A Few Questions For My Liberal Friends…
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So… now that we are barely over 25% of the way through Donald J Trump’s 2nd term in office, are you willing to concede that the federal government has way too much influence and power on the daily lives of Americans? Do you wish that DJT and his Congressional Cronies had less reach into your lives? Are you ready to restrain the powers of Executive and Legislative branches and put more power and responsibility to individuals instead of vast bureaucracies?
Or have you not learned the lesson of the DJT presidency and plan on doubling down?
The Brad
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I don't want the government controlling cool stuff that I want to do. I'm happy if they stop you from doing crazy shit.
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Yeah, the government really shouldn't ban transgender treatments -- that's clearly an issue of individual liberty; whether one chooses to transition to woman or man has no bearing on how others live their lives.
But mandating vaccinations is clearly a matter of public health and public good. Those who refuse to vaccinate can clearly compromise the health and safety of fellow citizens who cannot be vaccinated due to other health issues. Ditto environmental regulations for clean air and clean water.
It's not a matter of the government having too much or too little power, but whether it has the right amount of power to control the right set of things. Of course, nobody knows better than I what is the right amount of power and what are the right set of things.
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Yeah, the government really shouldn't ban transgender treatments -- that's clearly an issue of individual liberty; whether one chooses to transition to woman or man has no bearing on how others live their lives.
But mandating vaccinations is clearly a matter of public health and public good. Those who refuse to vaccinate can clearly compromise the health and safety of fellow citizens who cannot be vaccinated due to other health issues. Ditto environmental regulations for clean air and clean water.
It's not a matter of the government having too much or too little power, but whether it has the right amount of power to control the right set of things. Of course, nobody knows better than I what is the right amount of power and what are the right set of things.
Yeah, the government really shouldn't ban transgender treatments -- that's clearly an issue of individual liberty; whether one chooses to transition to woman or man has no bearing on how others live their lives.
But mandating vaccinations is clearly a matter of public health and public good. Those who refuse to vaccinate can clearly compromise the health and safety of fellow citizens who cannot be vaccinated due to other health issues. Ditto environmental regulations for clean air and clean water.
It's not a matter of the government having too much or too little power, but whether it has the right amount of power to control the right set of things. Of course, nobody knows better than I what is the right amount of power and what are the right set of things.
So in other words… No. You haven’t learned a thing and will double down on making the same mistakes.
Good to know.
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Serious answer: I'd much prefer devolving power away from the Federal government and an increase in individual liberty. I've always felt this way, at least in living memory.
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Yeah, the government really shouldn't ban transgender treatments -- that's clearly an issue of individual liberty; whether one chooses to transition to woman or man has no bearing on how others live their lives.
But mandating vaccinations is clearly a matter of public health and public good. Those who refuse to vaccinate can clearly compromise the health and safety of fellow citizens who cannot be vaccinated due to other health issues. Ditto environmental regulations for clean air and clean water.
It's not a matter of the government having too much or too little power, but whether it has the right amount of power to control the right set of things. Of course, nobody knows better than I what is the right amount of power and what are the right set of things.
It's not a matter of the government having too much or too little power, but whether it has the right amount of power to control the right set of things. Of course, nobody knows better than I what is the right amount of power and what are the right set of things.
That's basically what I said except I was being facetious. Nobody can tell whether you're joking or not.
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So… now that we are barely over 25% of the way through Donald J Trump’s 2nd term in office, are you willing to concede that the federal government has way too much influence and power on the daily lives of Americans? Do you wish that DJT and his Congressional Cronies had less reach into your lives? Are you ready to restrain the powers of Executive and Legislative branches and put more power and responsibility to individuals instead of vast bureaucracies?
Or have you not learned the lesson of the DJT presidency and plan on doubling down?
@LuFins-Dad My take is a little different. I look at it more as Executive vs Legislative rather than Executive+Legislative vs individuals. Well before Trump I lamented that Congress long ago quit doing its job and deferred too much to the executive. The Trump years, especially now in the second term with lickspittle House leadership, have drilled that home to lots of people.
It's not clear anyone has or will learn from it. The GOP seems fine piling this much power onto Trump and even wishing he had more, and lamenting it when the courts rein him in. The left recognizes he has too much power, but I'm sure they will forget that lesson about 12:01 on January 20th of whatever year they take back the presidency.
Case in point, I made a similar point to this next door, trolling a bit no doubt, saying 'thank god Elizabeth Warren failed in her attempts to give the executive branch even more power'. I was referring to her attempt to require that all companies over $1B in revenue be licensed by a new department under Treasury and have that license be reviewable yearly. The legislation was going to loosely define that the license would require the company to take into account interests of 'all stakeholders', not just shareholders. Of course she envisioned someone like her wielding that power to make companies do what she wanted with pay, time off, abject discrimination (equity), environment, whatever. But imagine what the Trump administration (and crime family) would have done with such a lever?
The response was interesting... 'you can't blame Warren or what she tried to do for what Trump does or might have done'. I responded that yes, you must indeed evaluate all proposals to give the executive more power based on what some president you don't like might do with such power.
What the second Trump administration has brought home to me is how much our system of government assumes (and really requires) we have someone more mature and trustworthy in the office when it comes to emergency powers. I do believe we have too many emergency powers embedded in legislation, but be that as it may, our system of government will always require some such powers, since congress can't act quickly and sometimes we need to. The problem is the Executive has sole authority to decide whether the emergency condition obtains and such a decision doesn't seem to be reviewable by the courts. I suppose the answer is to require congress to affirm and reaffirm the emergency and the granting of powers every X days. But a lot of mischief can be done in those X days. A fine case in point was when Trump triggered tariffs on Switzerland based on a 'national emergency' because he didn't like the tone that one of their officials used with him.
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