Honestly, I think it’s more of a practical matter. Even if they didn’t have explicit pardon power, whoever’s in charge of the executive has effective pardon powers by simply denying to carry out the orders of the court (see Jackson’s behavior which lead to the trail of tears).
At least by making it official it’s a lot more clear what’s going on, and maybe they had hoped this would lead to electoral consequences for those who abused it?
But what if your opinion is threatening to others? If you believe that white people are inherently superior to other races and it is right for them to be served by the inferior races, then expressing that opinion is inherently threatening to many non-whites.
Sure, I’ve given hyperbolic examples, because I wanted to demonstrate that you can use freedom of expression to make threats, but there will also be examples that are in more of a grey area. There’s nothing inherently threatening about the Confederate flag. If you had flown it in 1600 people would’ve just said “cool flag, what does it mean?”.
Now however, many people see it as a threat, a constant reminder of how things used to be for their ancestors. Expressing your opinion by flying that flag says to those people “I want your children to live as your forefathers did”
Now, not everyone who flies that flag is making a threat, but some of them absolutely are. So what do we do?
I’m not saying I have a one size fits all solution. Simply banning anything that neo-nazis adopt clearly isn’t practical and could also be easily abused by the government to quash dissent. I’m just pointing out that it’s not a simple fucking problem.
This sounds so good on paper, but completely falls apart without carefully defining free speech. Like, what if I hire actors with prop weapons to march around minority neighborhoods and scream that they’ll shoot any non-whites who try to vote?
You think that fun performance art is going to be healthy for democracy? Really?
What if I use AI to make convincing video footage of politicians I disagree with mutilating dogs and then graphically fucking their corpses? Do you think my commentary on their lack of support for dog shelters is going to foster democratic dialog, or do you think that maybe some voters will develop a viscerally unpleasant disgust and have trouble looking at them or engaging in what they have to say?
What if you buy a botnet and use it to convince both sides of the aisle that the other candidate is an authoritarian who will destroy democracy and try to control their life. Or to send death threats to people who publicly admit to being trans?
It is important to make room for marginalized voices to be heard, yes, that is essential for democracy, but there are also tons of bad actors who will try to use the very freedom you’re trying to protect to deny others that freedom. A completely laissez faire approach to free speech will ultimately serve to silence the marginalized and further empower the wealthy.
John Oliver did a great dive into the Post Office, and I think that segment is up on YouTube for free.
It’s actually even more impressive than you think. The only reason it looks like it’s losing money is that conservatives passed a law that forces them to fully fund the USPS workers’ pensions today, rather than investing some money and letting it grow. No private companies fund pensions this way, nor does the rest of the federal government.
In 2022, PSRA was passed which removed this requirement and the postal service has turned a profit ever since. It operates better and more efficiently than any privately held parcel service, because it takes advantage of truely massive economies of scale.
And as an American living in a country that privatized their postal service-- god damn do I miss the USPS. It was both cheaper and more reliable than what we have here.
I’m in a university town, so it’s probably more of a problem here 😅
Unless you’re in the Netherlands, where 2/3rds of the bikes will have the shitty “this is legally a light” LEDs from the convenience shops… Oh, and 2/3rds of those will be either out of battery, or installed facing the wrong way.
Where do you think food comes from that having fewer workers means more food for everyone?
At least the bad take is getting downvoted? 😅
Fuck me, this is the first Lemmy comment that actually made me laugh out loud.