The other day it was suggested that not many realize that the U.S. is a republic versus a democracy, or that many know the difference. I’m sure that’s a fair statement.
I grew up in a state with very small population. We were well aware of the steps our government took to protect the rights of minorities. Residents of my home state used minority rights arguments to justify the fact that we had two senators for every 300,000 people while a state like New York also had two senators with their many millions of citizens.
That quirky political approach (republic) was our founding fathers’ take on protecting the minority’s interest.
As you might recall, women and slave’s rights were not a huge concern for them. As long as you were white and male our fledgling government was extremely concerned about your interests. “Minority” in their minds were the white males in states with smaller populations.
Things have evolved somewhat, but over time the white males in the U.S. looked for other ways to consolidate power.
For years they added “straight” to the good old boys’ handshake.
And – that’s where this website and blog comes in.
It is the height of hypocrisy for a governmental system that is bound by traditional regard for minority rights to take steps to persecute citizens based on gender determination.
When the power of the straight white male is threatened all hell breaks loose.
Otherwise, straight white males (who are the vast majority of the elected officials) see nothing wrong with “voting their conscience” to make sure straight white males remain at the top of the food chain. Everyone ese can fight over the scraps.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world wrapped up in phony concern for “Christian” values. Jesus would weep huge tears.
Jill
Comments
Well said…….
I am a WASP, a phrase which has fallen somewhat out of use, but still fits. Just your stereotypical Scots-Irish, the foundation of this country, a member of the group which essentially controls both the government and the majority of major corporations in the United States. The male heir to an old southern family; in fact, the only male of my generation of southern gentry, upon whom was heaped all of the hopes and traditions of the families long and storied history. A family which immigrated to the colonies from Scotland to escape English rule after the last failed revolution. A family which has fought in every war or police action we have had, including the French and Indian War. A member of which signed the Mecklinburg Declaration of Independence. A family whose members fought on both sides of the Civil War - or the War of Northern Aggression to most of my family.
Technically, up until about eight years ago, I was one of those straight white males you refer to - or at least that’s what I portrayed and how everyone saw me, even if it was a lie. Just an elaborate masquerade to hide my true self, a facade, a creation which I wore to fit the mold which society and my family told me I had to fill.
The problem was, even notwithstanding my gender issues, I never fit the mold. Yes, I am a fiscal conservative and a registered Republican - but socially and morally I am much more liberal. Realistically, I am probably closer to a centrist Democrat than I am to what passes for a Republican these days, and I vote my own conscience and beliefs - NOT the party line.
But yes, you are absolutely correct in your portrayal of our republic and how it was designed to protect those in less populous states. Even the Electoral College was designed to do that. It is unfortunate that a system that was designed to protect the rights of some is now being perverted to allow minority rule.
As long as we are talking about fixing the system, why not look at term limits for all elected officials - and for political appointees, as well as judges. We have a court system that allows geriatric judges to enforce their old, out of date morals on a society where the majority don’t agree with them.
I don’t want to see our system overturned or thrown out - but our founding fathers could never have foreseen what our society has become, and it is imperative that we grow beyond the constraints of a system designed nearly 250 years ago. As the document says, it was an effort “to form a more perfect union” - not perfect, just MORE perfect.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
WASP ????? LOLOL
You can't be a WASP if you are Irish/Scottish. WASPs are White, Anglo Saxon Protestants.
An Anglo Saxon is by definition English and cannot be Welsh, Scottish or Irish they would be Picts, Scots or Celts by the same nomenclature of tribal identities as the term Angles and Saxons. (Jutes, Mercians and Danes became English as well.)
Welsh, Scottish,Irish and English are all British but only English are Anglo Saxon.
Politically, what the USA Needs these days is a genuinely multiparty system like many European countries (Including the UK)
Having a crude, two-party system is one of the main reasons why the USA has become a cripplingly polarised and dysfunctional fuck-up.
LOLOL
Women's Airforce Service Pilots
https://www.worldwariiaviation.org/women-air-force-service-p...
Hugs Beverly
Barb
Life comes in many flavors. Make the most of what was given.
Oklahoma born and raised cowgirl
Multi Party
The first novel I wrote was political fiction based on the virtues of strong third and fourth parties.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
"An Anglo Saxon is by definition English..."
Sorry, Beverly, but you are incorrect. In the middle ages, Scotland south of the Firth of Forth was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria, an Anglian kingdom. In later centuries the Scots language, a descendant of Northumbrian Old English, spread to be the dominant language in all of the Scottish Lowlands. Most of the Ulster Scots (called Scotch-Irish in the USA) came from the Lowlands and spoke Scots. Since most were Presbyterians, they were, indeed, WASPs.
