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I don't really think the constitution is troublesome to some "of you". I think it is troublesome to any rational person. It has many great things but it was written in a time that is so different than today that it borders on ridiculous.
Amendments are tinkering about the edges - although some were quite significant.
You can't really get around the fact that it has become a tool whereby the minority stop any progress of any kind. Yes - it was set up that way. Yes - its usefulness is done. How we end it is hard to fathom. But minority rule will hit a wall at some point.
 
As far as I know there are serious thoughts about statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. Are you saying statehood for them would be against the constitution?...
Did I ever say that? Pure irrelevant non sequitur...
Our Constitution has enshrined some wonderful principles, but you may recall it's had to be amended a number of times since it was written. So it wasn't perfect...
Never said it was perfect. The provisions discussed here are pretty much the original. If you don't like a provision, garner support for an amendment.

There is nothing in the Constitution that forbids most of the actions contemplated in this thread, per se. They just need to be implemented in accordance with the rules.
 
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...The provisions discussed here are pretty much the original. If you don't like a provision, garner support for an amendment....
Do you honestly think that the minority rule provisions could ever be amended? I am truly curious and would like to know your thoughts.

I used to think the way you appear to, but I realize now that there are some impediments to change that cannot be overcome.
 
I don't really think the constitution is troublesome to some "of you". I think it is troublesome to any rational person. It has many great things but it was written in a time that is so different than today that it borders on ridiculous.
Amendments are tinkering about the edges - although some were quite significant.
You can't really get around the fact that it has become a tool whereby the minority stop any progress of any kind. Yes - it was set up that way. Yes - its usefulness is done. How we end it is hard to fathom. But minority rule will hit a wall at some point.
The Constitution was written as it is so that slave owners could keep control of their slaves.
Read the 1619 Project for a good history.
 
I don't really think the constitution is troublesome to some "of you". I think it is troublesome to any rational person. It has many great things but it was written in a time that is so different than today that it borders on ridiculous.
Amendments are tinkering about the edges - although some were quite significant.
You can't really get around the fact that it has become a tool whereby the minority stop any progress of any kind. Yes - it was set up that way. Yes - its usefulness is done. How we end it is hard to fathom. But minority rule will hit a wall at some point.

Filibuster made it 10x worse.


 
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Filibuster made it 10x worse.


Filibuster was invented as a way to keep minorities from gaining rights.
 
Did I ever say that? Pure irrelevant non sequitur...

You don't understand. That was me pointing out that questioning the representation in the senate isn't about the constitution, but about the representatives not representing the support for solar. So I have to ask more or less the same question again as you write this:

Never said it was perfect. The provisions discussed here are pretty much the original. If you don't like a provision, garner support for an amendment.

There is nothing in the Constitution that forbids most of the actions contemplated in this thread, per se. They just need to be implemented in accordance with the rules.

I'm glad you acknowledge that the Constitution doesn't forbid anything here, but again you create a strawman with the "rules". What are you talking about? Statehood for DC and Puerto Rico is not against the rules (as far as I know), and at that point everything else was about the voting behavior of the representatives.

You effectively derailed the discussion by making this about the constitution. It is (or at least it was) about the representatives having their own agenda, instead of the agenda of their voters, who support solar.
 
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While we slide off topic, I would just like to add that we will never make much progress in this country with respect to this issue or other important issues because there are too many selfish interests that think only for themselves. I really believe that the people in the Midwest, Appalachia, and New England don't really care a tinker's damn about the annual destruction from raging wildfires in the West or the increased intensities of hurricanes in the Southeast. It isn't their problem. Maybe when the fall colors are no more, and the coal mines play out, and half the arable land in the Midwest is lost, they will decide that things need to be addressed and will come to the table.

The only time we seem to be a nation is when we are faced with imminent disaster, like after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. That act interfered with our individual and libertarian mindset, so we galvanized against a common enemy.
 
...You effectively derailed the discussion by making this about the constitution. It is (or at least it was) about the representatives having their own agenda, instead of the agenda of their voters, who support solar.
I simply responded to blaming the Supreme Court. They did the right thing, and it is a landmark decision that goes to many other abuses of power by the Executive branch regulators. Listen to the opposition to green and sustainable energy. They are angry at suggestion that they have to suffer shortages and high costs before it is available. They need to be persuaded and understood to support change.
 
I simply responded to blaming the Supreme Court. They did the right thing, and it is a landmark decision that goes to many other abuses of power by the Executive branch regulators. Listen to the opposition to green and sustainable energy. They are angry at suggestion that they have to suffer shortages and high costs before it is available. They need to be persuaded and understood to support change.
The decision of the Supreme Court moved political power back from the Executive to Congress, but when you posted your first message on the topic, the discussion had already moved on to problems with Congress itself, almost a day later, and for half a page on the forum. Your message started by referring to "representatives", when in that context we were discussing representatives as members of Congress.

Also when you say "they need to be persuaded", according to the Supreme Court decision "they" would be the members of Congress.

So we were talking about that members of Congress were not representing their own voters. (93% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans are in favor of more solar power in the poll mentioned previously.) We were saying, in effect, that this persuasion (to use that word) should already have happened long ago, if Senators were repesenting their own voters as we have good reason to expect, perfectly within the "rules".

Regarding the topic of sustainable energy itself: Solar power can be increased to a significant degree already, with solar being only 3% currently, nothing needs to become "available" before solar reaches a much higher level. Any shortages in solar at night or during clouds can be complemented by existing natural gas power plants. That just as a short answer to the concerns you mentioned (insofar as I understood them).

