English is one of the easiest languages in the world to learn.

Schnickschnack

States in the Deep South already have a lower life expectancy than some African countries. With some more effort, perhaps the current administration can manage to catch up to the likes of the Central African Republic.

They perhaps shouldn’t, at least not in these cases, but in practice they are either championed or condoned by an overwhelming majority of the population.

Sounds like violations of the constitution aren’t all that consequential then, doesn’t it?

I have never commuted by car, but I plan to get a car when I retire so I can drive around in the mornings.

Doesn’t the constitution also say something about things like attempting to overthrow the government, assisting foreign military forces in attacking domestic targets and taking bribes from foreign governments?

My story is similar to yours, though I just got a warning, not a ban.

The first warning was for “abusing the report function” after I reported a post defending Derek Chauvin. I stopped reporting to the admins after that, and over time grew increasingly uneasy with the direction of Reddit as a more and more fascist-friendly organization, and the willing and eager contribution of Reddit’s CEO to millions of Covid deaths left a sour taste (and a nasty cough).

I got the second warning about a week ago after I joked the US government should go into the White House and Melania’s lover’s residence to arrest them since Trump pardoned a drug dealer, by the same reasoning the US government used to abduct Maduro and his wife. This was “threatening violence.” That was the last straw, I quit Reddit after that.

It’s not even that I mind them erring on the side of caution, or in this case on the side of insanity, it’s the double standard that irks me the most. An obvious joke goes too far, but in certain subreddits (you know the ones) users can advocate ethnic cleansing, war crimes, etc. with reckless abandon.

I’m not convinced the Fairness Doctrine is all that relevant. France still has something akin to it, and the French Republic is also about to fall to a fascist takeover. Social media, where the bulk of fascist and malicious propaganda thrives, is mostly unregulated.

I was expecting a dose of heroin with a large helping of brain worms on top.

Did I just time travel to 2015?

A more equal society than the most equal to have ever existed (in modern times at least - some hunter-gatherer tribes are highly egalitarian)? No, I don’t think so, but the kind of issues Americans popularly hypothesize as reasons for low birth rates are just not relevant in these societies, and I don’t see lower inequality having much effect on the real reasons people have no or few children there.

The least unequal societies all have low birth rates though. While inequality is still a serious issue in these societies, I’m not aware of any evidence or mechanism suggesting addressing this would increase birth rates.

In none of the more or less functional democracies does the head of government have the right to veto bills. Granting legislative powers to the executive is not a check or balance, it disrupts the separation of powers.

You can achieve a check on the legislative by using a bicameral system, as many systems do, though in practice it doesn’t end up resulting in significantly better governance than unicameral systems that are also found among the aforementioned group. It’s far more important to ensure no single party, faction or (especially) individual has a monopoly on any of the branches of government. You might be surprised how little power the most powerful individual has in any such democracy.

The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

Interessant dat je dat zegt, één van de voordelen van in het buitenland wonen vind ik nu juist dat de mensen elders in Europa (zo lang je niet naar Zuid-Europa gaat) een stuk afstandelijker zijn (en dus ook wat meer respect hebben voor je privacy).

Most European leaders mildly criticized the invasion at best. Their response can best be summarized by this conversation between Karremans and Mladić when Serbian troops overran the UN enclave prior to the Srebrenica genocide:

KARREMANS: “I am a piano player. Don’t shoot the piano player.”

MLADIC: “You are a poor piano player.”

The Pam Bondi bribery scandal should have been enough to make both ineligible for office even before his first term.

However, it seems the lesson US society collectively learned from Watergate is that the executive should be immune from prosecution.