2 weeks Ago
Trump’s contempt for democracy is becoming clearDonald Trump is getting closer and closer to making plain his contempt for democracy. In some ways, this letter might soon be unnecessary. But it wouldn’t hurt to offer more evidence and develop comprehensive arguments that might be better than what we’ve been doing so far.
There is one thing from the last election that I don’t think was used to attack Trump. That is his calls for reforming Nebraska’s election laws so that, with the Electoral College, it’s winner-takes-all. Nebraska, as well as Maine, awards two of its electoral votes based on the result for the whole state, and then gives one more vote per congressional district to whoever wins each of the districts.
But Trump had nothing to say about this in relation to Maine, and the thing is he would have benefited in the election from a winner-take-all law in Nebraska, but not in Maine. He has no principled objection to what Nebraska does, he just wanted to win and didn’t care how.Trump recently suggested that he might have the Federal government take over the running of Washington D.
C. It’s already bad enough that D.C.
doesn’t have statehood (which means they have no votes in Congress), and it would be a huge (undemocratic) step backward if that were done. Even progressives don’t believe in getting rid of local government — to one degree or another, we love it. I think the non-white majority in D.
C. is pretty much why Trump and other GOPers oppose statehood for the city. I should also remind everyone, especially those who rose to power as leaders of the Tea Party movement (i.
e. Rand Paul), that a massive part of why America fought a war for independence was the problem of “taxation without representation.”Tom Shelley, GunbarrelApply this test to Colorado’s new gun lawI’ve read that the Romans made the aqueduct architects stand beneath them during scaffolding removal to eliminate bad architects.
It was the ultimate government accountability.We obviously need more accountability in government. The problem is implementation.
For example, the anti-gun bill SB25-003 that Gov. Polis just signed into law. Proponents say it will reduce “gun violence,” which assumes that criminals obey laws — a ludicrous proposition.
Opponents argue it is unconstitutional and will embolden criminals thereby increasing gun violence, also shuttering small firearm businesses. But arguments notwithstanding, it is now the law, so we’re going to find out if Colorado suddenly becomes the most gun-violence-free zone in the U.S.
If that happens, great. If it does not happen, and it won’t, then there should be severe consequences suffered by the sponsors for dangerously and uselessly stripping away our constitutional rights and destroying firearm-related small businesses in Colorado.I know, let’s require a test to determine legislative effectiveness.
If Colorado suddenly becomes the most gun-violence-free zone in the U.S., and if the law is found constitutional, the law stays.
If not, then the law goes away and the legislators that sponsored it also go away, they all get fired. This seems reasonable since this is the normal result for vocational incompetence in most professional fields. Alternatively, we could just reduce their voting power by 50% every time they sponsor an ineffective bill, so after sponsoring two ineffective bills, they would be down to a quarter vote, etc.
I know, it can’t be done. You could never get them to agree on a definition of effectiveness, and you could never get them to pass restrictions on their own power. So, all we can do going forward is to continually educate and remind voters of the Democrats’ contemptible incompetence.
Don Cage, Longmont.
