If what they taught us about checks and balances was a lie maybe what they taught us about civil disobedience was a lie too.

they never taught people "civil disobedience" but refer to them as "protests, or deadly demostrations" its all whitewashed.

they did teach use about checks and balances, in order to placate the masses, so they dont anything that threatens the status quo. more or less its, just "dont ruffle the feathers, keep your head down" kind of rhetoric.

Mlk jr got cameras.

Malcolm X got results.

Their combination got results. You think they're ever going to give Malcolm what he demanded? Fuck no. They give it to King and then shoot the both of em for good measure. King made the movement to sympathetic to just start shooting.
- and that’s cool, just don’t stand in the way of the people who push Malcolm X, so we can have both

School is indoctrination. I'm surprised so many of my peers don't realize it.

When I was in China (country of birth), they did national anthem like either weekly or daily. I think it was every week, they would also do a flag raising ceremony. They then did a weird ceremony where first graders did wore little red scarfs, which I as an adult looked it up and its apparantly called the Young Pioneers program where they attempt to brainwash children into their "communist" ideology. ("communist" in quotes because it wasn't even real communism). So yea I always get weirded out by these weird rituals.

Then when I immigrated to the US, they do the "pledge of allegience" and the national anthem of the US, of course, being a foreign national at the time, I didn't do the pledge, but just stood up to sort of fit in, but I remained silent. I thought these rituals, national anthem, pledge of allegience, making kids wear red scarfs, was normal, just part of every country.

Then I grew older and went online and apparantly Europeans tell me the flah of allegience wasn't considered normal.

I eventually got US citizenship derived from my mother's naturalization. I did eventually get attached to the concept of the constitution and rule of law, checks and balances (I did NOT have any attachments to the US administrations or congress btw, that's a whole differe t thing). But there was always something very uncanny about the way they teach things.

They keep saying "freedom" "freedom" all over everything they teach, and when they teach civics, teachers say that "police cannot do X if they don't have probable cause" "you have rights" "innocent until proven guilty", but we know for a fact that these things do happen, but of course, they are brushed off as "mistakes", and yet cops don't seem to get held accountable.

So again, I slowly see the same pattern all over again, different country, similar indoctrination.

And to top it all off, while the US (pre 2025) was considered "democratic", schools are anything but. Schools admin and teachers always have a lot of draconian rules and some doesn't even make sense.

Like wtf is school uniform, teaching conformity and just "obey" the rules, no questions asked? Also, you aren't allowed to wear any outerwear even if its winter and you're cold unless you purchase the school's sweaters, wtf? This is a liberal city btw. So much for freedom. Freedom to get a fucking cold.

Security cameras everywhere in school, they had fucking security patrolling inside the school, like wtf its K-12.

The fucking police the bathrooms so much. They sometimes LOCK THE FUCKING BATHROOM because "drugs". LOL FUCK YOU. I'M GONNA PISS ON THE FUCKING FLOOR. (sry for caps).

Its just, when you've seen so much shit from schools in 2 different nationalistic countries, and also have to deal with your abusive parents' bullshit, you quickly develop the pattern recognition to recognize authoritarianism.

Public school is indoctrination. (And private school would be much worse, especially religious ones). Sad that people don't recognize this.

You ever read any Foucault? He famously called schools prisons
School uniforms are absolutely NOT the norm in usa cities for the record
- They're not uncommon though. The only good rationale I've heard is its good for stopping students for feeling bad/getting bullied because their parents don't buy them the most expensive clothes.

You can read the constitution of the united states for free. You can also read the constitution of every US state for free (except probably some red states; but I’m just assuming that. ((You can also find that out for yourself for free…)))

Checks and balances are real, they have just been exploited from time immemorial. Go ahead and civil disobedience as much as you want you sweet summer child / foreign agent!

There was actually a pretty good comment here once about how MLK and Gandhi only really succeeded with progress when a visible and difficult threat to the system was perceived.

Civil rights stagnated until the ramp up with the march to Washington and widespread riots from groups like the black panthers were damaging public society.

Similarly, Gandhi had trouble convincing the British to even consider independence until widespread communal violence swept the nation in the aftermath of WWII.

Both figures were touted as succeeding in history books due to their non violent movements, but in reality they simply became the center of attention for media at the time which solidified them as icons of their respective movements.

Ironically, both were assassinated which means their opposition definitely viewed them as a a powerful political threat, and not just some supporters for peace.

Oh for fuck's sake, if you want to start a revolt then fucking start it already. Fascism is here right now, so you need to fight it right now. You're doing no good by sitting around and saying "I would have totally joined the Revolution if one had spontaneously formed around me."

If a violent resistance isn't feasible in the here-and-now (and it isn't) then you need to find other ways to resist.

Bruh, it sounds like you and OP are both on the same side. Like the point of this post is to kind of -nudge nudge- that "disobedient" thought that's teetering on the edge of realization, without making a direct call for action. You call for it one way, they call for it another way, but both of you seem to be attempting to conjure the same idea.
Why in the world waste time complaining that your teammate isn't using the same tactics as you? We have to stop letting arbitrary shit divide us. If we all have the same goal, we should be aiming toward it together.
- The OP isn't suggesting any tactics at all. They're just saying "we should do anything" and expecting kudos for that. If you want to do something then do something. The time for hypotheticals is over.
Ok I go do a revolution now, thanks for the pep talk.
- We will join if we hear about it

What did you guys not learn about civil disobedience?

It's non-violence, but it breaks the laws "designed to keep things civil." It's meant to disrupt, it's means to obstruct, it's meant to annoy the shit out of the people you are protesting.

I haven't seen any civil disobedience. Which is weird because the boomers did it all the time.

A protest isn't civil disobedience. Boycotts aren't civil disobedience.

