman' is; what is 'trans' ? Someone post-op, pre-op, someone going through the process and living as their chosen gender, or someone who chooses to be a certain gender on a certain day? People seem to pick whatever group best matches their argument.
The trans / anti-trans split in feminism has existed since at least the 70s 2nd wave. It caused massive arguments then too.
My point to Cyclefree is not to argue about the rights & wrongs of this issue, but to ask her take a close look at some of the allies the GC feminists have been cosying up to & to consider the consequences for her & her daughters if those groups were to gain power.
Some UK GC feminists have been quite explicit that they care more about the “trans threat to women” as they see it than they do about abortion, contraception, or any other rights & are quite happy to join up with chisto-fascist groups both here & in the USA in pursuit of their goals. This seems to me the height of idiocy: Do you really think that women will be better off here, or elsewhere, if you win your trans arguments by siding with these people?
No American tourists in Bulgaria that I've seen. Almost everyone at the seaside resorts here is Bulgarian (vast majority), Romanian, Ukrainian or Russian. There are a tiny number of Germans and even fewer Brits. Few observations:
(1) Loads of people here still smoke - it's like in the UK in the mid-late 1990s when you could smoke in bars, restaurants and around kids and it was just accepted. Lots of teenagers taking up the habit in towns too. I must admit I struggle with this and Balkans tobacco is particularly unpleasant. We try and move away but it's nigh impossible. (2) Obesity is now a problem everywhere. Forget the Mediterranean diet: I've seen enough grotesque bellies here and tubby children aged 9-10 years old to rival anything in the US or UK. They eat far too much pizza, cheese and bread and are much too sedentary. It's now a problem everywhere. (3) People don't smile or laugh in the Balkans, at least not publicly. No doubt there is some good cultural or historical reason for this reserve - perhaps they find Western bonhomie rather shallow and fake? - but it's not particularly attractive. It's remarkable how much less attractive a person is when they never smile or laugh. You really have to know them well to bond, and it makes casual friendships that little bit harder.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Fantasy analysis, completely misjudging British culture and politics. The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. The christo-fascists bogeymen/women/other simply have no leverage or support in mainland Britain and not much in NI. I think your attempt to import or project into Britain the worst excesses of US politics is misguided and if it has any effect it will be a negative one. One more atom of online polarisation and debasement of debate.
Haven't you noticed that it is Stonewall - very keen indeed on trans rights & self-ID in particular which has explicitly since 2015 been campaigning to remove existing sex-based exemptions benefiting women in the Equality Act? It also wants to abolish the crime of rape by deception.
A group which wants to do that is not on the side of women.
Haven't you noticed Scottish Ministers - currently campaigning to get self-ID in Scotland - citing Malta as one of the countries to be emulated because of their stance on this topic. This would be the Malta that has an absolute abortion ban & one of whose Ministers recently said that Maltese women who went abroad for abortion should be hunted down & punished.
Haven't you noticed the violence of transactivists (as in the recent demo in Bristol) attacking women, threatening them with violence, including sexual violence telling them to go home & look after their children? Haven't you noticed the number of people with sexual offences against women & children claiming to be trans demanding that women abandon their boundaries, which are there for their protection.
Haven't you noticed Stonewall attacking lesbians for not wanting to have sex with men with penises, calling them racists, similar to anti-semites or those who were pro-apartheid? Haven't you noticed Stonewall trying to redefine sexual orientation as gender orientation? How offensive & harmful to gay rights is that? My gay son is attracted to men with male bodies. Not to a woman who feels herself to be a man. But if he says that, transactivists will call him transphobic.
Trans people in the U.K. currently have exactly the same legal rights & protections under the Equality Act as other groups. I am glad of that. I will fight to stop anyone taking those away. I will fight for those with gender dysphoria to have the care & support they need.
But it is not trans rights which are at risk of being eliminated in this country. It is the rights of women - to have single sex spaces, single sex rape & domestic violence shelters, single sex prisons, single sex sport etc & the right & ability to fight sex discrimination - which are being put at risk by those who think a man with a male body is a woman just because he feels he is. This is nonsense on stilts & puts at risk not just women but all the other protected characteristics. Why can't a white person say they should be considered "black" or "disabled" if they feel they are? What do you think that will do to the rights of black people or the disabled if categories can be Id'd into at will?
Both the extreme transactivists & the anti-abortionists prefer ideology over physical biological reality. Both think they know better than women themselves what womanhood is & how women should live their lives. Both are sexist & misogynist. Both must be resisted. And those who wish to attack gay rights will find no stronger defender of those rights than me.
