Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[kenberg]

I had no teaching of slavery and other issues of race at school. Why ? well I had a tough choice of subjects to study, and to be able to do the 3 sciences, plus maths, english and french which were compulsory I could only do one of geography and history beyond 15 for timetabling reasons and chose geography (I also had to take the Spanish exam a year early). The history syllabus ended at 1700 pre 15.

 

"at 1700 pre 15" is a total mystery to us in the colonies. I doubt very many are advocating for a course on race, I think the idea is to include more on race in history courses and do it more accurately.

 

Thinking about England and the USA is interesting. In some technical sense, history probably goes back just as far here as it does there. When you had dinosaurs, we had dinosaurs. But here, at least when I took history, there were a few words about Christopher Columbus, Queen Isabella and such, and then we jump forward to 1620 or so. I did buy 1066 and All That and read at least part of it, and in the 1940s I saw part of the Charles Laughton movie about Henry VII (it was on late, after my bedtime, so I did not make it all the way through). And I watched the coronation of Elizabeth on television, not quite live as I recall but I remember that being able to watch it almost in real-time in Minnesota was considered something of a technological breakthrough. And I knew a few other this and thats.

 

Growing up we get a perspective and education can enlarge on that. I would bicycle out to Fort Snelling, it's by the Mississippi, across from St. paul where I grew up. When I was in Boy Scouts I wrote an essay on the founding of St. Paul for a merit badge in something. The point is that, for me, history started in the early1800s. In my early 20s, I went to Boston and my perspective went further back. Then to Englan, and then later to Greece. Sure, I knew about the Oracle of Delphi but climbing a hill where they threw people off a cliff changed my perspective of history.

 

History should enlarge our perspective. It's not easy to do just by reading, but we can try.

 

It sounds as if my high school experience had some features that were different from yours. At the end of my Sophomore years, when choosing my Junior year courses, the counselor suggested that I take Metal Shop so that I wouldn't be just a brain. I took his suggestion and was glad that I did. In my Senior year I took Engineering Drawing. It was the last period of the day, the teacher had an alcohol problem and so by last period he was not to clear on who was there and who wasn't. I usually wasn't. My girlfriend went to a different, and better, school so I would escape early and drive over to pick her up. I graduated in 1956 and that was the first year that each of the eight high schools in St. Paul was able to give out one four-year scholarship to a student of their choosing. I got it! When they announced it I was busy jabbering with friends and I was not sure I heard right. My Spanish teacher made a point of catching me in the hallway afterward to tell me she thought that I didn't deserve it. I understood her viewpoint, I have always liked her. Fate moves in mysterious ways.

 

Anyway, education should enlarge our perspective. And not just by telling us what we should think.

[Cyberyeti]

Ken, we did Romans, a little bit on the middle ages (Richard the lion heart and the crusades, Norman conquest, king John etc) then Tudors and Stuarts and that basically was the history we were taught pre 15, had I carried on with it for another year we'd have done the industrial revolution, I'm not sure if we'd have got to WW1.

 

Very little history of anywhere other than England, and only where it impacted England. Nothing about the empire.

[Winstonm]

I honestly don’t know how much of my schooling inadequacies were of my doing or of those who were the doers. My brother is about 4 1/2 years older and his education was much more sophisticated than mine. He took Latin for 2 or 3 years. Latin wasn’t a course offered when I went to the same school. Even if it had I doubt I would have taken it.

 

There is a quite famous poem( Lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s farm in Pine Island, Minnesota) that ends with this line:” l have wasted my life. “

I understand totally.

[y66]

from We Clerked for Justices Scalia and Stevens. America Is Getting Heller Wrong. by Kate Shaw and John Bash

 

The closest we’ve come to major new federal gun regulation in recent years came in the post-Sandy Hook effort to create expanded background checks. The most common reason offered by opponents of that legislation? That it would violate the Second Amendment. But that’s just not supported by the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the amendment in Heller. If opponents of background checks for firearm sales believe that such requirements are unlikely to reduce violence while imposing unwarranted burdens on lawful gun owners, they should make that case openly, not rest on a mistaken view of Heller.

