Depends if the election were legal and valid, right? Both Gore and Hilary whined incessantly about “stolen election” if memory serves.
Every official has an obligation to uphold the Constitution, even a President you don’t like Corey.
Did Trump overthrow the election? Nope.
Did Trump block Biden from being inaugurated? Nope.
If we were to review every email, every phone call, every text message between Hilary’s team and the Obama team, do you think it might look a little putrid, shady, narcissistic? Of course.
LOL. I know you think violating US law is reasonable and justified if for your own “higher cause”, “the greater good” as you define but it’s not going to work out so well for Garland, Blinken, Mayorkas, Granholm, Yellen, and Guzman. Each will be held accountable for violating their Constitutional duties starting in Jan '23.
Most would call concerted, coordinated violation and overreach of the authority and mission entrusted to a government as a form of Fascism.
Sorry Corey, the current majority party government is operating in an extremely fascist manner. They just happen to be violating their entrusted authority and mission to promote things you think are cool - climate change/zero carbon, intersectionality/Woke ideology, massive federal government expansion and overreach.
[quote=“FermentedAgave, post:1461, topic:22464”]
My prediction is the GOP would then fragment into Center, Moderate Right, Hard Right and NeoCon subgroups. [/quote]
This would be Ideal. Then maybe we could have a multiparty system similar to countries in Europe. If one extremist group cannot take control of the country just because they win a three way primary with 34% of Republican voters, then beat down or hoodwink 15% of the Undecideds to win with 49% of the vote, that would be great it the Republican party fragmented.
But I don’t see that this follows:
The Far Left would have just as much influence in the game as the Far right. The only way the Left can really be fractured is economic Liberals vs Social Liberals. Economic Liberalism actually matches what Republicans are dong now since Trump - so in fact what you call the Moderate Right is in reality the economic Left aka socialists who want government to give them good jobs just because they were born Americans. Just keep the economy afloat by printing money, and so on.
The social Left has also become mainstream and you r average American is now aware of and countering the excesses of social Liberalism. LGBTQ is generally accepted by most people in most parts of the country, for example. Most Americans don’t see smoking wed as immoral, and the vast majority of Americans are fine with sexual freedom to do what you whatever in privacy.
Sure! And the fact that all of Trump’s team of crackpots had their claims laughed out of court shows the election was legal and valid. There was more evidence of election shenanigans in 2016, as confirmed by the Republican led Senate investigation.
So what you are saying is, as long as you lie about stolen elections, your allowed to declare yourself winner.
But that’s not fascism. Real fascism is… checks notes… governing the country in a way Republicans disagree with.
It’s all nihilism and moral relativism with you these days!
Every official has an obligation to uphold the Constitution, even a President you don’t like Corey.
I agree. Which is why I think it’s funny that you support a Republican president declaring himself a winner of an election he objectively lost.
I know you think violating US law is reasonable and justified if for your own “higher cause”
This is a hilarious projection, because I’m not the one saying the President should be allowed to declare himself the winner of an election they objectively lost. I think you’ve overexposed yourself, Tequila
It’s most likely to be internal GOP coalition building between factions - at the Federal level. This would be an evolution over the current structure.
I think the DNC remains in existence, but will officially become a Trans Marxist, Far Left Fascism splinter of today’s DNC.
Agree mostly. I would say that the DNC surface is more complex than just Economic vs Social Liberals, making the predictive calculus a bit more difficult. This Woke/Intersectionality stuff doesn’t represent even most “Social Liberals” and definitely not the Economic Liberals. Sure they’re ok, as are many Republicans, with a you do you, live and let live philosophy. But that’s not what we’re seeing. The mandating, promoting and funding transgenderism, anti-white, anti-Christian, really Anti anything legislation is not something we’ve seen outside of Marxist countries. We’ll see how it shapes up, but even Democrats aren’t ready for this Identity Marxist stuff.
Where this leaves the DNC is a hollowed out shell where all but the Far Left in a few states can remain in power. The other politicians will follow their voters to the Republican party unless they can somehow disassociate from the DNC.
Of course never count out the Republicans ability to fuck it all up. If there had been a dozen Liz Cheney’s the likely could have derailed the America First movement.
Agreed on the “normalization” of all you mention. As I said above, most conservatives I know don’t care what an adult’s kinks or natural preferences are, as long as it’s not woven into the government and budgets and education system. If the governments (local, state, federal) do go through an austerity phase (lower taxes, reduced government spending), the most obvious to get whacked are the Far Left items - paid abortion, paid LGBTQIA++, Identity racism, etc. Progressives will howl at the moon and potentially respond with armed insurrection claiming that cutting tax payer funding on the Penis Removal Program is somehow “oppressive and anti-American”, when in reality no one really cares if an adult cuts their dick off. Personally I’m partial to boobies so hate to see healthy one’s chopped, but if someone wants to chop’em off I full respect their right to do so.
