Had literacy tests not been used for utterly corrupt purposes, they might be a reasonable solution. But that ship not only sailed long ago, it burnt to the water line and sank in the Bermuda triangle.
Had literacy tests not been used for utterly corrupt purposes, they might be a reasonable solution. But that ship not only sailed long ago, it burnt to the water line and sank in the Bermuda triangle.
Ironically, literacy tests could conceivably be computerized these days, and randomized to ensure fairness. But from what I've read, maybe half of the voters would flunk the most bonehead simple introductory civics questions.
It's an aliterate age. Which does account for why I'm preparing like a pessimist, while at the same time advocating the most optimistic solutions I can find.
Yes! and Mars will be/ might be the new frontier. Liberty thrives on hard work, isolation, and unlimited hunks of unclaimed land. So do robber barons thrive. It's back to 1866 !
Not always. Not everywhere. But sometimes, in some places, yes. Recently finished reading the Anti-Federalist papers, of which the most relevant writings are James Madison's notes on who said what at the Constitutional Convention. They are good notes, and the concerns about mob rule sit front and center. Taken together with the Bill of Rights, the Constitution is well designed to prevent / resist mob rule. Like all laws and rules everywhere, diligent enforcement and consistent adjudication cannot be trusted, on their own, to maintain intact the liberties of the People, including the rights of all minorities. This is why the tools required to make a revolution must never be removed from the hands of the general population. The 1993-2016 and 2021-? thumb-on-the-scales enforcement and adjudication actions are reminiscent of 1886-1912 period, when no one could get a fair trial against the Oligarchs, or 1912-1932, when minorities of all types were targeted for imminent extermination ( Wilson barring all blacks from Federal employment and prosecuting anti-War publications and protesters, for example.) Was it piracy to shoot down scabs trying to enter auto plants and coal mines by crossing the union picket lines ? I suggest that whenever a private special interest enlists its government to create competitive advantage or break employees' or customers' rights to fair treatment, privately collective violence may be appropriate. When employers direct their government lackeys to remove the bread from the mouths of American children, they are committing acts of lethal violence. Violence in response can be a wasted effort, but at times it may be the only way to illuminate a subject that is otherwise ignored by all the "normal" means of access to public opinion. Ida Tarbell's reporting on how the Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust fortune was kidnapped - hijacked - stolen - er, pirated from law-abiding competitors and customers is the gold standard still.
Piracy can succeed, and not only by Rockefellers. Josef Djugashvili was a bandit -- and pirated a ship on the Black Sea once -- in order to keep Vladimir Ulyanov living a bourgeois lifestyle in London and Zurich in the early 20th Century.
Had literacy tests not been used for utterly corrupt purposes, they might be a reasonable solution. But that ship not only sailed long ago, it burnt to the water line and sank in the Bermuda triangle.
Ironically, literacy tests could conceivably be computerized these days, and randomized to ensure fairness. But from what I've read, maybe half of the voters would flunk the most bonehead simple introductory civics questions.
It's an aliterate age. Which does account for why I'm preparing like a pessimist, while at the same time advocating the most optimistic solutions I can find.
Yes! and Mars will be/ might be the new frontier. Liberty thrives on hard work, isolation, and unlimited hunks of unclaimed land. So do robber barons thrive. It's back to 1866 !
Not always. Not everywhere. But sometimes, in some places, yes. Recently finished reading the Anti-Federalist papers, of which the most relevant writings are James Madison's notes on who said what at the Constitutional Convention. They are good notes, and the concerns about mob rule sit front and center. Taken together with the Bill of Rights, the Constitution is well designed to prevent / resist mob rule. Like all laws and rules everywhere, diligent enforcement and consistent adjudication cannot be trusted, on their own, to maintain intact the liberties of the People, including the rights of all minorities. This is why the tools required to make a revolution must never be removed from the hands of the general population. The 1993-2016 and 2021-? thumb-on-the-scales enforcement and adjudication actions are reminiscent of 1886-1912 period, when no one could get a fair trial against the Oligarchs, or 1912-1932, when minorities of all types were targeted for imminent extermination ( Wilson barring all blacks from Federal employment and prosecuting anti-War publications and protesters, for example.) Was it piracy to shoot down scabs trying to enter auto plants and coal mines by crossing the union picket lines ? I suggest that whenever a private special interest enlists its government to create competitive advantage or break employees' or customers' rights to fair treatment, privately collective violence may be appropriate. When employers direct their government lackeys to remove the bread from the mouths of American children, they are committing acts of lethal violence. Violence in response can be a wasted effort, but at times it may be the only way to illuminate a subject that is otherwise ignored by all the "normal" means of access to public opinion. Ida Tarbell's reporting on how the Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust fortune was kidnapped - hijacked - stolen - er, pirated from law-abiding competitors and customers is the gold standard still.
Piracy can succeed, and not only by Rockefellers. Josef Djugashvili was a bandit -- and pirated a ship on the Black Sea once -- in order to keep Vladimir Ulyanov living a bourgeois lifestyle in London and Zurich in the early 20th Century.