 

Justices don’t control the way their writings are interpreted by later courts and other institutions; certainly law clerks don’t. So we’re not asserting that our views on Heller are in any way authoritative. But we know the opinions in the case inside and out.

 

As the nation enters yet another agonizing conversation about gun regulation in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy, all sides should focus on the value judgments and empirical assumptions at the heart of the policy debate, and they should take moral ownership of their positions. The genius of our Constitution is that it leaves many of the hardest questions to the democratic process.

[kenberg]

from We Clerked for Justices Scalia and Stevens. America Is Getting Heller Wrong. by Kate Shaw and John Bash

 

 

 

I read your excerpt and some of the article, I'll finish it later. In the meantime:

 

It's effing obvious that we have to do something about gun violence in the US. We should start with that simple fact.

 

Next, whatever the founders had in mind, any stipulations from the late 18th century about 21st century firearms are totally out of date. It is in no way disrespectful of Madison et al to say that someone in late adolescence should not be able to buy up the sort of weaponry he did.

 

Yes, sometimes people in some situations will need a weapon for self-defense. And yes, a well-regulated militia can be useful although exactly how that should be interpreted is not entirely clear to me. It sure as hell doesn't mean somebody can get an AR-15, or whatever it was, and go shoot a bunch of kids.

 

But we have to do something. And not just a "something" that does not actually do anything. Start with that. Once that is accepted, we can cope with any issues involving the Second Amendment.

[Cyberyeti]

I honestly don’t know how much of my schooling inadequacies were of my doing or of those who were the doers. My brother is about 4 1/2 years older and his education was much more sophisticated than mine. He took Latin for 2 or 3 years. Latin wasn’t a course offered when I went to the same school. Even if it had I doubt I would have taken it.

 

There is a quite famous poem( Lying in a hammock at William Duffy’s farm in Pine Island, Minnesota) that ends with this line:” l have wasted my life. “

I understand totally.

 

We could choose at 11 one of Spanish, German or Latin to go with French, I chose Spanish, then did German as an extra subject in the last 2 years of my schooling.

[Winstonm]

Jennifer Rubin went on a WaPo rant today about a speech given by Merrick Garland - her sole point being he didn't call out Republicans specifically for their role in Jan 6 insurrection attempt and surrounding attempted soft coup to keep Trump in power.

 

My only response to her is the same one the Russian spy character in Bridge of Spies gave when queried by Tom Hanks why he wasn't acting worried: Would it help?

[kenberg]

We could choose at 11 one of Spanish, German or Latin to go with French, I chose Spanish, then did German as an extra subject in the last 2 years of my schooling.

 

I might as well use this to learn something. Does "at 11" mean when you were about 16? And who were the "we"? I was put in Spanish when I started high school, age 13. No one asked me, I was just put in "college prep" and so that meant that I took a foreign language. The available languages were French and Spanish, rotating, so if I had started a year earlier or a year later I would have taken French. I had friends who were not put in college prep, so they were not put into a language course, then or later. I noted above that later my counselor suggested I take Metal Shop, but I was 15 when I was given such options, not 13.

 

The US system is, or at least was in the 50s, very much come one come all. In my senior year (graduation was when I was 17 although some were 18, it depended on when your birthday was) I was preparing for college although I had not yet decided to go right after graduation. Boys expected to have to serve a stint in the military sooner or later and I was thinking I might join the navy after graduation to get that out of the way. But my courses were college prep. Other seniors would spend the morning in academic studies and the afternoon preparing for various wood-working or metal-working careers. They would graduate without taking French or Spanish, and not all that much English. Enough English, but they would skip over the pluperfect. And probably some other things. Others spent the full day in academic studies, but not college prep. We all got long, sort of, not always.

 

So I am assuming the "we" refers to some sort of subset of learners.

