#American Principles

[arianasuchi]

America's Election Handbook 2024

"America's Election Handbook 2024" offers a sharp analysis of the U.S. political party system, highlighting contrasts between major party positions and challenging the necessity and consequences of strict party loyalties. It delves into the evolving ideologies of political parties and critiques the minimal involvement of grassroots movements in decision-making processes, a factor it links to the growing divide in American politics. The book advocates for open-minded dialogue and consensus in governance, reflecting the democratic ideals of the Founding Fathers. With a blend of proposals and factual analyses, it aims to stimulate more inclusive and representative discussions on governance. A key aspect of the book is its examination of the principles of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams, drawing parallels between their original visions and today's political landscape. "America's Election Handbook 2024" is dedicated to bridging political gaps. It serves as a comprehensive resource for voters, facilitating an understanding of party positions, encouraging well-informed discourse, and promoting solutions based on compromise. The handbook seeks to heal societal divisions and guide American society towards greater unity and cooperation. website link: charlespattonbooks.com

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Justin Horowitz at MMFA:

Project 2025 advisory board members have attacked or outright called for the end of no-fault divorce, the option to dissolve a marriage without having to prove wrongdoing by a partner. Research highlighted by CNN found “no-fault divorce correlates with a reduction in female suicides and a reduction in intimate partner violence,” including “an 8 to 16% decrease in female suicides after states enacted no-fault divorce laws.” Project 2025 is backed by a nearly-900 page policy book called Mandate for Leadership, which extensively outlines potential approaches to governance for the next Republican administration, including replacing federal employees with extremists and Trump loyalists and attacking LGBTQ rights, abortion, and contraception. The Heritage Foundation’s proposals have a track record of success — the first Trump administration implemented 64% of Mandate’s policy recommendations. Project 2025 is also supported by a coalition of over 100 conservative organizations, many of which have spent years promoting critiques of no-fault divorce as “destructive” for society — or even blaming it for enabling a “culture of death.” According to a Media Matters review, at least 22 Project 2025 advisory board members have made similar comments targeting, restricting, or eliminating no-fault divorce. Additionally, MAGA and far-right media figures have pushed for the removal of no-fault divorce laws across the country, and several local Republican parties in Texas, Nebraska, and Louisiana have called for the dissolution of no-fault divorce in some capacity.

Project 2025 partner organizations, including the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, and The Heritage Foundation, have called for significant restrictions or an outright ban on no-fault divorce.

[greencheekconure27]

American tankies and other useful idiots: "USA controls all world politics and is responsible for literally all the evil in the world"

Also American tankies: "Yeah it doesn't matter if we elect a mad fascist dictator with history of rape and selling state secrets or a normal competent person.This will have zero influence on global politics. Stick it to The Man, don't vote! That'll show them!"

[qqueenofhades]

This is gonna be a controversial post on Tumblr Dot Com, but I like Joe Biden.

[userautumn]

I was today years old when I learned the Canadians have a version of Shark Tank called Dragon's Den and I hate to say it but theirs sounds way cooler than ours

[junkartie]

I start foaming at the mouth when i see tourists being like “aha this local tried to scam me by charging me ONE WHOLE DOLLAR for their homemade dessert. Psh. I paid them 30 cents.” Like you will tip your servers 25% because your ass government wont pay them themselves but draw the line at poor people in poor countries charging you 50 cents more than they charge locals. While they are still giving you their products for an EXTREMELY cheap price. Die

[ettadunham]

sometimes i remember the hunger games and how nobody actually paid attention to what was in those books

[littleapocalypsekitten]

As someone who is American and still watches actual broadcast television (news, Guy Fieri...) and am suffering through another election year... I am sick to death of hearing the term "illegals." Absolutely SICK. TO. DEATH. Like, okay, I know that the southern border has issues. It's pretty much our modern day Ellis Island, with many people there escaping...some of the same kinds of issues - and others. There are people there waiting to be vetted, seeking aslyum or work. And, indeed, there are a lot of people who hop the border illegally. I used to live in Arizona, in farm country. People without legal paperwork who could be exploited were a staple of the farming industry there...unfortunately. I lost an opportunity for a job at a restaurant once because I "didn't speak enough Spanish" - code for "Our restaurant is employing people under the table for beneath minimum wage and without benefits that we can threaten to report and have deported if they speak up wanting basic workers' rights." (I came away from that particular encounter not mad at immigrants for "stealin' mah jerb!" but mad at the company / restaurant for abusive corporate practices...go fig. Guess I think differently). Even here in Pennsylvania, I've had chance encounters with people who had no papers. (People who just want to work and take care of their children). Anyway, yeah, there are processing issues and people who don't go through the legal channels because our government makes it next to impossible. But every GOD. DAMNED. TIME. I hear the term "illegals" I want to tear my hair out! Or hit people with fish! It's not only used for people who are going through the LEGAL channels (It's code for "Hispanic" basically, or just "non-white"), even people who haven't? It's a dehumanising term. That's what I take it as. "Illegals" is a term purposefully used to make people sound like something...other than people. And so I find the MAGA commercials insulting both to my intelligence and dignity. It's like, why don't you go all the way, MAGA? Why not use the really horrible slang-term I heard waaaaay, waaaay too much in my white-person childhood around Arizona redneck white people? Why not tweak your commercials and start whining about "wetbacks?" I mean, you might as well, since you term everyone "illegals." You expect us to think of people as not human. It's too late for me. I've worked with too many "illegals" in my life to think like that.

