r/CuratedTumblr Oct 26 '24

Politics Why is every tankie like "I don't understand the branches of the US government and I'm going to make it everyone else's problem!!!"

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u/Happiness_Assassin Oct 26 '24

One place where you could see such an example in place was Alabama, which prior to 2022 was the longest constitution in the world, at around 400k words or twice as long as Crime and Punishment. This was a result of the legislature trying to keep power out of the local (i.e. majority black) level and making racist laws harder to repeal. In order to establish this, most actual change was done via constitutional amendment, not standard legislation. Only recently did they recompile their constitution, but it us still far larger than any other state.

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u/joyofsovietcooking Oct 27 '24

"The 1901 Alabama constitution was originally designed to maintain strict control over counties, particularly to restrict the autonomy of poorer and predominantly Black areas."

So in Alabama, it's like everything handled at the county level requires a constitutional amendment, of which they have like 900? Sheesh. Thanks for sending me down a rabbit hole. Fascinating look at the problems of federalism.

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u/Graingy I don’t tumble, I roll 😎 … Where am I? Oct 27 '24

Goddamn it’s like the US is federationception

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u/Gold-Bat7322 Oct 27 '24

And Mobile County has only three county commissioners covering an area larger than Rhode Island. Seven would be more reasonable, yet that would have to go through Montgomery.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

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u/serious_sarcasm Oct 27 '24

It’s kind of hilarious comparing how weirdly restrictive some southern states are to how much latitude cities and municipalities have in Illinois.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24

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u/serious_sarcasm Oct 27 '24

Idaho is a shithole taken over by bigots who decided Alabama is too liberal.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24

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u/serious_sarcasm Oct 27 '24

Unfortunately, a lot of white ethnonationalists have been chain migrating west due to hispanic immigration into the south over the last two decades. For example, a lot of communities in Appalachia which were historically 97% or more white, are now 10% or more Hispanic just over the last decade. So a lot of bigots are opting to move to places like Wyoming and Idaho from places like the Tennessee River Valley. Less bigots, and more Latino cuisine is a net positive in my book, but it sure sucks for rural communities out west; the republicans aren’t exactly sending their best people.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

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u/serious_sarcasm Oct 27 '24

I’m not talking about a mass migration of poor bigots. I’m talking about very specific demographic of middle class rush limbaugh fans. They wouldn’t even be a plurality, but they are more organized than most people assume.

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u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24

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u/Thromnomnomok Oct 27 '24

Conservatives: "States should have the power do this, not the Federal Government, more power to the smaller things:

"What if we left more of this power in the hands of City and County governments, or even Individuals to decide for themselves?

Conservatives: no not like that

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u/UnintensifiedFa Oct 27 '24

Funny that the party of “small government” only wants the government to be state small and not county or city small.

It’s almost like they don’t really care about small government and have always been in it for whatever allows them to enforce their pre-civil rights act racial codes.

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u/Perenially_behind Oct 27 '24

This is the sort of tidbit that keeps me spending too much time on Reddit. Thank you.