The government has to be able to actively respond to the problems of the moment, and those problems will constantly change. A handcuffed government only benefits the already-powerful.
The dirty secrets of the "but the founding fathers!" argument are that (a) they knew they weren't creating a perfect set of rules in the Constitution, and planned for us to be modifying it as we learned new things and the world changes, and (b) it's failed anyway. Abstract principles listed on a page don't "protect freedom," bad actors can find ways to sneak things through (sometimes in plain sight, like that whole slavery thing that took a century to get figured out, or the followup forms of discrimination that are still with us).
There's no weakness in challenging the storybook fable-ized versions of history.
I think the biggest "story-telling" that's going on lately is in our schools by our socialist educators.
This isn't even remotely a representative sentiment of the 70+ million people that are not on the "left".
>>"The left" is for democracy>>
Again, I don't think we would find this accurate if data were collected. Both sides are "for democracy". I think what you would find is something slightly more refined: that one side appreciates that democracy alone is flawed and requires a strong constitution to guard against its propensity to oppress individuals. The other side finds a constitution that limits democracy too constraining.
Probably not, but it’s a pretty accurate summary of their leadership.
The facts are the 45 and the Republicans attempted to throw out the results of an election.
You can argue that most people on the right do not agree with this, but they should really stop voting for these people then.
Do you mean that 45 Republicans voted against ratifying the electoral college votes? My understanding is that that vote is largely procedural and that the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election. If you take away that context it makes for a great narrative in this election (the whole histrionic overthrow theme), but context often matters.
My understanding could be wrong, though. I couldn't quickly put my hands on the historical voting record. Or maybe that's not what you're referring to.
No. The only times prior to 2021 that an objection in proper form to trigger a debate and vote on any state’s submitted electoral votes since the modern process was adopted in 1887 were in 2005 and 1969 (the latter over a faithless elector), both addressing only a single state, and the 2005 example was explicitly stated to be an effort to draw attention to electoral system issues rather than alter the outcome; there weren't members who voted for it stating on national TV the expectation that who would be President was in doubt based on the action the way, e.g., Sen. Hawley did in regard to the challenges this month.
Voting against result certification is occasionally used as a protest against certain specific irregularities. It is absolutely not common to vote against them, and not in these numbers (i.e. not as a lone congressperson or two drawing attention to something they see as a problem).
[ EDIT: added known historical examples ]
Specific examples: 2016, 11 Democrats rose to object to certifying Trump's results; none of them had obtained a Senator's cosignature and so all were dismissed immediately. Objections were based on reports of Russian interference, subsequently confirmed in the broadest sense by the Mueller and Senate reports, though their findings would not have likely invalidated any actual results.
2004: 1 Senator and 1 Representative raised objections to results favoring Bush from a single state. They both stressed that their objections were not intended to change the outcome of that election.
2001: on the order of 15 Representatives raised objections to the Gore/Bush result, which had been decided by the SCOTUS. No Senator joined them, and Gore himself dropped the Gavel on their protest.
>the losing side voting against it as a protest is common in every election.
Really? That would be news to me. Do you have a source for that?
It's impossible to criticize bad ideas without some shorthand label for those kinds of thinking and ideologies. The fact that whole entire groups hold those same ideas necessarily is a critique of the entire group, and is necessarily tribal. But labels are nonetheless also necessary for the discussion to take place.
Democracies can only thrive when there's an educated population free to discuss all ideas, and allowed to strongly criticize or even ridicule those they disagree with. Yet people like Jack Dorsey think it's their duty to step in as a referee to make sure everyone's polite and behaves according to his personal political views. He needs to be put back in his place, because no one elected him, and he just fell backwards by accident into a power position over millions by pure luck.
Also while that may be true of individuals (I don't think it is), it clearly isn't true of party leadership.
Are you serious?
The fact that some cops eventually decided that 20 cops could not stand against 1000 violent protestors smashing through windows and doors, after at least one cop had been dragged out of his position and beaten senseless by the mob, and another cop killed, and so decided that the safest thing to do was open the doors, doesn't mean that all of a sudden they were peaceful protestors. Give me a fucking break.
They killed a Police Officer, chanted "Hang Pence", and tried to stop the democratic process of verifying votes for the new president.
Now of course you will likely argue that they were a small minority, but I don't see you making that concession for those on the "other side" so I'm not sure how much weight it'll have.
"The entire summer long while buildings burned, and entire cities looted by violent murdering thugs..."
Could you provide some evidence for "entire cities looted by violent murdering thugs"?
I still can't find any actual evidence of "violent murdering thugs" "looting entire cities".
Also I think you're being unfair by ignoring the causes of both of the protests, as (IMO, feel free to disagree) one of them was directly supporting democratic and liberal interests and the other was directly against them. I don't think you can discuss the protests without taking into account what they were protesting.
What they need to realize is that once you give Tyrannical Control over to your leaders (governments, or BigTech censors), because you consider them benevolent today, it's foolish because they won't be benevolent forever.
Our founding fathers knew power corrupts, but today's 20-somethings seem quite unaware. They think we can create a system where all forms of "bad" speech are stopped. But the problem with that is you end up having to define "bad". My definition of "patriotic speech" might be your definition of "mean speech", so unless you appoint power-wielding dictators to make the final decision, the only solution is to just say everyone is free. Once you allow dictators they'll always become corrupt and self-interested.
The left thinks they're in a war against evil and meanies, but really the only opponent they're fighting is freedom itself.