You’d think a hegemony with a 100-years tradition of upkeeping democracy against major non-democratic players, would have some mechanism that would prevent itself from throwing down it’s key ideology.
Is it really that the president is all that decides about the future of democracy itself? Is 53 out of 100 senate seats really enough to make country fall into authoritarian regime? Is the army really not constitutionally obliged to step in and save the day?
I’d never think that, of all places, American democracy would be the most volatile.
The army or the police should immediately jump in and arrest Elon after the second salute, when it became obvious the guy knew what he was doing. And yet he saluted 3 times and half the country is extremely enthusiastic about that.
There’s the reason nothing is done about it. It’s probably not actually half, but enough people didn’t speak up early enough, and so this has become the loudest voice in the room. Unless, and until that changes, the whole world is in for a rough ride.
This isn’t Germany where they can just arrest nazis. First amendment (unfortunately) also apply to hate speech. 🤷♂️
You’re calling for military generals to have the power to remove the government? Effectively a military dictatorship?
That seems unwise.
Elon isn’t a government official, there would be nothing unwise about arresting him for things most people would get arrested or at least questioned by the police for.
America doesn’t have a law forbidding the Nazi salute. It’d be against the first amendment.
The right to free speech is faulty if there are no repercussions from breaking the law.
Again, the first amendment protects the right to free speech and association; as far as American law is concerned, Elon didn’t break any laws.
Sure, but that’s not what I’m saying. You said that forbidding a Nazi salute would be against the first amendment. I’m only saying that IF Nazi symbols were to be outlawed then the freedom of speech should not equal to freedom from breaking the law.
It does, though, because such a law would be struck down as unconstitutional. The First Amendment doesn’t just protect lawful speech; it protects all speech and the American government just barely carved out an exception for inciting violence. These amendments are part of the constitution, which stands above and restricts the rest of American law. If you made a law saying that Nazi symbols were illegal, your law would (at least theoretically) be illegal and struck down in court and people would retain the freedom to use Nazi symbols. You might take issue with that, but if only legal speech was allowed then… the government could just make any speech it doesn’t like illegal.
You talk about amendments as if they couldn’t be amended.
They could be, but that would require another amendment, or in other words either a 2/3 majority in both houses or 2/3 of all state legislatures. You’d never get that many people to give up their right to free speech, because as soon as you put one kind of speech on the table all speech is on the table. Would you trust Trump with that kind of power?
I thought it was twice? I mean, that doesn’t detract from your point, and I don’t even disagree. I just want to make sure the details are set straight.
I saw a full clip on reddit. First time was just as bad, because he did it spontaneously, with no “throwing hearts”. He just heiled out of nowhere.