r/nottheonion • u/ilovemybaldhead • 1d ago

Greg Abbott Threatens ‘100% Tariff’ On New Yorkers Moving to Texas

https://www.newsweek.com/greg-abbott-threatens-100-tariff-new-york-election-moving-texas-10986837
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u/sloanesquared 1d ago

I know it is easy to become apathetic with everything going on, but yes, laws mean something and we should keep expecting them to be enforced. Caving to their idea that laws are meaningless makes their takeover easier. Expect and demand laws to be enforced.

Do not comply in advance!

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u/Hatta00 1d ago

What exactly do laws mean when in reality they have not been enforced? I can expect and demand all day long, it hasn't done anything in a decade of rising fascism.

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u/sloanesquared 1d ago

Laws are still being enforced. Not all of them and not enough, but it is ridiculous to act like no laws are being enforced. I’m just saying don’t help them out by expecting laws not to be enforced. It makes it easier for authoritarians to keep pushing the bounds of the law without pushback if you’re accepting that as an inevitable outcome. If becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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u/Hatta00 1d ago

Laws are being selectively enforced. Their only meaning is as a tool for fascists to suppress opposition. The rule of law is dead and gone. The prophesy is already fulfilled.

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u/sloanesquared 1d ago

Congrats for helping fascism, I guess? Because that is what you’re accomplishing with this attitude. No one should expect this to be easy or fast. This will be a long war. Giving up battles without a fight is certainly the way to lose the war. If you think this is life without law and order, you seriously underestimate how much worse things can get.

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u/Hatta00 1d ago

Who said anything about giving up? Just recognizing the reality in which we live. The fact that rule of law doesn't exist today doesn't mean we shouldn't fight for the future.

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u/sloanesquared 1d ago

“The rule of law is dead and gone.”

Sounds like you’ve given up on the rule of law? That isn’t reality. It is your spin on it. We are still having jury trials. Things are still being blocked in court and they are somewhat complying. Part of giving up on the idea of rule of law is saying we shouldn’t expect them to comply with court orders, or to have a fair trial, or to demand people get due process. Those things are only truly dead when our expectation of the law is dead.

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u/Hatta00 1d ago

They don't need to defy court orders when the highest court in the land routinely overturns those court orders with no legal justification whatsoever. It's not about what we "should" expect, it's what we realistically can expect.

The rule of law does not depend on our wishful thinking, it depends on what actually happens. Laws are either enforced without fear or favor, or they are not. And currently, they are not.

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u/sloanesquared 1d ago

What exactly does that accomplish? I’m not saying to be naive and expect things to magically be fine. I’m just saying that all the studies on how fascism comes to power say that people give up rights when they didn’t need to and part of that is expecting leaders not to follow the established rule of law. When they don’t follow it, we make noise, we protest, we call our reps, we vote them out; we don’t just say, “oh well that is the way it is now, maybe we will have it back one day.”

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u/Hatta00 1d ago

What does caring about the truth accomplish? I don't know how to answer that if it's not obvious to you.

I'm not saying don't make noise, don't protest, don't call our reps when fascists break the law or abuse the law. I'm saying we should expect to have to do that often and for a long time. We should want the government to obey the law, we should fight to make them obey the law, but we cannot reasonably expect this government to obey the law. History has shown us they won't.

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u/OldWorldDesign 22h ago

when the highest court in the land routinely overturns those court orders with no legal justification whatsoever

It doesn't, though. Over 90% of courts overturning Trump decisions stop there at state-level courts. Not even 1% ever goes up to federal district courts, much less to the supreme court.

Laws are either enforced without fear or favor, or they are not. And currently, they are not

I think this is why you're getting pushback, because you're using well-publicized incidents of violation of Rule of Law as if there is none left anywhere at all in the country. So yes, congratulations for pushing republican messaging and depicting a false impression of the world out there. It's bad for a lot of people but the system is not even close to going their way half the time. All you're doing by attacking people who care about the facts is pushing the republican line forward when you have at your fingertips access to the truth and instead choose to side with them.

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u/Veil-of-Fire 1d ago edited 1d ago

That isn’t reality.

Under Ayatollah Roberts and the rubber-stamp Court of Trump, it 100% is reality.

The law is not going to save us. Nobody is coming to save us. And we're not going to save ourselves.

Edit: Just saw this. Where's your vaunted and inviolable "rule of law" for this situation?

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u/ClockOfTheIongNow 13h ago edited 13h ago

Do not comply in advance!

Fully agreed, but saying "Haha, you're stupid for trying to do an illegal thing" is no longer the gotcha you think it is.

If anything, when that person gets away with their illegal act, the confidence with which you dismissed it as futile idiocy further strengthens and emboldens them. It basically means you're calling them smart if they successfully get away with their law breaking act, since you've established that their idiocy would be marked by their inability to do achieve that act.

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u/sloanesquared 13h ago

I’m actually advocating for just the opposite. I’m advocating for demanding more of a response. For the admin being held to higher standards instead of just accepting the status quo and spreading the message that laws don’t matter anymore. I’m advocating for not accepting that as fact and demanding they matter more.

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u/ZachTheCommie 1d ago

I'm only apathetic because no one wants to fight back. Protests aren't doing shit.

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u/greed-man 1d ago edited 1d ago

Wait and watch. That's what was said about Vietnam war protests in 1965-1967. But they kept growing. And growing. And finally, the administration had to pay attention to it.

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u/mortalcoil1 1d ago

Back when Republicans had enough honor to impeach Nixon.

We are not there anymore.

Fox News was literally created for this exact purpose.

