366
Ted Cruz says FCC chair sounded like a mafia boss in threats against ABC over Jimmy Kimmel
(www.dallasnews.com)
this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2025
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politics
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The shoe was on the other foot and the FCC never did this before.
Time to stop being the adults. Use their tactics against them, and once they’ve FINALLY learned their lesson we can negotiate normalcy with impenetrable safeguards.
There is no such thing as impenetrable safeguards. We have safeguards now but half of the government refuses to enforce the rules. We could do better but there's no getting around that level of coordinated treason. The only thing that has ever worked consistently is the fear of retribution from the people. We need to make them afraid of what will happen to them if they fuck us over. I'll leave the specifics of that suggestion to your imagination but suffice it say that they aren't afraid of us voting them out of office.
Oh sure there are; you’re just not creative enough. Laws can be written to where they can’t be overturned by less than the number of folks that voted to implement it in the first place. Consequences can be written for violating laws and rules (you’d be surprised how many things Trump has done that are illegal but don’t really have any consequences other than “don’t do that”). Enforcement powers can be granted to others who wouldn’t fall into this corruption orbit. Standing can be granted to bring charges and cases to parties that can’t currently do that. Hell, we could add a mechanism for plain ole citizens to recall POTUS and our Congressfolk/Senators.
The ultimate goals would be to take away the ability for a select few to protect others in power do these egregious violations.
All of that stuff already exists in one form or another. Democrats just softballed their turn with power and Republicans are refusing to acknowledge their role in checking the authority of the executive branch. There is no system of government that can survive when those charged with enforcing the rules abdicate their responsibility.
Show me how citizens can directly initiate a recall of the President, or their Rep or Senator for that matter.
There are existing systems in our government, and almost every form of government I am familiar with, for every concept you listed. They may not function in exactly the same way you are suggesting they could, but those suggestions are not immune to subversion or misuse either. The overall point you are making is that we could structure our government in such a way that corruption is impossible. I do not believe that is true. I believe it is a universal truth that people are susceptible to corruption and it is a universal truth that people are involved in government. Therefore, all governments are susceptible to corruption.
You are welcome to disagree with me on this if you like but if you do there is no point in continuing this discussion because I am completely confident that there is nothing you could say to change my mind about either of the premises of the argument that I laid out. That is not usually a statement I am willing to make but in this case I think it is perfectly reasonable to take such a position. You cannot legislate away human nature. You can only attempt to contain it. However, that containment will only function to the degree to which society, and it's elected representatives, are willing to enforce such containment mechanisms.
I don’t think we could make corruption impossible. But I do think we could put more and better checks in place, based on what we see failing here. The alternatives are either give up or tear it all down and start from scratch. I’d rather not do the first and don’t see the second happening quickly, easily, or necessarily in our favor.