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
If you are going to do a stone circle - do Avebury at least getting a drink is easy...
The SCOTUS invented powers for itself that are not in the Constitution. This is the ultimate irony of those who claim to be following “originalism”. It was never meant to have as much power as it does, but we are where we are. That’s an old problem.
The decisions of SCOTUS are political. SCOTUS has recently invented gun rights that no previous Court considered to be in the text. Pretending its decision on abortion is “originalism” is risible. Barrett, for example, has long made clear her abiding religious objection to abortion. She is not applying existing law; she is inventing arguments to give the answer she wants. One can hardly blame her. She was appointed to do precisely that.
The underlying democratic safety net for SCOTUS is that the judges are appointed by the President. At present, however, there are 3 judges appointed by a President who lost the popular vote. The Republicans played fast and loose with the rules to block Merrick Garland being appointed by Obama, and then rushed through Barrett’s appointment. They did this through a Senate that is also divorced from the popular vote and a Republican Party that has torn down long-standing conventions.
So, we have what one might call a “gerrymandered” court taking political decisions that are contrary to the majority of the electorate and have little to do with the Constitution as intended.
It seems very difficult to fix this. You need a long, sustained period of Democrat wins in the White House and Congress to re-build the structures of democracy. SCOTUS composition changes very slowly, but the Court does respond to political pressure. The greater power awarded to small states can’t be changed easily, but DC and Puerto Rico could become states.
"lost the popular vote" is a losing argument. Trump won the election under the rules in place. If the rules had required him to win the popular vote he - and Clinton - would have campaigned in a different way, which might or might not have been successful - it's impossible to say.
Trump won under the rules in place… but the rules are still broken. A system that keeps giving the prize — be it White House or Senate — to the team who came second is not a democracy.
Then they should change the rules. That would, of course, mean that 90% of the campaigning would happen in the 10 biggest metropolitan areas, which obviously wouldn't have any downsides.
More democratic than now. A Republican voter in California would have far more effect on the presidential race than they have now, even if the actual places the candidates stage rallies is different.
And right now, it’s essentially a handful of swing states like Georgia and Florida that decide the whole thing anyway, regardless of where candidates campaign.
I don't see how switching from a system where the candidate need to win swing votes to one where they have to calculate focus on GOTV in their core vote areas is more democratic.
The latter is far to susceptible to attack by millions of dollars, as Zuckerberg showed last time.
You know what is democratic? Everyone’s vote has equal weight. Why should Wyoming voters get 70 times as much power as California voters in the Senate?
As in the House California has 52 more US Representatives than Wyoming and in Presidential elections California has 52 more Electoral College votes than Wyoming too
In Presidential elections, California has 54 EVs to Wyoming's 3, so 18 times as many. Yes, in the House, they have 52 to Wyoming's 1.
California has 68 times as many people as Wyoming.
Let's put this in UK terms. I am in the constituency of Holborn & St Pancras. How would you feel if my polling district in my ward got its own MP, but your constituency got merged with a neighbouring constituency and you only got one MP between you? That would still be less disproportionate than Wyoming's position in the Senate.
It wouldn't happen in the Commons as the House of Representatives is the US equivalent of the House of Commons.
However I could perfectly see a scenario where a future elected Senate replaced the House of Lords with Wales and Northern Ireland and the East of England getting the same number of Senators as London, the South East and North West despite much smaller populations.
Plus also don't forget Republican Texas has far more EC votes and Representatives than Democrat Vermont too but Vermont has 2 Senators just like Texas has
The UK has an undemocratic second chamber, that we've spent over a century trying to reform. However, the big difference is that it has very limited powers. A big question is what would happen if we (finally) reformed the Lords into a Senate of some sort. Would it have more powers than the current Lords?
The US Senate has as much power as the House -- arguably more in some ways. Imagine if the current House of Lords regularly voted down Boris Johnson's government's legislation. None of that manifesto commitment nonsense. Who cares that Boris won a majority in the Commons? He doesn't have one in the Lords, so tough.
If the Lords became a fully elected second chamber its members would certainly seek more power to block legislation not just delay it
The case against an elected second chamber is very strong. it inevitably pitches the two elected chambers against each other in a quite different way from now.
The current HoL is not 'undemocratic', and more than a Royal Commission is undemocratic. It is part of a total constitution in which the penultimate word belongs to an elected HoC and the final word with the voters power to kick them out.