 

My favorite story involving Spanish: My older daughter spent her Junior college year in Madrid and I went to visit her, We traveled about. In Granada, we were walking toward the Alhambra behind some young guys when a Gypsy approached the guys. One of them said dismisevely, "Senora, somos de Granada". So she left them and came toward us. My daughter immediately asserted "Senora, somos de Granada". The guys were impressed.

[Cyberyeti]

I might as well use this to learn something. Does "at 11" mean when you were about 16? And who were the "we"? I was put in Spanish when I started high school, age 13. No one asked me, I was just put in "college prep" and so that meant that I took a foreign language. The available languages were French and Spanish, rotating, so if I had started a year earlier or a year later I would have taken French. I had friends who were not put in college prep, so they were not put into a language course, then or later. I noted above that later my counselor suggested I take Metal Shop, but I was 15 when I was given such options, not 13.

 

The US system is, or at least was in the 50s, very much come one come all. In my senior year (graduation was when I was 17 although some were 18, it depended on when your birthday was) I was preparing for college although I had not yet decided to go right after graduation. Boys expected to have to serve a stint in the military sooner or later and I was thinking I might join the navy after graduation to get that out of the way. But my courses were college prep. Other seniors would spend the morning in academic studies and the afternoon preparing for various wood-working or metal-working careers. They would graduate without taking French or Spanish, and not all that much English. Enough English, but they would skip over the pluperfect. And probably some other things. Others spent the full day in academic studies, but not college prep. We all got long, sort of, not always.

 

So I am assuming the "we" refers to some sort of subset of learners.

 

My favorite story involving Spanish: My older daughter spent her Junior college year in Madrid and I went to visit her, We traveled about. In Granada, we were walking toward the Alhambra behind some young guys when a Gypsy approached the guys. One of them said dismisevely, "Senora, somos de Granada". So she left them and came toward us. My daughter immediately asserted "Senora, somos de Granada". The guys were impressed.

 

No, age 11, all students at my school. This was a private school, probably different in the public sector.

[barmar]

I suspect the discussion here is being sidelined by the use of the term theory in the sense that a mathematician might understand it as opposed to the intended meaning (outlined in the quote).

I think you're giving them too much credit in analyzing the phrase. The right has simply latched onto this as a dog whistle for "woke" progressive teaching, they don't really understand what it is. It doesn't matter what term the researchers actually use for it, racists just don't like the idea of students being indoctrinated in anti-racism.

[barmar]

No, age 11, all students at my school. This was a private school, probably different in the public sector.

Aren't English public schools what we call private schools in the states? Are you translating to 'Merican for us?

 

I'm a generation younger than Ken, and I went to school in middle class suburbs. We also didn't teach foreign languages until high school. My HS was large enough to offer a choice of French, Spanish, or (I think) Italian every year. I imagine Ken's rural high school was significantly smaller -- my graduating class in 1979 was around 600 students -- so they couldn't justify multiple language classes each year.

[kenberg]

Aren't English public schools what we call private schools in the states? Are you translating to 'Merican for us?

 

I'm a generation younger than Ken, and I went to school in middle class suburbs. We also didn't teach foreign languages until high school. My HS was large enough to offer a choice of French, Spanish, or (I think) Italian every year. I imagine Ken's rural high school was significantly smaller -- my graduating class in 1979 was around 600 students -- so they couldn't justify multiple language classes each year.

 

Hey, hey.

I grew up in St. Paul. We might not be New York but we ain't rural. :)

 

The graduating class was just over 200. We were reasonably middle class, meaning that we drove a Chevrolet, not an Oldsmobile, but the Chevrolet was paid for. My father bought nothing, except the house, on credit. There was some social division in the school. We lived in the area above a steep hill, the girl across the alley from me was not allowed to date boys that lived at the bottom of the hill. No such restrictions applied to me. I went for intelligent and interesting, not family status. Ok, good looking counted also. I am not a saint.