My maternal grandfather was an Ulster Scot, born in Ballymena, County Antrim.
i'd go further
The Angles and Jutes hail from the low countries and Denmark (its not called Jutland for nothing) and the Saxons hail from the across north Germany so strictly speaking none of them are English. When they migrated westwards the native 'English' (very much a misnomer as England, English is derived from Angle as can be seen in East Anglia, Albion is the 'proper' name), anyway, the natives moved west into what we now call Wales and other western fringes.
Mercia was a political invention, Mercians did not arrive from anywhere else, whilst largely of Saxon heritage, that was not a prerequisite to being Mercian!
I could go on and on about the Danelaw, political unification and so on, stuff that took place in the first millenium AD or as the PC brigade would have it, between 1+2000BP. It gets worse, whilst i'm English by birth most of my genes hail from the Baltic and northern Europe, the latest top up being my maternal great grand parents. I actually have as much Baltic Russian in me as 'native' English and more actual Saxon!"
So "An Anglo Saxon is by definition English..." is a provably false statement on many levels. Anglo Saxons were the dominant racial group in Albion but on unification this would've been challenged by the influx of Scandinavian/Baltic populations who occupied a huge swathe of what is now England, essentially north of a line from The Wash to the Mersey, the Danelaw.
My apologies to the colonists, this all happened long before your continent was claimed by Europeans, and we're still arguing about it!
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
Madeline Anafrid
Madeline Anafrid Bell
I'm a proud Mercian.
And to prove it I own several Mercian cycles :) Moreover I lived and worked in Coventry (of Lady Godiva fame) in the early sixties. Our regular Wednesday rides often passed through Repton, the former capital of Mercia, and home to the famous public (ie private :) ) school.
Like the USA more recently, we're a nation of immigrants, and some weren't all that welcome - the Norman French for example and before them the Danes and the Romans. It's a mixed up world.
Except for Lola
Lo-lo-lo La Lola!
:D
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I'm not sure
That most politicians understand the meaning of hypocrisy. Like most millionaires the term is used to define their opponents, not themselves. They have one goal - power. Anything that advances that goal is therefore good, no hypocrisy involved.
I had a really good 2,000 - level polysci prof in college (university for you Brits). I was a journalism major so more advanced courses were required than the 1,000 - level courses the freshman & sophomores were required to take. He took us into the backrooms behind the surface, including the why's and wherefores behind the Declaration of Independence, the pre-Constitution Articles of Confederation, and the current U.S. Constitution.
Looking at these it's a lot easier to see how we got where we are today, and where things went wrong. It's like reading science fiction written in the Golden Age about the "near" future. In many areas we've gone so much further than the founders dared dream, yet in many other areas we've failed miserably.
Our founders, while in many respects astute, seasoned politicians, were idealists. That can be a failing, and often is. What were sound political decisions at the time, like the Electoral College, have turned out to be bad in the long run.
A republic, like a pure-quill democracy, has many good points. They both have equally bad points. But a republic, for better or worse, is what we have. We have to work within the system we have.
They know they can survive
Tail wagging the dog
A minority holding the majority hostage.
The similes just keep going on.
As a minority in this country, being Asian, I am sad the Asians of this country for some reason seem to be kissing their ass, seemingly not remembering the Chinese Exclusion Acts and the bigotry that they had to suffer through.
The reality is that bigotry is alive and well as witnessed in 2019 in the great 'liberal' state of California when my friend was openly harassed when we walked through a parking lot in Silicon Valley.
I grew up in the 1960s knowing that the whites in our neighborhood would tolerate us as long as we still acknowledge that they are the dominant, ascendant power in that neighborhood.
Being an immigrant family the lack of language skills of my parents obviously did not help.
That was the pattern.
I am totally not surprised that when that dominance is threatened that they would be wrathful in their reassertion of their 'rights'.
A more blatant assertion of white ascendancy is that, back in the day (and still exists today) you can see obviously who the Cover Girl foundation shade titled 'natural' was meant for.
Abandoning American Religion
Islam seems most reasonable to me not that they know anything about God, but because women can gain a lot of security by cloaking themselves. I did for a decade and then abandoned that. Lately I'm considering returning to the pretty flowered scarves and long dresses.
Gwen
The American electoral system is extremely well adapted
to the conditions in a society characterised by slavery, aristocratic leadership, very poor communications and individual based politics (the Founding Fathers abhorred party politics) where your local connection is expected to trump ideology or other allegiances.
As a Briton ...
... I confess to finding it odd that in the (mostly) 2 horse race your Presidential election is, the person with the most votes doesn't get to win.
We have a similar problem that with our 'First Past The Post' (FPTP) constituency system and with more than two parties in contention (though in most constituencies only the top two have a realistic chance of victory) we often, as now, have a minority vote which, whilst greater than the others, leaves us with a Parliament with an overwhelming majority. It also leaves voters with the need to vote against a party rather than for - in my case I'd probably vote for a no hoper Green rather than against a Tory candidate by voting Labour.
R