The current HoL has among its membership a large number of people who are brilliant in their own field and a decent number of older politicians with fewer vested interests.
Raining at Headingley and looks like it will do for quite a while! Dry at Taunton for the women's Test though!
Yeah that's why I laid NZ rather than backed England yesterday.
Surely the draw should be favourite?
Not yet. This match probably only requires a maximum of 30 overs to resolve it one way or another. In short, if we start at tea a result is pretty much guaranteed.
When I commented fairly early in their innings that England were in a hurry as they believed they could win the match and wanted time to do so, I was told there was more than enough.
Great comment from Leach overnight. ...Leach, who is the first England spinner to take 10 wickets in a Test since Moeen Ali in 2017, said the approach is changing the way he views the longest format.
"You realise teams I have played in, the way I have thought, a lot of decisions are made around negativity," he said.
"A lot of four or five-day games you give up on the win quite early but [under Stokes and McCullum] it feels like you are always pushing for that win, so there is never really too bad a situation."... (BBC)
Breakfasting in crowded Kotor. It is beautiful but my god the tourists. They surge with the Adriatic heat
Venice is the only place on earth that somehow rises above intense mass tourism, or shrugs it off, or even becomes more interesting thereby, because it was always a stage set: awaiting an audience
Where are most of the tourists from, or is it a mix?
A fair mix. Probably Americans are the most numerous, to my surprise, Why here and nowhere else?
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
Americans are numerous already in many of Europe's tourist hotspots - the Cinque Terre in Italy was awash with them. Because of the flight restrictions and the higher cost of being unable to return home if they got covid, hardly any Americans have been travelling these last few years, and those in steady jobs have money saved for a European trip. With the regulations recently lifted, there are tons of Americans making and wanting to plan European trips right now, as a dip into any of the principal travel forums will quickly demonstrate.
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
They follow a highly predictable circuit in the UK as well, typically, Stonehenge, Bath and London.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
It's interesting what different foreign populations visit when they come to Britain. Americans follow the standard London-York-Edinburgh-Stonehenge-Bath-Oxbridge circuit, the French and Italians seem to limit themselves to London or the Scottish highlands, the Dutch and Belgians potter around Kent then drive down the A303 to the South West, German motorcyclists and campervans head for the Northern and Western fringes. Nobody seems to go to Wales, it's as if Birmingham exercises some kind of forcefield making everything beyond it invisible.
Some of it might be climate. If you're travelling from a warmer country you're not here for the weather or the rural good life, so you stick to cities, or the properly cold windswept places. You don't head to the seaside or the rolling Wessex countryside.
Raining at Headingley and looks like it will do for quite a while! Dry at Taunton for the women's Test though!
Yeah that's why I laid NZ rather than backed England yesterday.
Surely the draw should be favourite?
Not yet. This match probably only requires a maximum of 30 overs to resolve it one way or another. In short, if we start at tea a result is pretty much guaranteed.
I hope you're right; and it does look as though the rain is going to stop this afternoon.
The two most important decisions made in recent decades by the Supreme Court are the National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius (aka Obamacare) and the reversal of Roe. In both, the court chose to defer to elected legislatures; in both Chief Justice John Roberts was in the majority.
I see a consistency in his deference that others may not. I do think that any fair-minded person will find his long legal career impressive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Roberts
(Incidentally, some analysts think that Obama could have done better politically by putting economic recovery ahead of Obamacare, rather than the other way around. He certainly could have done better, long term, had he been willing to listen to Republicans in his first months in office.)
I broadly agree with you.
While I think that abortion (up until a point, obviously) should be legal, I also think that it is the job of legislators to make that decision not members of the Supreme Court. And yes, I realise that will have some shitty consequences for women. But in total, that harm is less bad than allowing judges to make law.
That, of course, leads me to be very rude about the Supreme Court overturning New York's century old law on concealed carry permits.
It is far from clear to me - or to lawyers or Supreme Courts over the last 100 years - that the law was in any way in conflict with:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Yes abortion should be decided at state level in the US, as should gay marriage and gun control. Just as the US SC also agreed the large expansion in Medicaid proposed by Obamacare should be up to the states.
Really in the US the Federal government should mainly be there for foreign policy and defence and Federal Crimes and Security and the tax to fund that
From a technical perspective, gay marriage is harder.
If gay marriage is legal in Connecticut, and a married couple move to Utah where it is not, do spousal benefits continue?