 

St. Paul was a terrific place to grow up. A decent public library. Some days I would bicycle to Como park where there was a zoo. Or to Minnehaha Falls (in Minneapolis). A skating rink was a half block from home. Several lakes for swimming and canoeing. My Boy Scout Troop ran scores back to the clubhouse at the St. Paul open. Sam Snead and all that. It looked interesting so I went to the Salvation Army and bought a few clubs. And then later, when I was 16 or so, I would make some use of the University of Minnesota. Paul Rosenbloom gave Saturday lectures on math, for example. He would stand beneath a sign that said No Smoking, puffing on a cigar as he explained some theorem. He arranged a tour of Univac for us. I saw a stage production of South Pacific before the movie came out (I had read the book, which I thought was more interesting than either the stage play or the movie).

 

Anyway, not rural. I'm not knocking rural, but I appreciated the many opportunities in the Twin Cities. The St. Paul Saints (farm team for the Dodger, back when they were the Brooklyn Dodgers) had knot hole nights when an adult could bring several kids along for free.

 

Ah, but back to the reality of today. Oof.

[Chas_P]

It sure as hell doesn't mean somebody can get an AR-15, or whatever it was, and go shoot a bunch of kids.

 

But we have to do something.

I agree. I just read that 70% of all the school shootings over the past decade or so have been carried out by boys less than 18 years of age. So what do we do? Outlaw firearm purchases for young men under the age of 21? Only to read in a few years, "70% of all school shootings carried out by young men less than 22 years of age." It is heartbreaking and I don't think anybody has an answer. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, we gotta have evil 'til the day that we die. I don't like it, but that just seems to be the way it is.

[kenberg]

I agree. I just read that 70% of all the school shootings over the past decade or so have been carried out by boys less than 18 years of age. So what do we do? Outlaw firearm purchases for young men under the age of 21? Only to read in a few years, "70% of all school shootings carried out by young men less than 22 years of age." It is heartbreaking and I don't think anybody has an answer. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, we gotta have evil 'til the day that we die. I don't like it, but that just seems to be the way it is.

 

Sometimes, when people decide that something must be done, then, what do you know, they figure out a way to do it.

Maybe, just maybe, the country is finally deciding that something must be done.

My point was: That decision, deciding that something must be done, is where we start.

 

[PeterAlan]

It is heartbreaking and I don't think anybody has an answer. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, we gotta have evil 'til the day that we die. I don't like it, but that just seems to be the way it is.

There is an answer, and it doesn't "just" have "to be the way it is". Many other countries show the way (I'm from the UK).

 

The issue is that you (the US collectively) just won't countenance it: your favoured 'idiot control' doesn't work, and the answer therefore lies in gun control (by the way, these are not mutually exclusive options; you need both).

 

• Repeal the arcane Second Amendment. Replace it with a provision that ensures gun control is a federal matter.
  
• Ban assault rifles, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and handguns in private hands. Treat possession as a serious felony.
  
• Ban large-capacity magazines.
  
• Take banned weapons (and as many others as possible) out of circulation through deposit, amnesty and buy-back.
  
• Tighten registration and authorisation processes.
  

A massive culture shift is necessary; regrettably the US seems unable to even contemplate the first steps, and I have no panaceas on how you could get there. I expect that generational changes of attitude would be required.

 

A start might be a wider appreciation of how far off the scale you are: for example, in 2020 there were 19,384 firearm homicides in the US - in the UK, with 1/5 your population, there were 30 in the year to 31 March 2020, per capita less than 1% of the US rate.

 

Edit: These are goals; I'm not naive enough to suggest that they are attainable in the short term. But an assault rifle ban should be doable; you've done it before. And you could make a start on the Second Amendment by reversing Heller, and follow it up by cases that restrict its applicability more and more until it withered away as a basis for anything. But that would necessitate a very different Supreme Court from the one you have now.

[cherdano]

https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1848971668

[pilowsky]

There's a saying that I hear often - most commonly from Americans: "It is what it is."