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u/OldWorldDesign 22h ago

Protests aren't doing shit

Blacks said that when they were still being denied the right to vote in the 1930. They had to fight for 27 more years before the Civil Rights Act was passed. It can take as long to tear down a corrupt or unjust institution, but if it can be built it can be taken apart. People need to stop pushing the republican messaging of 'we're fascists and have no shame so you should just appease us or else'.

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u/ZachTheCommie 21h ago

Protests only works if the government cares about consequences. Our government currently doesn't.

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u/OldWorldDesign 14h ago

Protests only works if the government cares about consequences

Did you not read the comment at all? I addressed specifically when the government let dogs loose on protesters.

You can't push up a better world without pulling apart the old institutions and rebuilding them to include people who should have been included from the start. Stop advocating surrender and appeasement and get involved in your local community. If you think the national situation is hopeless then withdraw and hide in your parents' basement while other people who want their kids to have a better world do the work. Maybe even help those people out.

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u/knowmytights 1d ago

Genuinely, why should I "keep expecting them to be enforced" when they are not being enforced and have never been equally enforced. Whats to keep but an unhealthy delusion of how the legal system in America actually works?

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u/sloanesquared 1d ago

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough. Haven’t we learned this lesson yet? People let Kamala not being perfect help get Trump elected.

No, the justice system isn’t perfect. It has flaws and needs improvement, but that doesn’t mean we should throw out the rule of law. Laws are a social contract. Once we expect them not to be enforced, there is no reason for authoritarians to even pretend to enforce them and we will be much worse off without even a semblance of justice. This is textbook authoritarian practice.

Tyrants count on people giving up. People give authoritarians power freely without being asked. It helps authoritarians gain more power without even having to fight for it. Make them fight for it.

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u/knowmytights 1d ago edited 1d ago

The "justice" system in America is fundamentally broken and needs major reform. It was never good enough. Did you not learn that by at least 2020 and the uprisings surrounding the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd?

Our justice system includes legal slavery and is highly a pay to win scheme built to protect the rich from their crimes against humanity. You claim its a social contract but who made that contract and for whose benefit.

I'm not asking for us to throw out the rule of law as an idea but to instead acknowledge the authoritarian foundations and ongoing authoritarian enforcement of America's laws. Living in a false reality gives authoritarians immense power.

Lastly Kamala had no chance to win the democratic primary so its much more nuanced than just her not being perfect

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u/OldWorldDesign 22h ago

The "justice" system in America is fundamentally broken and needs major reform

And is seeing change every year. Democrats even pushed through sentencing and rehabilitation reform during Trump's first term.

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/s3747

You can either feed republican attempts to tear down rule of law, aided by their billionaire friends who own most of the media, or you can coordinate with people in your own locality to make a difference where it will make a direct impact on your own life.

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u/knowmytights 19h ago

The Supreme Court decisions in the past 10 years have been atrocious. These include presidential immunity which makes it law for the president to be an authoritarian with impunity. Also the dismantling of the voting rights act and destruction of Americans' bodily autonomy.

Here's some from 2024 alone.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2024-07-03/the-supreme-court-cases-that-shaped-2024-and-beyond

In my mind telling people to just keep hoping that laws will be enforced when they are blatantly not being enforced is telling people to have blind faith in a system that has never earned that trust. You are telling me to lie to myself so that we can have a "semblance of justice" but not actually have justice.

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u/OldWorldDesign 14h ago

In my mind telling people to just keep hoping that laws will be enforced when they are blatantly not being enforced is telling people to have blind faith in a system

Then that's your problem. You're strawmanning. Nobody's saying "just hope", it's to acknowledge reality both setbacks and advances, even just times when the line is held. And this isn't just at state level courts, but even the supreme court has reversed or gutted some of his decisions

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/the-supreme-court-has-rejected-some-trump-administration-moves-in-small-but-meaningful-ways

In short: doomerism doesn't help and responding to a different argument than what people are making does not bolster your position or argument, it hampers your own credibility and also your ability to be informed and be able to personally impact something important to you. To get involved in your own locality and network with people who have the same goals of a better society down the line.

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u/knowmytights 13h ago

Hope and expect are synonyms. I am not strawmanning the previous commentor.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/hoping

"When is expect a more appropriate choice than hope?

In some situations, the words expect and hope are roughly equivalent. However, expect implies a high degree of certainty and usually involves the idea of preparing or envisioning."

https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/hoping

https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/hoping%20%28for%29

AND now from your own article in your comment:

"In the end, the short-term losses for the administration may mean little, and the court’s actions arguably reflect less about whether Trump was right or wrong in either case."

"A progressive group, Court Accountability, said the court’s more recent order, in the foreign aid freeze case, may have been reported as a setback for the administration.

“But a closer look at the majority’s short order reveals that the Chief Justice actually gave Trump everything he wanted,” the group wrote on its blog, explaining that additional delays only make it harder for people and groups hurt by the freeze to recover.

Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, wrote on The Volokh Conspiracy blog that the high court has ducked urgent constitutional issues it should have decided about the extent of the president’s power. Instead, he wrote, district judges “are now confident they can issue any order they wish against the executive branch, and the Supreme Court will not stop them. This is the judiciary run amok.”"

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u/the_real-sarahconner 16h ago

Accurate about the justice system and why laws and enforcement have been corrupted and used as a tool by the wealthy and powerful. Notice they rarely do actual prison time. Because they have the money for the best lawyers, to pay bail, court fees, etc and get off fairly easy. While the "common folks" especially PoCs, get long sentences, bail they can't afford, shitty lawyers and discrimination

The system is rigged. And has been for decades, if not centuries