• Fawxhox@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    We gotta stop giving a fuck what the founding fathers did or wanted. They’ve been dead for centuries, they owned slaves and thought women couldn’t vote. They couldn’t even imagine drinking a baja blast or eating a pizza with fried chicken for a crust. The future is now, fuck em.

    • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      I don’t believe the constitution has worked for this country for the past 50 years (if ever) but without amending it we’re left with anarchy. I think the US is a failed experiment but I still respect its founding as a rejection of oppression. They took a big first step, every year we take more little steps, we may need to see a much bigger step in our lifetimes. They did know that things would take place that the could never imagine. This is why the federal government’s abilities are so restricted and more power is given to the states to legislate more freely. In such a connected world as we have now though, maybe states aren’t a viable solution. Or maybe they are and we just don’t know how to live in them anymore.

        • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          You say “quarter of a millennium” as if 250 years is more than 3 lifespans. The US is still a toddler compared to long-standing civilizations.

          As it stands today, I don’t think our current form of government is sustainable for a vibrant and peaceful, progressive society. Although, lot of people would argue that that’s not a relevant metric. I believe a government’s job is to ensure the equity, health, safety, and prosperity of its people above all else. A lot of that is found in the constitution but modern ideas have been able to twist and manipulate those words for their own gain. Two examples; I don’t think SCOTUS has any business taking a case about abortion and I see it as a problem when five people appointed by republicans discard a portion of a constitutional amendment while four people appointed by democrats supported the full statement of the amendment. However, I still support this country’s intentional design for its people to have free and public discourse to learn from one another without stifling challenging ideas (as detrimental as that’s been recently). Our issue today is that we’re a lot of assholes who care more about personal freedoms than the good of the community. We care more about challenging ideas than considering them.

          So, TL;DR, I think it’s a failure at the moment, I think it’s possible to be saved, but we have travelled well down the path where I don’t see that happening. I’m anxious to see what it takes to bring us back. RANKED. CHOICE. VOTING.

        • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          250 years is nothing for a civilization, and within that relatively tiny frame of time, we had an all encompassing civil war. And that’s without even touching all the BS going on today.

          Its not a failure in the sense that it collapsed immediately, but I’d hardly call it a rousing success

    • bitsplease@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Seriously, I’ll never fathom why we still even talk about the outside of history classes. They were humans, and not even particularly good ones. We’re the ones who have to live with the US of today, we get to decide how it’s run