Why hasn't America ever experienced a coup and a dictatorship?

[Mike Otkins]

1 hour ago, bush_cheney2004 said:

 

That's your life...not life in Canada or the USA.  

 

I will let the canucks be the judge of that, ma'am.

[WestCanMan]

6 hours ago, Mike Otkins said:

 

You're right and there's a ton of it.

 

 

 

It's time you stopped wasting time responding to me and warn your rulers.

There’s a ton of proof that you’re “John Otis” and there are a lot of reasons why you got banned the last time. 

 

[eyeball]

8 hours ago, WestCanMan said:

I never said that their rating for being factually correct was high. You did. I just proved that they lie. 

Now you know. 

Wtf are you babbling about?

[WestCanMan]

1 hour ago, eyeball said:

Wtf are you babbling about?

NVM, it was over your head.

[Queenmandy85]

The quick answer is the American citizens, including the military, have a deep respect for the constitution and the law. People may complain about their government but not enough to remove it by force. It is the same as most western democracies.

[WestCanMan]

It's probably time to shut this one down.

Honestly the whole premise of the thread makes about as much sense as "What's better for making sandwiches: bread or cinder blocks?"

[Altai]

On 5/18/2019 at 2:09 PM, Mike Otkins said:

?Okay ma'am, so why doesn't the US population fight it? 

Because they cant. If people want to fight, they have to be organized well. If govt realizes that people are getting organized, they will directly intervene and stop it. Look at the history, there are many political figures from various countries that gathers attention to organize people and simply got murdered or been exposed to character assasination to make people loss their trust in them. So powerful side is always right and weak side always have to obey. It is quite difficult to change this order by people alone. 
 

[I love nachos]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:57 PM, Altai said:

Because they cant. If people want to fight, they have to be organized well. If govt realizes that people are getting organized, they will directly intervene and stop it. Look at the history, there are many political figures from various countries that gathers attention to organize people and simply got murdered or been exposed to character assasination to make people loss their trust in them. So powerful side is always right and weak side always have to obey. It is quite difficult to change this order by people alone. 
 

 

Why do you people keep giving me excuses?

 

I tell you to destroy them, you do not, I tell them to destroy themselves, they do not..... gosh........ people...... this is why evil prevails because no one in this miserable world is willing to stand up to them..... sigh......

[Michael Hardner]

@August1991 

I asked for this to be unlocked to discuss the point: nothing human can be shown to last forever.  Of course, that is what we TRY for - immortality, 1000-year reichs, kingdoms of the sun that will outlast the sun.

To give an example of your own hubris, I offer you this:

The sun will consume the earth in 7.5 billion years.  Does that worry you ?  No because you won't be here.  Does that worry you for humanity ?  No because they will have colonized other planets.

Does entropy worry you ?  Does it ?

This is the human thing - to imagine immortality, to imagine defeating the elements that cage us.  But, Auguste, we can't even build empires that will survive unblemished for centuries - even when we design them for revitalization as the United States has been.

Everything is made of sand, my friend.  

Just focus on the now: I can't wait to get off work ....

 

[ReeferMadness]

Well, this topic seems quaint now, doesn't it?

[Guest]

I think we saw why this week. 

[Michael Hardner]

Waiting on @August1991 to revisit.  Maybe he will attribute something to "Lutherans" or "Episcopalians".

The Bushes were Episcopalians.
Trudeau is Catholic.
Trump is a Megalomaniac.

[Argus]

The US Constitution was designed by people far more interested in preventing a dictatorship than efficiency. It has three branches and four competing centers of power and a long tradition of an apolitical military which swears allegiance to the constitution and not the government.

Now if you are smart enough, and successful enough, you can gain control of say, the presidency, and both houses of congress. Trump did that, but he wasn't really smart enough to exploit it. He was a kind of a lazy assed authoritarian who couldn't get his ass out of bed early enough to work hard enough to accomplish much.

He did succeed in putting a bunch of very conservative judges into power, but those people, once in power, don't need to do what you tell them and don't need to care about you want. There's not much you can give them anyway. And besides, they swear to the constitution too. Getting enough fiercely loyal lawyers (a group not known for fierce loyalty) willing to ignore the law (and risk their career and jail) and do whatever you want takes a lot of cultivation and preparation and indoctrination and time.

Of course, if you got the military on your side you can ignore the judges. But that's hard, too. You need to cultivate not only the generals but the junior officers and enlisted people. That's kinda hard to do secretly, especially when there's that tradition of obedience to the constitution. So even with a Republican administration (most military people are conservatives) it would be a herculean task taking many, many years. And without the military or the judiciary, you can't impose a dictatorship even with control of the administration, congress and senate.

And even trying - well, there are elections every TWO years. You'd lose control of one or all three of them.

So yeah, that's why.

[SpankyMcFarland]

Geographical isolation helped the US avoid dictatorship. A violent change at the top was a frequent event in Europe following defeat in war. 

[August1991]

On 1/8/2021 at 9:08 AM, Michael Hardner said:

...
I asked for this to be unlocked to discuss the point: nothing human can be shown to last forever.  Of course, that is what we TRY for - immortality, 1000-year reichs, kingdoms of the sun that will outlast the sun.
...

I reckon that the written US Constitution will last longer than any culture or oral language.

Hey, look at Islam.