When there have been these muttering about prevention people leaving their home state (or helping someone to leave) for the purposes of procuring an abortion I always assumed that would break interstate commerce rules and therefore be up to Congress?
The personal right to interstate travel is an unenumerated right under current readings of the Constitution - which is why Kavanaugh felt it necessary to mention it in his concurrence. That the rest of the majority did not leaves some uncertainty as to how they would rule if it came before the court.
This has the potential to accelerate the process of rupture just as the equivalent Dred Scott ruling did in the case of slavery. Dred Scott effectively extended slavery in the free states, and banning interstate travel for abortion makes abortion illegal in the free states.
That’s clearly not the case. It makes it less economic (possibly, although I suspect that interstate abortions were a small proportion and so are probably an economic upside). It might cause an issue for some clinics built on, say, the border between states with the intention of serving customers from a state where it is illegal.
But, in any event, I am sure that a pregnant woman wishing to travel can find a cathedral she wishes to visit in another state.
For now. But if you listen to both the politicians in these shitkicker states and the people who vote for them, I can't see that freedom being allowed for long. These disgusting shameful women are breaking God's law. They can't be allowed to go and commit murder. If some of them still want to go then perhaps we can't trust women at all. Some kind of travel restriction once they are officially pregnant would be in order...
So a female executive can not longer travel on business. That’s where interstate commerce comes into play.
Which interferes with shitkicker states rights to enslave their womenfolk. Expect another SC ruling to throw cold water on their rights to travel if it is suspected that they are doing so to commit acts (brutal murder) which are illegal in the state they reside in.
I may sound over the top. But not in the context of what states are already doing. Gilead is forming.
Nah, you just sound over the top
I'd say RP's post paints a bleak picture. But far from an unrealistic one.
A while back, someone posted a link to a PB discussion from 2016, when people were arguing about whether Trump's election would cause rights to be reversed. Many posters thought it did not.
And yet, due to Trump and the Republicans' work, rights are being reversed.
The question is when that reversal will stop.
Yes indeed. Whilst many situations don't go from bad to worse to even worse, it is foolish simply to suggest that it won't happen.
Of all the accounts of 1930s history I have read or watched, Klemperer's first volume of diaries made a big impression, because they are entirely contemporaneous and not later edited. As each relatively petty restriction was imposed on the Jewish population, he and his acquaintances display the full range of familiar arguments about how the bad situation will only be temporary or sure to be reversed or won't go any further ("what more could they do?"), and amid his reported conversations there are some stunning anecdotes such as the Jewish person arguing they should support Hitler because if he is replaced they could get someone worse. As the reader you know how the story ends and feel like shouting at the characters in the book for being in such stunning denial.
There is of course no connection between this scenario and the one on topic, except that we should always remember that very bad outcomes - although very unlikely - are not impossible, and that if they are coming very few of us are likely to see it, even if with hindsight it will seem so obvious that one step will lead to the next.
Societal change - even massive change - always starts with a few small acts which then snowball into bigger and bigger acts until people ask "how did we get here".
Overturning Roe isn't THE big event in itself - though it is a very big marker that has just been erased. It is an enabling act for shitkickers to go and do what they believe to be right and just.
In a single judgement it has lined up the two sides in the coming civil war. In the 1860s the totem was slavery - though the driver was state's rights. In the 2020s the totem is abortion - though the driver is state's rights. There was no way that America could fall apart into a war to defend something most of the civilised world had declared unacceptable. Until it happened. And here we are again. It is "over the top" to point to the increasingly bellicose language *and actions* of these states.
Until it happens. Then "how did we get here" again.
Forcing a women to carry and give birth to a child against her will - with all the risks associated with pregnancy and birth - then force her to either look after a child she did not want or abandon it seems like a form of slavery to me. Giving a child up for adoption is not of course like slavery but the emotional impact of it on a woman is no small thing either.
I understand the views of those who have a care for the unborn child. But to be so callous about and indifferent to a real life living woman is chilling. It can often feel as if the drive to ban abortion is motivated by hatred of women rather than care for her and her unborn child. If it were otherwise, those agitating for no abortion would be pouring money and effort into helping women and children at birth and in those early years. But they aren't are they?
Offred in a Handmaid's tale: "I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off."
I fear people will start to quote that book in the same way we find so many acute observations in 1984.
There's a tendency to say that women are overreacting, that polls show abortion to be popular or at least wanted, that democracy will assert itself etc. That response can sometimes veer perilously close to a "calm down dear, you're being hysterical" one.