No need for any exculpatory evidence as this is not a trial, not a prosecution, simply an investigation into the obvious efforts to overturn the election. “Obvious” in that much had already been reported by the media. The investigation focuses primarily on the period between election day and the insurrection, although as the investigation unfolded, more came out in terms of planning that occurred before the election, and in terms of continued efforts to overturn after the insurrection. Most of the evidence and testimony that demonstrates an organized and well-coordinated effort to overturn the election has come not from Democrats or the DNC or the Left or Far Left, but from conservatives, Republicans, and Trump White House officials. The J6 House Committee organized that evidence and testimony into a structure called the “7-point plan,” which the entire Committee subscribes to, not just Liz Cheney.
Can’t speak for all Integralists, but as for me, I’ve already stated that if DOJ doesn’t indict Trump (and others), I think it would be a grave miscarriage of justice. But there is also the possibility of indictment in Georgia (“find me 11,000+ votes”), and there is also the possibility of charges for fraudulent fundraising attempts (Trump’s “Official Election Defense Fund” on his TruthSocial site, $250m raised and not used for “election defense.”). We shall see.
If this should happen, Biden will still be president, Garland will still be AG, so any DOJ investigations would still continue.
This is a fool’s errand.
Great! Would love to see the GOP doing something useful.
Dark times indeed, particularly if it’s the MAGA crowd doing the taking and the packing.
Wow. You really believe this? 800+ and counting arrested/prosecuted over the insurrection alone.
Re: your charts: Yes, I know the economy is at the top of most people’s list of priorities. I’ve read there’s a consideration to do away with the federal gas tax temporarily. That tax is only about 18 cents per gallon, so it’s not going to help all that much, plus it takes money away from the infrastructure funding.
I guess I would end this by saying that in recent polls, 58% of people do think Trump should be indicted. That’s the good news; the bad news is that only 9% of people polled are watching the hearings. Sad.
The key word there is “perceived”.
Many people already perceive that Trump was the greatest President the United States ever had and did more for America than all other Presidents combined, and also all Popes in all history ever.
When pressed for details they have a hard time coming up with actual examples, but nevertheless they still hold this perception.
What’s the “Integral Response” if Trump isn’t indicted?
Well, it’s the same integral response to all the other messes going on in the world. Kenny Roger’s song “The Gambler” usually comes to my mind in those kinds of circumstances. Know when to fight (“hold 'em”), know when to withdraw (“fold 'em”). Know when to walk away, when to run. And so on.
Of course not in the way Republicans want - Integral requires an immunity to gaslighting, bluffing, and so on. An image comes to me of a crane fighting a snake.
Some great points Ray. And that’s a powerful image. Note the crane is a snake-bird (neck) but the serpent is not a crane-snake. The lower is in the higher, but the higher is not in the lower. (Integral speak).
They will be quite busy in their own Congressional hearings, as will virtually every Cabinet member.
You might drinking the koolaid, but there is quite a lot of Congressional oversight hearing testimony that’s not so favorable to each of these members. Once the Committee structure flips from softballs to fastballs it will likely get significantly hotter.
I saw where you stated that most Americans are pre-rational. How do we “reach down” and help bootstrap them from Amber to Orange? Or is the only way through “defeating” them, mandating development, then enforcing development as defined by an expert organization?
In 17 months, the DOJ has gotten some guilty pleas, but they are still hard at work to root out the traitors to American Democracy.
Consider the story of Ramon and his wife Veronica and their two-year-old daughter. They left Nicaragua, Ramon told us, because of poverty. We spoke to them on a recent weekday afternoon at the Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement drops off nearly everyone it discharges from federal custody in that area. They had just been released that morning along with about 70 others.
Their story, like many others on the border, is terrifying. When Ramon and Veronica and their daughter reached Reynosa, their bus was stopped at a cartel checkpoint and they were asked for a code. (When migrants pay off the cartel they get a code. That’s how the cartel keeps track of who’s paid and who hasn’t.)
They hadn’t paid and didn’t have a code, so the cartel kidnapped them and took them to a stash house with a bunch of other families. Ramon says the house had no water, no food, no electricity. They were held there 10 days, until family members back in Nicaragua were able to get together $3,000 (a thousand for each of them) and pay the “cartel tax.”
