Considering the intention of the public education system to improve the understanding of the populous has been degraded to the point where basic civics is not taught and we’re lucky if graduates are even functionally literate, I’d say that people who understand what our government is supposed to be and what it’s supposed to do is fairly small.

And unfortunately, that’s the whole fucking point. A uninformed population is an easily manipulated population.

Is it… A form of democracy wherein the populous uses a selection of elected representatives and a framework of a near immutable law set to guide the representatives in governing for the best interest of all citizens?

A fun game to play is following a train of events backwards to the origination point. Things can get pretty weird pretty quickly.

Such as: the writing of My Immortal can be blamed on the French colonizing Vietnam if you want to stop there but you can take it farther back in time.

What’s amazing to me is that he has a consistent habit of this behavior.

The tariffs would have been almost a good idea if there was a commiserate option for the items being taxed locally. But, since the corporations offloaded all major manufacturing to these places now affected by said tariffs, there is no locally sourced alternative. You can’t punish an external org by artificially pricing their products higher than local options when there aren’t any local options. We import both finished products and raw materials for the few things we make locally so there’s no way we wouldn’t have been caught at a net loss on product pricing.

Starting a war against a major energy provider while also reducing all possible alternatives to that energy source that would alleviate the reliance on said energy source was obviously going to backfire.

Starting trade wars and pissing off every possible ally who traditionally would have helped without question at every step has started to show exactly the expected outcomes. If you don’t keep your end of a deal, you can’t reasonably expect the other members to just go along with it.

Unless, of course, you are a narcissistic asswipe who genuinely believes you are the most important person and everyone will just do what you want.

Embezzlement isn’t as much of a concern, I don’t think. Considering how much trump has been funneling into his own coffers

Depends on who gets burned tbh

If the person burned has been boasting that they’re fireproof all night, that’s hilarious

I assumed it was more that she brought him into it by name dropping him instead of letting him have the first word on it

I try to but they do make it difficult

It bothers Regan

I like blaming LBJ’s admin then Regan’s. It’s not the start of the problem but it’s closer to it

Oh absolutely. It’s definitely both

The least trustworthy dinosaurs are those found around water. Tasty though

Can’t evolve out of a clade and all that jazz

I for one identify as a hagfish

That’s…how you check for prostate cancer

So are we just ignoring the take that this looks very much like extortion or is that just so obvious it’s not worth talking about

I think it’s the 18 that’ll turn away some

A group designed to raise money for a candidate is not allowed. Anyone who uses that money forfeits their campaign.

I thought I covered that

The best a PAC could do would be to flood the common coffer. Which means every candidate benefits up to the maximum allowable.

The numbers I gave were purely for example sake. I’m thinking total maximum as a function of the place to be governed overs median salary or gdp. Idk. Something tied to the areas economic and social health to incentivise improving the average person’s lot in life instead of the richest few

Easy step we can do. No contributions to individuals running for an office. Any money goes to a common fund that is distributed amongst the candidates. Equally. With a maximum amount per person correlated to the number of parties involved in the election.

Example: mayoral race with 2 parties and a fund of $500,000. Each person receives 250,000 for their campaign.

Same race but with $1,000,000 in the fund? That’s right. Each member gets 300,000 to use.

3 parties involved with that 1M fund? 333,000 per person but goes to 500,000 when the funds available allow for it

Catch: all donations go to this fund and all money used from this fund must be accounted for. Anyone found to be using their own money or any donations that did not come from the fund constitutes an automatic forfeiture of their campaign and any unspent money of their allotted amount gets returned to the funds.

Said returned funds do not get distributed to the other campaigns.

Any unused money of the fund at the end of the election is used by civil services budgets.

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life

John 2:15 - And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers’ money, and overthrew the tables;

Basically: when young, God and Jesus loves you. As I get older, I’m not above whipping and flipping tables at people who continue to use the religion as an excuse to hurt and subjugate others.