But let's look at the world around us - the rights of women in Iran and Afghanistan have gone backwards. In Poland too. In Malta they are awful. In this country there is a well-funded lobbying group which has been explicitly campaigning since 2015 to remove all sex-based exemptions benefiting women from the Equality Act.
Cyclefree: I have to ask this, because I think it’s important. Have you not noticed that the main group of people campaigning alongside you for you soi-disant “sex-based rights” are exactly the same groups who are plotted the end of Roe-vs-Wade in the USA?
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Fantasy analysis, completely misjudging British culture and politics. The main group in the UK who have dared to take on the extremist Trans activists are committed feminists. The christo-fascists bogeymen/women/other simply have no leverage or support in mainland Britain and not much in NI. I think your attempt to import or project into Britain the worst excesses of US politics is misguided and if it has any effect it will be a negative one. One more atom of online polarisation and debasement of debate.
Haven't you noticed that it is Stonewall - very keen indeed on trans rights & self-ID in particular which has explicitly since 2015 been campaigning to remove existing sex-based exemptions benefiting women in the Equality Act? It also wants to abolish the crime of rape by deception.
A group which wants to do that is not on the side of women.
Haven't you noticed Scottish Ministers - currently campaigning to get self-ID in Scotland - citing Malta as one of the countries to be emulated because of their stance on this topic. This would be the Malta that has an absolute abortion ban & one of whose Ministers recently said that Maltese women who went abroad for abortion should be hunted down & punished.
Haven't you noticed the violence of transactivists (as in the recent demo in Bristol) attacking women, threatening them with violence, including sexual violence telling them to go home & look after their children? Haven't you noticed the number of people with sexual offences against women & children claiming to be trans demanding that women abandon their boundaries, which are there for their protection.
Haven't you noticed Stonewall attacking lesbians for not wanting to have sex with men with penises, calling them racists, similar to anti-semites or those who were pro-apartheid? Haven't you noticed Stonewall trying to redefine sexual orientation as gender orientation? How offensive & harmful to gay rights is that? My gay son is attracted to men with male bodies. Not to a woman who feels herself to be a man. But if he says that, transactivists will call him transphobic.
Trans people in the U.K. currently have exactly the same legal rights & protections under the Equality Act as other groups. I am glad of that. I will fight to stop anyone taking those away. I will fight for those with gender dysphoria to have the care & support they need.
But it is not trans rights which are at risk of being eliminated in this country. It is the rights of women - to have single sex spaces, single sex rape & domestic violence shelters, single sex prisons, single sex sport etc & the right & ability to fight sex discrimination - which are being put at risk by those who think a man with a male body is a woman just because he feels he is. This is nonsense on stilts & puts at risk not just women but all the other protected characteristics. Why can't a white person say they should be considered "black" or "disabled" if they feel they are? What do you think that will do to the rights of black people or the disabled if categories can be Id'd into at will?
Both the extreme transactivists & the anti-abortionists prefer ideology over physical biological reality. Both think they know better than women themselves what womanhood is & how women should live their lives. Both are sexist & misogynist. Both must be resisted. And those who wish to attack gay rights will find no stronger defender of those rights than me.
Raining at Headingley and looks like it will do for quite a while! Dry at Taunton for the women's Test though!
Yeah that's why I laid NZ rather than backed England yesterday.
Surely the draw should be favourite?
Not yet. This match probably only requires a maximum of 30 overs to resolve it one way or another. In short, if we start at tea a result is pretty much guaranteed.
I hope you're right; and it does look as though the rain is going to stop this afternoon.
Ground still half wet but no rain in Huddersfield. The back of the denser rain is east of Manchester now, should clear Leeds in an hour and may yet weaken on the Pennines.
Rain more scattered after that, so a degree of luck in getting the overs in, and I tend to underestimate the time between rain stopping and ground conditions allowing resumption, but I'd say a 60-70% chance of getting the overs in, and England most likely would try to get the job done in 20 overs if it looks iffy.
Unless I missed it there's been no comment here on this from today's Guardian: "A woman accused of perverting the course of justice in a murder trial has been told she must represent herself in court because there is no available barrister, in what is thought to be a legal first."
The piece goes on: "due to industrial action, no other (she was, apparently, unhappy with her barrister and was told he would not be able to continue) barrister can accept the case. With no replacement found, the. Judge has told her that she must represent herself."
Comments
Whether this persists once the cost of living crisis really starts to bite across the world is another matter.