After they paid, they were taken over the river by boat, picked up by Border Patrol, and were released a few days later on humanitarian parole. In this case, they were released on parole through a relatively recent bureaucratic innovation designed to streamline the processing of illegal border-crossers and prevent overcrowding in federal detention centers.
They say they were only asked for the address and telephone number of their destination. ICE discharged them with a sheaf of documents that allows them to travel inside the United States — which they’ll need to do, because they were also given a date, 30 days out, to report to an ICE office in central Washington State, where they’re headed.
What they don’t have is a court date or work permits. For whatever reason, their parole documents, which they showed us, did not include a work authorization number. This concerned them greatly, as it did most everyone we spoke with at the Respite Center who didn’t have work authorization.
The irony is that Ramon and Veronica, if their story is true, might actually have a compelling case for political asylum. But they seemed far less concerned with filing an asylum claim than with getting a hold of work permits.
@FermentedAgave
I’m curious if you believe people crossing the border have adequate legal counsel or even the luxury of endless hours as you have to consider and informative weigh all the options?
It’s not just a matter of “reaching down” to help people at amber move to orange (or orange to green, green to teal, etc.), imo. And it’s not just a matter of exterior “mandates” (e.g. laws, education, and such). People have to have a little interior desire and intention for growth on their own. This is actually a complex and layered subject–growth from amber to orange–worthy of its own topic/thread; why don’t you set it up and see what the community might contribute?
I would add that “pre-rational” refers to the stage itself in that it comes prior to, before, the rational stage. Some people within the amber group of course could very well be at the rational stage in certain areas/aspects of their lives (like your landscaper you mentioned in another thread), but still have a ‘center of gravity’ that is amber. The stages are not hard-lined with concrete borders; there’s a lot of blending, and yet there are also some specific markers for each stage.
Probably a lot of different reasons. Only one of the four hearings has been held in prime time (with 20m viewers, largest viewership yet), so many people are likely at work and unable to watch daytime hearings. Maybe they catch some clips or replays or news reports later.
Others may have closely followed all the election events and made up their minds about things a long time ago, like Ray perhaps. Others have little to no interest in government or political doings.
Others may not find these kind of hearings “riveting,” as you said about yourself. Although some would have found today’s hearing emotionally riveting, starting with the conservative Republican Speaker of the AZ House (who both supports and voted for Trump) who spoke both factually and feelingly, and used the “c” word–conscience–in describing how “being a man of God, and considering the Constitution to be divinely inspired, his conscience would not allow him” to forsake his oath and go along with the corruption, even as he and his family were harassed and threatened. Powerful testimony. I don’t think “riveting” people is the intent behind the hearings; rather, informing and educating the public is the goal.
Other people, probably a good 30%+ of those not watching, are probably the die-hard Maga folks who are simply not open to facts or truth, in spite of those facts and truths being provided through documentation, evidence, video and live testimony of Trump-supporting conservatives, Republicans, and Trump White House officials.
This Amber to Orange migration should already be facilitated by traditional structures normally - primary, secondary education, post-secondary education. That’s assume the education system is teaching what’s necessary to make this migration from pre-rational to rational. My concern with both the Covid lockdowns and the current economic climate predominately but not solely created by government policies has systemically blocked many that do have the desire to migrate from Amber to Orange.
We’ve got the Integral Trickle Down thread which is somewhat similar to “bootstrapping”.
That’s the nuanced part of using traditional language and redefining as Integral specific term, then using very broadly. Integralists would extremely likely point to my landscaper as a perfect example of Amber/Literal Mythic/Pre-rational, but if these terms were non-Integral terms they simply don’t make any sense. I’ve seen no not-rational and zero vestiges of Mythical worship and Literal interpretation from him. Maybe at home he’s a Catholic and prays a lot at home, binge watches Twilight, or might even be a Republican.
What I can say is that him and his wife appear to be very driven to improve themselves and their lives. They are really good at what they do.
The labels make for an interesting short hand, but when viewed through an English language lens don’t come across as so accepting, inclusive, or compassionate.
I think you first thought here is like prevalent. Trust in media is also very low, so anything looking newsy might be suspect.
I do think with the last 10 years of politics the vast majority of Americans are very concerned about politics, and do think that elections matter in their daily lives. We could see a renewal in Civic Duty of the Citizen.
Hard to tell.
Doesn’t look like they need much legal counsel once they get to the US. At least in one of the examples, they were sent to Washington state with no hearing or court date. Seems like they’re all in, once they navigated the Cartels and paid their Coyotes.
Sounds like they could use some Aloha right about now. Have you considered buying a few of them plane tickets for Hawai’i?