 

What is this thing that 'is'?

Is it a cousin of the one thing that often leads to another?

Of all the possible things that a society of nearly 400 million people could maintain is a absolutely fundamental to its existence why choose religion as number one and the right to own a lethal weapon as number two.

 

How about the right not have someone else decide your reproductive affairs?

Or the right to form a lifelong partnership with any other person you choose?

 

Why is the right to not be prosecuted less important than the right to not have government quarter troops in your home?

 

If this is justice then I'm a banana

What are you talking about, 99? We have to shoot and kill and destroy. We represent everything that's wholesome and good in the world.

[Cyberyeti]

Aren't English public schools what we call private schools in the states? Are you translating to 'Merican for us?

 

I'm a generation younger than Ken, and I went to school in middle class suburbs. We also didn't teach foreign languages until high school. My HS was large enough to offer a choice of French, Spanish, or (I think) Italian every year. I imagine Ken's rural high school was significantly smaller -- my graduating class in 1979 was around 600 students -- so they couldn't justify multiple language classes each year.

 

No, public schools are a VERY particular sort of private school - Eton etc, I was at a private school but not a public school". Public sector = state run.

 

Here "high school" was 11-18 where I was.

[kenberg]

There is an answer, and it doesn't "just" have "to be the way it is". Many other countries show the way (I'm from the UK).

 

The issue is that you (the US collectively) just won't countenance it: your favoured 'idiot control' doesn't work, and the answer therefore lies in gun control (by the way, these are not mutually exclusive options; you need both).

 

• Repeal the arcane Second Amendment. Replace it with a provision that ensures gun control is a federal matter.
• Ban assault rifles, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and handguns in private hands. Treat possession as a serious felony.
• Ban large-capacity magazines.
• Take banned weapons (and as many others as possible) out of circulation through deposit, amnesty and buy-back.
• Tighten registration and authorisation processes.

A massive culture shift is necessary; regrettably the US seems unable to even contemplate the first steps, and I have no panaceas on how you could get there. I expect that generational changes of attitude would be required.

 

A start might be a wider appreciation of how far off the scale you are: for example, in 2020 there were 19,384 firearm homicides in the US - in the UK, with 1/5 your population, there were 30 in the year to 31 March 2020, per capita less than 1% of the US rate.

 

Edit: These are goals; I'm not naive enough to suggest that they are attainable in the short term. But an assault rifle ban should be doable; you've done it before. And you could make a start on the Second Amendment by reversing Heller, and follow it up by cases that restrict its applicability more and more until it withered away as a basis for anything. But that would necessitate a very different Supreme Court from the one you have now.

 

I want to emphasize your comment "A massive culture shift is necessary" I have known a fair number of people who think that if there is trouble with a neighbor it's really important to own a gun. The general results of this view are pretty predictable. Often someone dies, someone else goes to jail.

 

As a kid I had a cap gun, I listened to The Lone Ranger, I saw Hopalong Cassidy movies but to the extent I thought about it I realized this was fantasy. I recall, too long ago to remember details, coming out of a Saturday afternoon movie with friends. The movie had some sort of gang in it and one of the kids said something about how we were like a gang. I don't remember just what I said but I recall thinking no, we are not.

 

In the fantasy world of movies, and now in the fantasy world of online games, guns are often the solution. In the real world, guns are often the problem. Once it is understood that guns are the problem, not the solution, we have a chance of addressing this problem. Until we make this cultural shift, we will continue with gun violence.

I was given a shotgun for hunting when I was 12 and I was taught how to use it properly. Somewhere in my early 20s I decided I am not Daniel Boone and I got rid of it. I am also not Dick Tracy, I am not Dirty Harry, I intend to find ways to get along with neighbors and that seems to work. If I need to call the cops I will, but I'm 83 and so far in my life I have never needed to.

Your specifics are desirable, I could supply others, but the cultural shift is where it all starts.