[noneedforbloodpressure]

Hey, just for the record vandalizing Synagogues/Jewish schools/Jewish community centers or boycotting Jewish businesses just because they’re Jewish not only doesn’t help Palestinians and isn’t activism, but rather looks an awful lot like nazi Germany. In other words, it’s just antisemitic.

Stop harassing Jewish people and go do something to actually help Palestinians. Donate (I’ve talked about ANERA, World Central Kitchen, and the Palestine Red Crescent Society before). Protest at government offices and pressure policy makers. Boycott war profiteers and defense contractors (Lockheed Martin and Boeing, for examples) or companies that have otherwise provided support to the Israeli government and/or military (see, for example, why Google and Amazon are on the BDS pressure targets list). Raise awareness and emphasize Palestinian humanity – and for the love of all things holy stop portraying Palestinian and Jewish safety as diametrically opposed.  

[mangocheesecakes]

all of you vote blue no matter who americans deserve the president you're going to get (either trump or biden will be just the same, they both will trample on your precious "rights" anyway) but by god Palestinians don't deserve to suffer the terrible consequences of your so-called democracy. It's so nauseating seeing people with a complete lack of conscience/morals/empathy insist that after everything that's been happening for the past 9+ months, somehow, they still could not come up with a reason NOT to vote for genocide joe.

[callixton]

rocking back & forth trying to be normal abt the way people talk abt bsi i am going crazyyy........ there is critique to be had but people's full disengagement from anything else the story has to offer or attempt to reconcile its intent with its execution makes my head blow up. bc i don't think they actually understand its intent. or themes. which is crazy bc personally i think the bioshock series hits you over the head with what it's going for even if it doesn't always get it right. like i do not know how much i can emphasize that the point was not centrism. that was a mistake in execution. i literally cannot think of another mainstream game that comes anywhere close to confronting america's history and flaws-inherent-in-its-founding head-on the way infinite does.

also i DO think a lot of my reaction comes out of playing if before the original series and therefore not having the expectation that it's a 'choices matter' game (which. it's sort of barely in the gameplay in the original but i do understand it's in the text) and also the themes of it are very up my alley! arguably much more than the original! but i don't think that's an excuse for every audience member being unable to engage with a new game and world on its own terms

[justinspoliticalcorner]

John Knefel at MMFA:

Several right-wing organizations known mostly for opposing abortion, immigration, and trans rights are also involved in supporting and funding election denial groups, a sign of the issue’s centrality to the MAGA movement.

Following former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 and subsequent attempts to remain in power, a complicated and sprawling web of organizations emerged to sow doubt about future elections and spread debunked and baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud. Stringing these overlapping efforts together is the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, an umbrella organization connecting state and national election denial efforts with the broader right-wing policy ecosystem. These groups also significantly overlap with Project 2025, an effort organized by The Heritage Foundation to provide the next Republican presidential administration with staffing and policy recommendations.  Even as early as March 2021, mere months after Trump’s multifaceted effort to reverse the 2020 election, socially conservative groups began pouring money into election denial initiatives. That trend has only accelerated in the intervening years, with a host of anti-civil rights groups — often euphemistically characterized as engaged in the “culture wars” — having expanded their operations to include so-called election integrity.

These groups include the anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, the anti-trans American Principles Project, a fund run by Hobby Lobby founder David Green, and high-profile right-wing charities National Christian Charitable Foundation and Christian Community Foundation, among others.  One of the primary myths that the election denial movement has spread this cycle concerns noncitizen voting, which experts agree is exceedingly rare. This manufactured scandal synthesizes two key pillars of the MAGA movement — demonizing immigrants and claiming that elections are rigged against right-wing candidates. The partners listed in the Only Citizens Vote Coalition include anti-immigrant groups the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Immigration Accountability Project, illustrating how election denial groups have incorporated nativism into their movement. Both FAIR and IAP have strong links to the Tanton network, named after John Tanton, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as the “the racist architect of the modern anti-immigrant movement.”

Right-wing anti-civil rights organizations are going all-in on pushing the nonexistent “noncitizen voter” canard.

[poughkeepsies]

living in the US is like I will exist in public spaces but if anyone raises their voice above a polite indoor voice I am always ready willing and able to slip into a panic attack

[dionysus-complex]

.

[lyinginbedmon]

I once had someone try to say that a guy supporting sex workers was only doing it because he innately believed he deserved to have sexual access to women, and not only is that intensely backwards (if you want to ensure you retain that access, those people need to be as low and desperate as possible so they can't decline, not elevated to a state of equality with everyone else) but it completely skipped over why anyone stands with sex workers at all: The "There But For The Grace Of God" factor.

Yes there are people who go into the industry because they like it, but the majority are there because, like every other career, they need money to survive in Capitalism. And in the sex industry, it's frequently a desperate last option, due to a combination of social stigma and ease of access (ie. almost anyone can do it).

That desperate last option aspect means that you can be easily exploited, blackmailed, and abused with little recourse. Even in areas where sex work is legal, there's still the hurdle of getting over the stigma just to report such violations.

And it also means that if you criminalise it, you take away one of the most accessible sources of income in existence, which (somewhat ironically given the previous paragraph) will only ever harm some of the most vulnerable demographic groups of society.

Because when you have absolutely nothing else, when absolutely no-one will help you, sex work keeps food on the table. No-one benefits from a ban, except the people who want to hold power over those affected.

[starboy-ships]

Hey if you're an American of voting age your F/O definitely wants you to to vote 🥰 your F/O actually told me they'll kiss you or hold your hand or whatever you prefer if you make sure to vote in the election this November if you can 😏

Your F/O also told me that you should check that you're registered to vote in your state as each state has different registration policies!!!

Your F/O says you can check your registration status at...