It seems crazy to me that currently it takes just 50%+1 to change the state constitution. That being said, fast-tracking a special election to raise the threshold to 60% before an amendment polling at 59% goes to the vote is the worst kind of anti-democratic behavior. They're trying to change the rules halfway through the attempt.
Ballot measures are a great way to distill trust in democracy in a population. Directly voting on single issues is a great way to show that democracy matters especially since people views on a single issue are usually much clearer than party votes. This is classic undemocratic behavior.
FATHER: Please, please! This is supposed to be a happy occasion! Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who. We are here today to witness the union of two young people in the joyful bond of the holy wedlock. Unfortunately, one of them, my son Herbert, has just fallen to his death. But I think I've not lost a son, so much as... gained a daughter! For, since the tragic death of her father —
RANDOM: He's not quite dead!
FATHER: Since the near fatal wounding of her father —
RANDOM: He's getting better!
FATHER: For, since her own father... who, when he seemed about to recover, suddenly felt the icy hand of death upon him, —
[ugh]
RANDOM: Oh, he's died!
FATHER: And I want his only daughter to look upon me... as her own dad — in a very real, and legally binding sense.
I heard an explanation awhile ago about why you always find these homophobic Republican congressmen in the closet with the pool boy.
If you're on the political left, homosexuality is more-or-less accepted. If you determine you're gay, you can accept that about yourself and have those around you accept you as well (or find a group of people that will). Coming out as gay may surprise people around you, but (assuming you have the proper support system in place) you'll be accepted for who you are.
But if you grew up as a deeply conservative fundamentalist christian? Homosexuality is an abomination. These are people who have given into a their hedonistic fantasies and live lives of sin. Sexual perverts and deviants.
So what if you're a deeply conservative man...who's also gay?
Well, obviously you're not gay. Because there aren't any intricacies or complexities to human sexuality and attraction that can make different people attracted to different things. Men are attracted to women, damn it, and that's all there is to it. Besides, homosexuality is a sin, and you're a deeply committed christian, so you can't be gay. But still, you keep having those thoughts....
But that's just the liberal gays tempting you with sin. We'll keep passing legislation against them before their lifestyles take over America. I mean, ignore the fact that like 93% of people aren't gay, so it can't be that tempting of a lifestyle. Also ignore the fact that as a cisgendered heterosexual male, I personally have never once fantasized about sucking dick, but that's beside the point. Obviously they're tempting people because for you, that's actually true. You constantly find yourself checking out attractive men when you go out, and you might even watch questionable videos online while your sexually frustrated wife sleeps in the next room over. The gays are obviously tempting people into their lifestyle, because you are constantly being tempted.
So you get more aggressive, give impassioned speeches on the evils of homosexuality, propose more and more discriminatory laws against them. Because it's not just the gays you're arguing against, you're denying the truth about yourself.
This goes on and on until on day the truth comes out. The intern comes out that you sexually propositioned him. They find gay porn on your laptop. The true nature of your relationship with your 'business associate' Chuck comes to light. Everyone realizes you're gay. Deep down, even you realize you're gay. But you can never admit that, because the fact that you're a conservative God-fearing christian has formed a structural cornerstone of your identity. To admit you're gay now would mean admitting you've been wrong, your religion has been wrong, and your entire worldview has been wrong. So you'll try to sweep it under the rug, say you were tempted by sin, that you've found God, blah blah. Your voters eat it up, because the alternative is voting for someone with a (D) next to their name.
And the sad part is just how much happier everyone would be if they could just accept this about themselves.
They have to protect their fiscal interests. How else will they go on extravagant trips without owing a thing?
I grow to hate my home country more every day.
Events don't have to happen at the capital. Local governments could have problems. We'd have fewer problems if Republican leaders were more willing to throw Trump under the bus instead of trying to court his base.
The claim is that someone from his staff shared it on an official Twitter account, which is unverifiable. Unless you know some way to view deleted tweets that I'm not aware of.
I saw your report and did not act on it because this site ranks with an acceptable reliability score from the media bias chart we use.
As moderators, we cannot ascertain the veracity of individual stories from white listed sources. You can use the link in the side bar to check the reliability rating of any source before reporting it; we only remove items ranking below a 32 reliability score.
For what it's worth, I think the community is doing just fine at pointing out that a direct link to DeSantis isn't presently verifiable, and it is creating reasonable discussion.
Are you threatening me? Go ahead and ban me if this is how you want to run things. I meant it as feedback on the rules, if you can't take feedback on that please ban me.
The comment was not meant to be a threat but a statement of fact--you are welcome to participate or not.
Our rules, in fact, are entirely based on community feedback. Before implementing them, we had multiple discussions on what the users of the magazine wanted to see. We will also be reviewing the rules at a later date, so that people can share feedback on what they have liked and what they would like to see changed. However, we've had rules for something like two weeks at this point, so it's a little soon for that. You would be perfectly welcome to create a meta discussion on the topic. If one of the rules turns out to need addressing promptly, I'm sure we can do so, and that will also be based on community feedback.
Finally, no, we don't ban people just because they get angry about something and/or ask to be banned.
How about the New York Times, and it turns out it wasn't just shared by the DeSantis campaign, but produced by it and then sent to an "outside supporter" to actually tweet, so they could maintain plausible deniability.
One recent move that drew intense blowback, including from Republicans, was the campaign’s sharing of a bizarre video on Twitter that attacked Mr. Trump as too friendly to L.G.B.T.Q. people and showed Mr. DeSantis with lasers coming out of his eyes. The video drew a range of denunciations, with some calling it homophobic and others homoerotic before it was deleted.
But it turns out to be more of a self-inflicted wound than was previously known: A DeSantis campaign aide had originally produced the video internally, passing it off to an outside supporter to post it first and making it appear as if it was generated independently, according to a person with knowledge of the incident.
On August 8, Ohioans will vote on Issue One, a ballot measure that would increase the threshold of support required for amendments to be added to the Constitution, raising it from a simple majority to 60 percent of the vote. It’s hard to overlook the connection between Issue One and the proposed amendment on abortion rights, which would grant individuals the right “to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions” with regard to abortion, contraception, miscarriage management, and fertility treatment.
newrepublic.com
Top