I already explained to you that strict national borders are doomed to failure as a solution even in the 20th century, much less the 21st. All throughout human history borders were porous and people moved across from country to country mostly as they wanted. It’s only in the 20th century that Nations tried to enforce strict controls - and the experiment has been a massive failure.
Sure, come on and fly over to Hawaii. It’s kind of stupid of you to suggest I pay their way, but I have no problem with them buying their own tickets over and sleeping in the gutters here.
You see, the fact is that many of my childhood friends and then into adulthood as well - I’ve known many people who entered this country as refugees. Yes, also many who entered illegally. I never for a moment considered them as anything other than human, and some of them friends. Or, as your Christian Bible says - which you so obviously do not follow yourself - God’s children.
From a Capitalist perspective as well, borders are merely more government control and limitations to economic prosperity and growth.
So basically, strict National Borders are unChristian and also Anti-Capitalist.
Which I suppose places you in either the Marxist or the White Nationalist camp.
It is funny to me when I talk to non-white White Nationalists such as yourself, who want to keep out the brown skinned hordes, but your efforts to keep America White aren’t part of my core values.
Biden Admin allowing intimidation of SCOTUS might backfire.
If the DNCs complacency allows their mob to kill a Justice, I would expect this to trigger a 2025 packing. My guess on the 4 expansion Justices to start with Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. How long did they block Obama’s appointee? Was it 2 years with a GOP majority Senate?
While the educational system is definitely one of the “facilitators” of development, it’s not the only one. Parents have a role, religion has a role, law and the legal and justice systems have a role, culture in general has a role, etc. etc. And the individual’s role cannot be overlooked either.
I know this is not something you agree with, but when it comes to the educational system’s role in facilitating growth, we have current examples of efforts by schools trying to enable a more inclusive perspective in students (e.g. around race and sex/gender issues), which would help, imo, with addressing the “us vs. them” unhealthy aspects of the amber level, and minimally, if not forward a more worldcentric perspective of “all of us” (rational stage), would at least maybe, maybe turn that us vs. them into an us and them. But as we know, there has been so much revolt against this by parents and politicians, such as with Texas now declaring homosexuality an “abnormal lifestyle.”
And yes, for the 99th time, I acknowledge there have been and are excesses on the left, and I don’t need to slice-and-dice that again. But this is, to me, not solely a left and right political issue, but to a large degree an issue about development.
I sometimes think that the sheer number of people at the amber level (the 50-60%) is what keeps that stage or people within that stage “stuck.” If more than half of one’s community, state, nation, etc. agrees with, validates, supports, confirms one’s beliefs and views, then there is likely less reason or motivation or interest or initiative towards change or transformation on the part of individuals. Conformity or fitting in with one’s group is comfortable; it gives a sense of belonging which is one of the dignities of the amber stage, and which we all want and need. So it seems to me there has to be an authentic evolutionary impulse within the individual, a reaching towards new/“higher”/greater identifications, and that impulse and reaching need to be supported by exterior influences (and sometimes the exterior influences are what provoke or stimulate the evolutionary impulse), for growth and development to occur. It’s a hard stage to transcend/include, amber, or so it seems. It’s so darn comfortable.
What makes you think this? I know nothing about your landscaper other than the very little you have said. If you don’t think he’s at the amber level, I can’t refute that, wouldn’t even want to. I was just giving an example of how stage center of gravity (“walking”) and stage cognition (“talking”) can be different in any of us.
@FermentedAgave
While Democrats do have challenges, it’s nowhere near the train wreck scale of team Trump.
This just in - apparently, a documentary film crew was recording Trump committing high treason, and most of his senior team didn’t even know about it 2 years later, lol.
This is why, I recognize that while Team Trump may very well win in 2024, it will be the beginning of the end of American Greatness. Retards and buffoons will once again be in charge of the United States, and the calamity that follows will make Nero look like a compassionate and savvy statesman.
Kind of reminds me of Watergate - “OH, There’s actually Tapes that will have all those conversations!”
Only difference is it’s now video instead of just audio. I hope nobody swore under oath that they were not in a certain room or did not know about certain things when certain things were said, lol.
USA circa 2025
Edit / Add
All this talk from @FermentedAgave about Democrats need to worry, but when it actually plays out, Trump “True Believers” are the ones going to jail and in this case, having their private homes searched, lol (which will lead to even more searches and more arrests)
An example of when emotionally and spiritually bankrupt people do not stop at attacking a perceived external enemy - they just as easily strike out at their own group and invent a perceived enemy from within.
I deduce that @FermentedAgave is one of these “agitators” raising pitchforks against those pastors not sufficiently anti-woke.