A number of prominent GC figures have been explicit about this: they‘d throw women’s right to abortion in this country away if it meant winning in their campaigns against trans rights.
It seems to me very clear that the groups going after trans women for culture-war reasons are exactly the same as the ones going after women’s rights like access to abortion & contraception. I would be very, very concerned if I were you that I was going to win my war on trans women only to turn around and discover that I had (perhaps without realising it) sacrificed every right women had so painfully gained in the C20th along the way, because I had sided with the christo-fascists in order to get what I wanted.
Because the christo-fascists aren’t stopping here. They’re coming for all of it, if they have their way.
Percentage of US population represented by the senators voting to confirm -
Breyer: 89.9%
Sotomayor: 72.4%
Kagan: 65.1%
Roberts: 63.7%
Alito: 50.5%
Thomas: 48.6%
Barrett: 48%
Gorsuch: 44.7%
Kavanaugh: 44.2%
Although it appears to be not true (I'm now doomed)
Two? Huh?
Con/SNP battleground - Baxter:
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk
Con 63% chance of winning
SNP 37%
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale
Con 60%
SNP 40%
Dumfries and Galloway
SNP 50%
Con 49%
Banff and Buchan
SNP 52%
Con 48%
Gordon and Moray South
SNP 53%
Con 47%
Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine
SNP 56%
Con 43%
Highland East and Elgin
SNP 65%
Con 35%
Angus and Strathmore
SNP 76%
Con 23%
Renfrewshire East
SNP 80%
Con 19%
Perth and Tay
SNP 81%
Con 19%
A lot of Italians (they only have to cross the Adriatic, I guess), plenty of Russians, a few Brits, Germans and Spaniards
The Montenegrins feel very Serbian, when you point out that their language is close to Serbian they say Yes YES, It is Serbian!
They don't even seem that mad about it after mouthing some platitudes immediately afterwards.
https://www.honestaustin.com/texapedia/texas-split-divide-into-five-states/
I think the suggestion is that, should Democrats try and split California, or admit Puerto Rico and Washington DC as States, Republicans will arrange to split Texas to nullify the effect in the Senate.
I'm also realistic enough to understand that effective representation may be incompatible with good government, which may in any case be impossible to achieve in the social media era.
But the humanscape is also interesting, from the orthodox polygamous Mormons of Colorado City to the neo-hipsters of Salt Lake and the Hollywood types of Sundance Film Fest
The current system clearly isn't delivering good government either here or in the US.
But, undeniably, the ability to control one's fertility, good maternal and gynaecological healthcare, good sex education and an understanding that women are sexual beings not mere vessels for the enjoyment of others are essential to women's sexual happiness. And to happy relationships.
People often mock Americans for having a very low rate of passport holding, but when you live in a country of such incredible cultural and physical variety you don't really need to go abroad.
The US Senate has as much power as the House -- arguably more in some ways. Imagine if the current House of Lords regularly voted down Boris Johnson's government's legislation. None of that manifesto commitment nonsense. Who cares that Boris won a majority in the Commons? He doesn't have one in the Lords, so tough.
Oh, my...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/arizona-capitol-clash-as-senate-gop-say-protesters-tried-to-storm-building/ar-AAYRa0z
Protestors trying to break the glass and break into the building, and being dispersed with tear gas.
The GOP say they had to go into hiding and end the session, and talk about it being the AZ version of Jan 6th. The Democrats say 'well, we continued as normal' and it wasn't a big deal even though there had to be an obligatory sentence about condemning violence. Both sides have a point. How do you reconcile those sorts of views in modern day America?
The SC has interpreted the commerce clause (as with many others) quite narrowly. And has almost always done so to favour commercial considerations rather than individual rights (note Alito's comments on "legitimate reliance interests").
Notably Kavanaugh doesn't mention the commerce clause at all in relation to interstate travel when he discusses the issue in his Dobbs concurrence.
Note too the majority of the US Supreme Court justices are now Roman Catholic. The Vatican is also strongly anticipated abortion. Maybe just coincidence but
It showed spectacular contempt for democracy.
You can guess from those making the proposals, what would be the effect on the Senate of each split.
Regarding East Dunbartonshire (note: not “Dunbartonshire East”), I’m not sure that it really would have been all that safe for the SNP. The reason being the Scottish Tory tactical unwind. We can see vast swathes of 2019SCon voters probably becoming 2024SLD voters.