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So the problem with the SC decision, from my point of view, is that the votes of conservative judges (3 of them appointed by a president who said that climate change is a chinese hoax) have moved power to conservative Senators who vote against the intent of their own voters and the insights of science. And considering other recent decisions, I have doubts that this is a coincidence.
 
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Today, the Court strips the EPA of the power Congress gave it to respond to ‘the most pressing environmental challenge of our time,’” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer. “Whatever else this Court may know about, it does not have a clue about how to address climate change. Yet the Court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decisionmaker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”
 
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So the problem with the SC decision, from my point of view, is that the votes of conservative judges (3 of them appointed by a president who said that climate change is a chinese hoax) have moved power to conservative Senators who vote against the intent of their own voters and the insights of science. And considering other recent decisions, I have doubts that this is a coincidence.

I note that the "conservative" supremes made no attempt to curb trump's abuse of power. Even their idiotic ideology is hypocritical.
 
It appears that many here believe that the Constitution should be ignored when complying with its provisions stands in their way... A dictatorial Executive branch would suit.

When serving as judges, they recuse themselves from cases where they may appear to have a conflict of interest. When serving in the Senate, they don’t use the filibuster to stop all legislation with which they disagree.

When serving on the supreme court, they don’t disregard precedent to impose their ideolog

We’re in trouble because we are losing the true understanding of what patriotism requires from all of us.

This land is your land, this land is my land, Woody Guthrie sang.
Langston Hughes pleaded:

Let America be America again,
The land that never has been yet – And yet must be – the land where every man is free.
The land that’s mine – the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME –.
 
POLITICO: Opinion | How the Founders Intended to Check the Supreme Court's Power. Opinion | How the Founders Intended to Check the Supreme Court’s Power

Liberal critics of today’s judicial activism are right when they note that the Supreme Court essentially arrogated to itself the right of judicial review — the right to declare legislative and executive actions unconstitutional — in 1803, in the case of Marbury v. Madison. There is nothing in the Constitution that confers this power upon the only unelected branch of government.

But that doesn’t make the court more powerful than the executive and legislative branches. Acting in concert, the president and Congress may shape both the size and purview of the court. They can declare individual legislative measures or entire topics beyond their scope of review. It’s happened before, notably in 1868, when Congress passed legislation stripping the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over cases related to federal writs of habeas corpus. In the majority decision, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase acknowledged that the court’s jurisdiction was subject to congressional limitation. Subsequent justices, over the past century, have acknowledged the same.

Critically, but less widely understood, the Constitution also grants Congress the power to strip the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over specific matters. Article III, Section 2 reads: “In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.”
 
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What makes you think those states don't support taking action on climate?
I did not say that. I said that they don't care about climate events in the West. How many wildfires are there each year in New England, and how many acres do they burn? Are the people in the New England region suffering from drought?

I am seriously asking, because I am ignorant. Are there climate issues currently in New England? Are temperatures over 100 degrees regularly now? Are the sugar maples dying from intense heat or other climate matters?

My ultra tiny data set of a small group of folks in a local coffee shop in upstate New York told me about 25 years ago when they found out we were from California: It would be fine with them if California fell into the Pacific. I was in NYC about 15 years ago to play in a bridge tournament. One of our table opponents told us that there was nothing of value west of the Hudson River. Granted, NYC isn't New England, but that "screw the West" attitude seems quite prevalent. :)
 
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I did not say that. I said that they don't care about climate events in the West. How many wildfires are there each year in New England, and how many acres do they burn? Are the people in the New England region suffering from drought?

I am seriously asking, because I am ignorant. Are there climate issues currently in New England? Are temperatures over 100 degrees regularly now? Are the sugar maples dying from intense heat or other climate matters?

My ultra tiny data set of a small group of folks in a local coffee shop in upstate New York told me about 25 years ago when they found out we were from California: It would be fine with them if California fell into the Pacific. I was in NYC about 15 years ago to play in a bridge tournament. One of our table opponents told us that there was nothing of value west of the Hudson River. Granted, NYC isn't New England, but that "screw the West" attitude seems quite prevalent. :)

I'm glad to hear that data set was ultra tiny. ;)

Although there will probably always remain a few "data sets" that are blind (aka ignorant) to the problems, eventually renewable energy will also become distinctly more cost-effective (I just looked up some expectations for solar), so even complete narrowly defined self interest will at some point lead to renewables, it will just take longer to get there. Which means lost maintenance costs, lost investments, lost competitive ability, lost resources, more people choosing the wrong (dead-end) jobs and careers. Aside from more CO2.
 
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It appears that many here believe that the Constitution should be ignored when complying with its provisions stands in their way... A dictatorial Executive branch would suit.
Don't get where you come to that conclusion.

Bipartisan congress and a Republican president signed the legislation creating the EPA with the job of protecting the environment. Where does the SCOTUS get the authority to draw a strictly partisan arbitrary line determining what the EPA can and cannot do 52 years later?

You are worried about a dictatorial Executive (I am as well), but the SCOTUS members are there for life. There's no recall and no stopping them if they overreach.
 
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Don't get where you come to that conclusion.

Bipartisan congress and a Republican president signed the legislation creating the EPA with the job of protecting the environment. Where does the SCOTUS get the authority to draw a strictly partisan arbitrary line determining what the EPA can and cannot do 52 years later?

You are worried about a dictatorial Executive (I am as well), but the SCOTUS members are there for life. There's no recall and no stopping them if they overreach.
I'm now more worried about an appointed for life, dictatorial, partisan, ideologically dominated Supreme court that is willing to ignore precedent and make up things about the constitution than an elected congress and executive (even considering the flaws in the electoral process).
 
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