Bemoaning Ohio results, Santorum says ‘pure democracies’ aren’t how to run a country
After a particularly disappointing night of election results for Republicans, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) lamented “pure democracies,” where major decisions are left up to voters …
Saying the quiet part out loud
People act like this is new...
It's the same reason they keep ranting about "cities want to tell you how to live" and defending the electoral college.
They've never wanted democracy, because they're out numbered. They only have that power they do through disproportionate representation.
... and cheating, gerrymandering, and outright lying. They know they arent representing the majority and are trying to delay the inevitable demise of their power in every way possible.
They don't even have to cheat when it comes to the Senate. It was purpose made to provide disproportionate power to lower population areas. It is an explicitly anti-democratic chamber.
Which is a good thing...to a degree. A check against pure populism is necessary for any healthy Democracy.
But the ratio is completely out of wack nowadays, and doesn't align with how the country exists now. Democrats have to work much harder to get control of it, but Republicans have to do very little to keep it.
It's a structural flaw that is continually getting more destructive and Republicans become more brazen. The chamber that elects our Judges doesn't even have rules in the Constitution for how it must operate. That's such an incredible oversight I don't get how it took until now for it to be abused.
It's also the reason they always say "We're a republic, not a democracy," despite the fact that a republic is a type of democracy. They abuse language to justify the fact that they don't want everyone to vote, only the people who vote for them. They also don't govern for all of their constituents, only those that contribute to their power. It's definitely not new.
A republic is simply a state without a king or other hereditary monarch. Often the leader is chosen democratically, but not always.
For example, China is a republic but not a democracy. The US is a democratic republic, which makes the claim "this is a republic not a democracy" even sillier.
Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
--Jean-Paul Sartre
What I always like to do is point out that Republicans are about "picking our bosses who will make hard decisions we might not like" vs "doing what the majority wants".
I think a good government could use a little of both. But "majority wants" should be 99% of the laws, with only 1% being "hard, unpopular decisions". Republicans prefer 100% "unpopular decisions"
Majority of white hetero Christians in the 30s through 60s wanted to outlaw gay people, cannabis and harmless psychedelic mushrooms, and imprison black people for protesting with guns.
Fuck you and majority rule. Minorities also deserve voices.
Ok...
But now the majority want civil rights and the minority are openly saying we should get rid of democracy to prevent that, so I'm not sure how what you said is relevant at all
Perfect! Now it's the old bastards that grew up from that era as a minority in power making the choice to try to keep things like they were in the 30s through 60s!
I know you're trying to say "majority rule isn't always a good thing", but the alternative of "let a small group of people make decisions for everyone else" is just as bad and often times worse. It's though the changing of minds of the majority that societal changes happen.
Yeah, poor guy. I can’t be easy to be named after a foul mixture of shit and cum.
You forgot the lube and the froth…
And lube!
Don't forget the third ingredient, lube!
Cons: "We don't want to ban abortion, we just want to return sovereignty over the issue to the states."
States: make abortion a right
Cons: "No, not like that..."
Historically relevant:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/santorum
Noun
santorum (uncountable)
(neologism, sex, slang) A frothy mixture of lubricant and fecal matter as an occasional byproduct of anal sex. [from 21st c.]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RickSantorum#LGBTissuesand%22santorum%22
This guy was named after the mixture of cum and lube leaking out of a person's asshole, why do we care what he thinks?
Came to the comments to see if that was still a thing. Great work!
Thanks, Dan Savage.
You did what to the comments?
It's actually blocked as a censored word in some videogames in-game chats, on par with swear words and such :)
I think it might have been Deep Rock Galactic. I can't be certain though.
You forgot the very important adjective "frothy"
In the right wing talking sphere they’re talking a lot about how it should be one vote per household. Normalizing business and home owning men being the only voters.
These people hate America.
"Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as one man, one vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the vote."
Terry Pratchett, Mort
Or from Unseen Academicals:
"Everyone is entitled to a vote unless disqualified by reason of not being the Patrician"
I'm literally reading Unseen Academicals right now and that line sure did stike a chord.
It’s the net effect they care about. Property owning head of household men being the only voters would basically turn this country into the white nationalist Christian sharia ‘utopia’ these people dream of.
That's some Handmaids Tale shit right there, I tell you hwat
Yeah, democracy sucks when the people are ignorant, vile, and selfish.
What the people in Ohio did was realize that empathy and human rights were good. They rejected fascist culture war bullshit and I wish them the best. I hope my state could act like this.
Make no mistake, Ohio will still vote Trump +10 to +15 whether he’s in jail or not. Thankfully this state had a moment of clarity though.
On one hand yes. On the other hand a lot of us want weed and abortions for ourselves
So, you weren’t planning on sharing? lol
Saying the unpatriotic, seditious part out loud.
"we keep losing elections so let's make elections irrelevant"
Republicans can go fuck themselves
“That’s not fair, we worked really hard disenfranchising these kids. Putting popular policies forward is cheating.”
he should be fine then, since the US isnt run as any kind of democracy at all, certainly not a pure one.
Why is anyone even asking this guy for his opinion?
I didn't even realize Rick Santorum was still alive.
okay, Frothy Mix
Isn't this guy named after the mixture of frothy cum and shit after anal sex? Must be hard having a name like that.
This is the perfect situation where a purely democratic vote is appropriate (not that we should even have to vote on this, but I digress). This doesn't affect your wholesome, small-town voter at all. All they have to do is not have an abortion, and they can make abortion illegal within their own life just like that. Of course people are going to vote for the freedom of their own choice as to whether they have to carry a parasitic body within their own. They should have that freedom to do it or not to do it.
I don't get why we can't do whatever we want to serve our donors wahhhhh
My problem isn't capitalism, my problem is that capitalism has determined that a democracy is hurting it's profits.
My problem is definitely capitalism.
Have you heard about Central America? Or any oil rich country? Capitalism is a double edged sword, they’re just swinging it at home now.
Infinite growth demands infinite sacrifice. When there's no more actual growth to be had, capitalism ALWAYS eats itself in the name of "efficiency". Capitalism is the simple act of keeping profits out of workers' hands in the name of the company. Capitalism is cancer, nothing more. We can have money, an economy, and personal posessions without capitalism. Capitalism is the middle man squeezing in to every transaction just so they can pocket some of it. Capitalism is why our healthcare is both expensive 'and' terrible if you're poor.
Capitalism isn't a double edged sword. It's holding a hand grenade, and failing to regulate it is simply waiting for it to go off.
Capitalism would be great if we could run it under constrained conditions that don't exist outside of a single pub somewhere in Birmingham.
The frustrating part is that hybridizing socialist-style societal safety nets with reasonable, regulated, capitalism-with-guardrails is possible and has been done. It’s just that in most western countries, huge corporations, “too big to fail” banks, and rich people have successfully worked themselves into positions of regulatory capture, which lets them operate with zero consideration for anything besides short-term profitability.
Christian supremacists screamed the exact opposite, every time their bigoted ballot measures got struck down.
It's the civil rights, stupid.
That's a lot of talk for used lube...