However, Tory boundary changes have saved the day! The replacement Kelvin North seat in *much* more favourable for the SNP. Baxter predicts:
SNP 79% chance of winning
SLD 16%
SLab 4%
But it isn't really. It's urban v rural.
Swing States tend to be the ones which are balanced in population between the two.
It is not too dissimilar to the relationship between the Russian language and Ukrainian.
When two languages genuinely are very different -- like Welsh and English in Wales, or French and English in Quebec -- I believe the correct response is to assert everyone speaks English anyhow.
Roman Catholics bete noire no 1 is abortion, Islam's bete noire no 1 is homosexuality
IME this is a misreading. Trans rights has thoroughly split feminism in the UK, with some feminists believing strongly in trans rights; others believing that trans rights thoroughly trample on women's rights. Part of the reason the debate gets so febrile is that *both* sides think they are speaking out on behalf of all women.
And the anti-trans feminists can be just as extreme as the committed transfeminists.
Then there is the issue of not only what a 'woman' is; what is 'trans' ? Someone post-op, pre-op, someone going through the process and living as their chosen gender, or someone who chooses to be a certain gender on a certain day? People seem to pick whatever group best matches their argument.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/supreme-court-roe-leak-ethics-code/629884/
Without the formal adoption of ethical standards, the Court may begin to seem more like a political body than a guardian of the rule of law....
You could wonder whether, when we shipped off our religious nutters to the Americas in the 16-1700s, we didn't fully think through the long-term consequences?
The striking thing about America is the coincidence of apparently strong religion with much behaviour that is decidedly unchristian. Bruno Maccaes in his recent book argues that religion in the US is more cultural and political than actually spiritual.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/boris-johnson-says-question-of-his-leadership-is-settled_uk_62b96a19e4b06594c1e6c8d6
The difference with Americans - partly because a European trip for most of them is both more special and more rare - and partly because they follow commentators like Steves and all want to visit the most recommended spots on social media - is that those locations that have been recommended by Steves and others are flooded with Americans (so, in Italy, it's always Rome, Florence, Venice, the Amalfi Coast, the Cinque Terre, and the high Dolomites) and it is very rare to run into US tourists anywhere else.
If you have lots in Montenegro, I would put money on Rick Steves having done a video about it.
The difference between the 1990s and now is that Middle England also now fears that the natural instincts of the Conservative Party are anti-patriotic, anti-enterprise, anti-the common sense of the saloon bar and the suburb. Remember “Fuck business!”
I can agree, at the risk of a charge of sychophancy, that activists on both sides have certainly made these problems worse!
I disagree that there is equality of aggression from both sides of this debate (in the UK). The intimidation, cancel culture, closing of free speech is overwhelmingly from Trans extremist side. Not surprising as an intelligent debate would expose their intellectual and moral incoherence.
I tried telling a few in Bath that Stonehenge was shit and there were a million other better places to visit - but whilst they listened they still said they had to do it.
Probably several of those involved broke laws.
An attempt to overturn the government, it was not.
He's clearly better at deadpan than many of us suspected.
My point to Cyclefree is not to argue about the rights & wrongs of this issue, but to ask her take a close look at some of the allies the GC feminists have been cosying up to & to consider the consequences for her & her daughters if those groups were to gain power.
Some UK GC feminists have been quite explicit that they care more about the “trans threat to women” as they see it than they do about abortion, contraception, or any other rights & are quite happy to join up with chisto-fascist groups both here & in the USA in pursuit of their goals. This seems to me the height of idiocy: Do you really think that women will be better off here, or elsewhere, if you win your trans arguments by siding with these people?
Be careful what you wish for.
(1) Loads of people here still smoke - it's like in the UK in the mid-late 1990s when you could smoke in bars, restaurants and around kids and it was just accepted. Lots of teenagers taking up the habit in towns too. I must admit I struggle with this and Balkans tobacco is particularly unpleasant. We try and move away but it's nigh impossible.
(2) Obesity is now a problem everywhere. Forget the Mediterranean diet: I've seen enough grotesque bellies here and tubby children aged 9-10 years old to rival anything in the US or UK. They eat far too much pizza, cheese and bread and are much too sedentary. It's now a problem everywhere.
(3) People don't smile or laugh in the Balkans, at least not publicly. No doubt there is some good cultural or historical reason for this reserve - perhaps they find Western bonhomie rather shallow and fake? - but it's not particularly attractive. It's remarkable how much less attractive a person is when they never smile or laugh. You really have to know them well to bond, and it makes casual friendships that little bit harder.
