Day: February 7, 2022

Closing Thought–07Feb22

THe GOP has been brutally honest….well some GOPers…..that all their attempts to limit Dem voters is their strategy…..gerrymandering, voters suppression, etc etc are all attempts to remove any GOP opponents from ever winning another election.

Arizona (go figure) is just the most recent attempts……

Arizona Republicans have spent the past couple weeks since the legislative session began introducing a red wave of voter suppression measures. House Bill 2596, which dropped Friday, would eliminate all early voting, emergency voting centers, and no-excuse mail-in voting. The latter has existed in Arizona since 1991, so longer than the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

The House bill would also ban the use of electronic voting machines and require that all ballots are counted by human hands. You might think that would take forever, but they’ll have 24 hours to do it!

Republicans had traditionally held the advantage in ballots cast prior to Election Day. That changed in 2020, so obviously early voting is corrupt and must end. GOP Rep. Shawna Bolick proposed the measure that would only permit emergency voting in “times of war, civil unrest or a natural disaster.” These are obviously the only real emergencies that would prevent someone from voting on Election Day. In real America, emergency voting centers are only for upcoming hurricanes and nuclear wars.

Some of the Republicans who sponsored this bill also reportedly supported and even cheered the Arizona fraudit. A total of seven bills passed out of committee along party lines. State Sen. Wendy Rogers (a QAnon bigot) filed a bill that would prohibit drop boxes with only the most narrow exception for voters with disabilities. Arizonians shouldn’t have to disclose their disability status, and the lack of early voting might make the lines on Election Day a burden even for those who don’t fit Rogers’ likely narrow definition of “disabled.”

https://www.wonkette.com/arizona-gop-officially-done-with-people-voting-against-republicans

This is what we get when the game HALO is more important than voting….the loss of voting rights can be laid only at the feet of the voter.

What will it take to get the lazy toads from behind their game control and vote to preserve our society?

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Advertisement

The ‘Confederation’

My Civics series of ‘Where It All Began…..

“In The Beginning…..” that is how all great myths begin.

And so it was with these United States…..in the beginning was our Confederation period…that was the period after the War and before the Constitution was finalized and ratified…..

The year is 1777……

Americans had a myriad of concerns in the years following the end of the War for Independence. Many of those issues centered on the Articles of Confederation and the powers delegated to Congress. Previous attempts to amend the Articles of Confederation inside and outside of Congress proved unsuccessful. All proposals to give Congress powers to tax and regulate commerce failed to get the approval of all thirteen state legislatures which was required by Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation. Among the many considerations that Americans faced during the “critical period,” the items below certainly paint a somber backdrop to the decade following the Revolutionary War.

There were several attempts to change the Articles of Confederation as the laws of the land…..

Throughout the 1780s Congress attempted to amend the Articles of Confederation. Some of these efforts tried to empower Congress by temporary grants of power to tax or to regulate commerce. This approach appeased those who were fearful of an over-powering, consolidated government. However, even these failed to gain the necessary approval of all thirteen state legislatures. The documents below illustrate attempts to revise the Articles of Confederation. Many of these same issues would resurface later in the Constitutional Convention.

These were some of those attempts….

Did you know that there were those that thought this country should be divided into 3 or 4 separate confederacies…..

The prevailing wisdom of the late 18th century was that republics could not succeed over large territories. The French theorist Montesquieu wrote, “it is natural for a republic to have only a small territory; otherwise it cannot long subsist,” as the interests of its citizens become too diverse and extensive to be represented. The size of the United States raised doubts of its viability as a republic because of the differences in culture, economy, and climate among the thirteen states. To remedy this, sporadic proposals surfaced calling for the division of the United States into three, four, or over thirteen separate confederacies. During the Revolutionary War, this idea had less traction because of the necessity of united action against the British. Once hostilities ended, however, the idea became increasingly  part of political discussions.

During the ratification debate, Federalists criticized Antifederalists for supporting separate confederacies. John Jay addressed the issue repeatedly in Federalist 2–5. Although Antifederalists never supported the creation of separate confederacies, Federalists themselves suggested that separate confederacies might be an alternative if attempts to strengthen the central government failed.

For an extended discussion of this topic, see The Idea of Separate Confederacies in Volume XIII of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution.

The Idea of Separate Confederacies

Of course this idea was squashed by the introduction of the idea of the Constitutional Convention……read on…… The Idea of Separate Confederacies  

Sadly it is looking like the anti-Federalist idea of separate confederacies is becoming more attractive these days as the country is dividing along silly lines.

An interesting part of our history that gets overlooked in the day to day teaching of our history.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”