So a cultural shift is exactly what is needed. This is so obvious it hurts.

[y66]

From The “College Gap” in Marriage and Children’s Family Structure by Melissa Schettini Kearney at U Maryland

 

There has been a dramatic decrease in the share of US children living with married parents -- and, consequently, with two parents -- over the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. This has largely been driven by a decline in marriage among non-college-educated adults, including those with a high school degree or some college. The widening college gap in children’s family structure has contributed to the widening inequality in household income and resources. These trends raise the concern that the college gap in family structure will exacerbate and perpetuate class gaps in children’s outcomes. As this paper has documented, the benefits of a two-parent family have become yet another disproportionate advantage of the college-educated class.

 

The evidence suggesting that children do better when they live in a home with both a mother and a father present, especially boys, suggests that improving children’s outcomes and closing class gaps in outcomes between the children of college-educated parents and others will require confronting the multi-dimensional challenges facing non-college adults – especially men – that have led to the erosion of marriage and the two-parent family among wide swaths of the population. As discussed above, the eroding economic position of non-college educated men has been a key contributing factor to these trends. Other societal challenges, including the mass incarceration of black men (Sykes and Pettit, 2014; Wildeman, 2009) and the social malaise contributing to “deaths of despair” (Case and Deaton, 2020), are related, contributing factors. A full accounting of these challenges is beyond the scope of this paper, the purpose of which is to highlight the dramatic changes in children’s family structure that has taken place for the children of adults without a college degree. However, it bears emphasis that the various

economic and social challenges facing non-college educated Americans today are related to the family environments of children and, if not addressed, are likely to lead to the persistence of intergenerational disadvantage and class gaps across generations.

[Chas_P]

[*]Take banned weapons (and as many others as possible) out of circulation through deposit, amnesty and buy-back.

 

Yes! By Jove, I think you've got it! We just respectfully ask the thugs and criminally insane to peacefully surrender their firearms and be nice from now on. That should do it.

[pilowsky]

Yes! By Jove, I think you've got it! We just respectfully ask the thugs and criminally insane to peacefully surrender their firearms and be nice from now on. That should do it.

 

Why say things that are manifestly wrong.

What do you gain from it?

[PeterAlan]

Yes! By Jove, I think you've got it! We just respectfully ask the thugs and criminally insane to peacefully surrender their firearms and be nice from now on. That should do it.

Are you wilfully stupid, or does it just come naturally? When you ban weapons you need to take as many as possible of them out of circulation; they don't just disappear in a puff of smoke.

 

Quite apart from anything else, doing this makes it harder for future thugs etc to equip themselves with them.

 

I understand there are something like 400 million firearms in the USA; whilst I don't know exactly how this breaks down by type I would guess that at least 300 million could be covered by the sort of ban I was advocating. Don't you think it would be a good thing to get as many as possible of these out of the way?

 

PS: And maybe, just maybe, last week's shooting in Uvalde wouldn't have happened if a kid hadn't been able to buy, within days of his 18th birthday, two AR-15s, a bunch of 30-round magazines for them and all the ammunition he wanted.

[Chas_P]

Why say things that are manifestly wrong.

What do you gain from it?

My level of sarcasm is directly proportional to the the level of stupidity addressed.

[Winstonm]

There's a saying that I hear often - most commonly from Americans: "It is what it is."

 

What is this thing that 'is'?

Is it a cousin of the one thing that often leads to another?

Of all the possible things that a society of nearly 400 million people could maintain is a absolutely fundamental to its existence why choose religion as number one and the right to own a lethal weapon as number two.

 

How about the right not have someone else decide your reproductive affairs?

Or the right to form a lifelong partnership with any other person you choose?

 

Why is the right to not be prosecuted less important than the right to not have government quarter troops in your home?

 

 

The issue here in the USA is Christian Nationalism; these people are actively (and now openly) working to replace our democratic republic with a fascist theocracy. Every other issue is a branch from this mother plant.