Haven't you noticed that it is Stonewall - very keen indeed on trans rights & self-ID in particular which has explicitly since 2015 been campaigning to remove existing sex-based exemptions benefiting women in the Equality Act? It also wants to abolish the crime of rape by deception.
A group which wants to do that is not on the side of women.
Haven't you noticed Scottish Ministers - currently campaigning to get self-ID in Scotland - citing Malta as one of the countries to be emulated because of their stance on this topic. This would be the Malta that has an absolute abortion ban & one of whose Ministers recently said that Maltese women who went abroad for abortion should be hunted down & punished.
Haven't you noticed the violence of transactivists (as in the recent demo in Bristol) attacking women, threatening them with violence, including sexual violence telling them to go home & look after their children? Haven't you noticed the number of people with sexual offences against women & children claiming to be trans demanding that women abandon their boundaries, which are there for their protection.
Haven't you noticed Stonewall attacking lesbians for not wanting to have sex with men with penises, calling them racists, similar to anti-semites or those who were pro-apartheid? Haven't you noticed Stonewall trying to redefine sexual orientation as gender orientation? How offensive & harmful to gay rights is that? My gay son is attracted to men with male bodies. Not to a woman who feels herself to be a man. But if he says that, transactivists will call him transphobic.
Trans people in the U.K. currently have exactly the same legal rights & protections under the Equality Act as other groups. I am glad of that. I will fight to stop anyone taking those away. I will fight for those with gender dysphoria to have the care & support they need.
But it is not trans rights which are at risk of being eliminated in this country. It is the rights of women - to have single sex spaces, single sex rape & domestic violence shelters, single sex prisons, single sex sport etc & the right & ability to fight sex discrimination - which are being put at risk by those who think a man with a male body is a woman just because he feels he is. This is nonsense on stilts & puts at risk not just women but all the other protected characteristics. Why can't a white person say they should be considered "black" or "disabled" if they feel they are? What do you think that will do to the rights of black people or the disabled if categories can be Id'd into at will?
Both the extreme transactivists & the anti-abortionists prefer ideology over physical biological reality. Both think they know better than women themselves what womanhood is & how women should live their lives. Both are sexist & misogynist. Both must be resisted. And those who wish to attack gay rights will find no stronger defender of those rights than me.
The current HoL is not 'undemocratic', and more than a Royal Commission is undemocratic. It is part of a total constitution in which the penultimate word belongs to an elected HoC and the final word with the voters power to kick them out.
The current HoL has among its membership a large number of people who are brilliant in their own field and a decent number of older politicians with fewer vested interests.
Great comment from Leach overnight.
...Leach, who is the first England spinner to take 10 wickets in a Test since Moeen Ali in 2017, said the approach is changing the way he views the longest format.
"You realise teams I have played in, the way I have thought, a lot of decisions are made around negativity," he said.
"A lot of four or five-day games you give up on the win quite early but [under Stokes and McCullum] it feels like you are always pushing for that win, so there is never really too bad a situation."... (BBC)
He simply doesn't have the authority to demote anyone.
https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1541201416949211136
Video of the “assault” on Rudy at ShopRite, where Rudy had the person arrested, and said if he wasn’t in better shape he would’ve fallen, cracked his skull, and died.
Some of it might be climate. If you're travelling from a warmer country you're not here for the weather or the rural good life, so you stick to cities, or the properly cold windswept places. You don't head to the seaside or the rolling Wessex countryside.
Put ls6 3jx in the postcode box and anim on. It is coming up from SW and it's mostly gone through
https://twitter.com/UAWeapons/status/1541362800655798274
The long-awaited PzH 2000 155mm self-propelled howitzers, part of German-Dutch donations, have finally reached the Ukrainian Army and are now in service!
The PzH 2000 is very well regarded and is one of the most advanced 155mm SPGs available globally.
Rain more scattered after that, so a degree of luck in getting the overs in, and I tend to underestimate the time between rain stopping and ground conditions allowing resumption, but I'd say a 60-70% chance of getting the overs in, and England most likely would try to get the job done in 20 overs if it looks iffy.
"A woman accused of perverting the course of justice in a murder trial has been told she must represent herself in court because there is no available barrister, in what is thought to be a legal first."
The piece goes on: "due to industrial action, no other (she was, apparently, unhappy with her barrister and was told he would not be able to continue) barrister can accept the case. With no replacement found, the. Judge has told her that she must represent herself."