Russia and Election, Fake News, Trump and Press

2 thoughts on “Russia and Election, Fake News, Trump and Press”

  1. Since you closed comments here:

    http://fairandunbalanced.com/?p=3298

    I will comment here.

    Great attack on the Electoral College. As noted, conservatives love it, though it circumvents democracy, because with a democratic process, it is really hard for them to get elected.

    Once they steal the ninth Supreme Court seat, again circumventing democracy, and lock in a few more seats with relative youths, they will ensure that no democratic system will determine a presidential election for another 50 years at least.

    By the way, Block Voting was not invented by the U.S., whose “inventors,” as you noted, wanted to abolish it when they found out what the states had done with it (circumvent democracy).

    So far as I know this hails ultimately from the Roman Republic, which was a representative democracy, and in many ways very similar to the U.S., and survived, though in some turmoil for 500ish years before it reverted to a monarchy.

    The Roman aristocracy used block voting to “stay in office.” Their executive term only lasted for 1 year for most of the history of the Republic. However, whether they stayed in higher offices after that was largely determined by their political allies (and usually the vote of the General Assembly, meaning the people, who were influenced most by those with the deepest pockets).

    The Roman Republic had different methods of disenfranchising its people.

    1. Block Voting and its version of Gerrymandering.

    2. Requirement to be in Rome to Vote.

    3. Purchasing advertising through enormous campaign contributions. They way they advertized was building monuments and throwing lavish parties, but advertizing is advertizing is advertizing, and when in Rome …

    Rome was challenged to its core by its own people twice that I know of, once in it youth and again in its old age.

    In its youth, the producers, the farmers who would be soldiers, walked out. They abandoned Rome because they were not being represented. They through their tea overboard and drank water, or something like that.

    They did this as Rome’s enemies were knocking on the door, and there was no one but the Aristocracy itself to answer.

    This was, for all practical purposes, a global strike, much like one our Unions may host.

    Rome caved, lest it be destroyed, and created the Veto power. The Tribune of the Plebs, the citizen Tribune, could veto any proposal, even one by a consul (one member of the executive diarchy).

    Rome scrambled to figure out how to get Tribunes that could be bought elected and how to buy them.

    The second time Rome faced extinction was in the “Social Wars.” Again, the majority of Roman citizens, mostly not natively born, were not protected or represented. Their property was confiscated and they were disenfranchised because they could not make it to Rome to vote (assuming they met the criteria that would allow them to do so).

    These “civil wars,” cost countless lives, decimated the Senate, and ended in dictatorship.

    When a society chooses not to represent its people, it can survive for a long time. American has survived a good 240 years, depending on how you measure it. The Roman Republic, similar in far more ways than most people realize, survived for twice that long.

    Using that has our metric, we are not doing so poorly. We have a good 260 years or so remaining. Hang in there. We’ll get through it.

    1. Some blame the media. Some blame the DNC. Some blame Russia.

      But I ask: where was our hero when we needed him most? Where was John Myste?

      Don’t be so arrogant as to believe that your return makes up for Trump’s victory. You’ll have to write at least a few more comments to do that. You might even have to start blogging again.

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