A crowd of hundreds blocking a bridge is. People blocking entrances to government buildings is. People surrounding bases is. People flooding the capitol or disrupting the discourse of policy is. The reason they use the military and ICE is because they are terrified that people will remember that even 1% of the US doing this far outnumbers them.

A crowd of hundreds blocking a bridge is. People blocking entrances to government buildings is. People surrounding bases is. People flooding the capitol or disrupting the discourse of policy is. The reason they use the military and ICE is because they are terrified that people will remember that even 1% of the US doing this far outnumbers them.
The absolute whining from people when they are moderately inconvenienced is depressing. "Sure, death camps are bad but did they have to block the bridge? I'm going to be late for my brunch!" Well, the person in a camp is going to be late for stuff, too.
- I've seen someone on this platform, call out people who block bridges as having a "lack of empathy because you've never had to be somewhere on time"
  You're so right, how dare I make someone late for their dentist appointment. Let the genocide continue, by all means.
- Which is why it's effective if coordinated and done well. It makes things relevant immediately for the public, for officials, for businesses.
  It will annoy them to the point of either joining them out of frustration, or at least saying "do something!" To the government.
  I have no misconceptions that they will happily massacre civilians when those orders arrive, but until those orders arrive they are only trying to intimidate. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the current orders are quite simply: "Walk and look scary."
  They are clearly more afraid of us than them. They're nothing more than buzzing insects with stingers.
There's a reason why Marsha P. Johnson is remembered.
For throwing the first fucking brick.
Non violent protests work if the alternative is violence. Otherwise they just keep sending in violent bullies to dismantle the protests.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deacons_for_Defense_and_Justice
So basically what the climate protesters are doing.
- YES! As my aunt would tell me: if you aren't getting arrested, you aren't making an impact.
- Ehhhh.... they're more so just being a bit... annoying once in a while. They make the cause look bad sometimes. Throwing soup on a van Gogh just looks a little dumb.
- The only way you are hearing about protesters on privately owned media is if those billionaires want you to hear about them.
We learned the hippies were ineffectual drug addicts that believed in super weird stuff. Then HIV happened and free love was over. Then Manson family killed a bunch of people and became a scape goat. The hippies lost their appeal. Computers blew up and we never went back to that place to try and figure out how to do it right.
- Wow. Really? When was this? Where was this?
  I certainly remember several times when learning American history throughout my education about the Civil Rights movement and the resistance to the Vietnam War.
  Admittedly though, I don't know how much of that I learned in school, vs learned in Museums.

checks and balances is not a lie it just does not work when folks don't do their job. its like they did the patriot act because bush jr. didn't do his job. No system can work when a significant amount of the components are bad actors.

No it was designed to look like it works. Smoke, mirrors, placation they amount to fancy words for lie. Governments and Capitalist leaders have been getting bolder and bolder and are not only saying it but trying to act like they deserve the ability to control the masses.
- I totally disagree. I like many of the parliamentary systems that have come up but Im not sure I would want to switch to any of them. Although the swiss system is tempting.
Yeah, we entrusted too many shitty people.
I read: "checks and balances do not work"
They arent working. Att least the checks and balances we have now.
- Yeah you can't be taught about future failures of a system. The only way for it not be able to not be working is for humans to not be in the equation of government. Which is one of the reasons ai taking over does not scare me. Either they kill us all. Win for the planet. Or they run things properly. Win for everybody.

One misconception I had about civil disobedience from what I’d learned in school is that it’s a reliable means of drawing attention to your cause: your willingness to expose yourself to legal repercussions will communicate to the public how critical you consider the issue to be.

What I learned from witnessing it first-hand is that officials and the media will invent their own narratives about your actions out of whole cloth, and the statement the public thinks you’re making is subject to arbitrary filtering and distortion.

Sounds about right.
When it comes to the media the well is poisoned. We need to teach an entire population how to consume new media and we cant do it fast enough.
Eventually, though, that will stabilize. Then there will be cultural revolutions in that space.
- What is this "new media" for you? Because for many it means sources that tell an alternative truth. Usually written in Sankt-Peterburg.
Civil disobedience is not meant to draw attention. It's meant to fight back without violence.
Drawing attention is a protest or a boycott.
- Civil disobedience can overlap with both direct action and protest. But that’s my point: we were only ever taught about the latter.

I remember learning about people like MLK with respect and admiration for his methods, but also being taught to not use our first Amendment Rights to stir up trouble. It was definitely a conflicting message, and probably the reason everybody today recognizes that we have an extremely serious problem, but nobody wants to start the trouble that will finally deal with it.

We won't have to, though. They want trouble, and they will have their trouble, even if they have to instigate it.

The thing is that MLK's legacy, while absolutely awesome, has been appropriated by whites and we're constantly told "he was one of the good ones". Many of MLK's false advocates will conveniently forget that he was the target of the FBI for sowing civil disobedience.

What did the nebulous "they" teach us about civil disobedience again? Because I'm not sure I ever learned that lesson in the first place 😈

IDK, in school they spent a lot of time on MLK and Gandhi, focusing on non-violence. You'd never even know that these men ever talked about anything else.
Nobody ever learns about Fred Hampton, the Haitian revolution, or Malcolm X by sticking to the curriculum.
- Or the Pullman Strike, Haymarket.
- We covered Malcom but mostly as independent research.
Teaching is something usually done by teachers and or parents
- Or youtube... now...

I was taught that the founding fathers' did not take into account a two-party political system when they designed the system of checks and balances.

They did take it into account and George Washington himself said it was a terrible idea because it would lead to exactly where we are now.
- If by "take it into account" you mean they said "political parties sure are bad" then not implement anything into the system to discourage their formation, then proceed to form political parties themselves a decade or so later, then sure.
Fuck those slavers.
It is kind of just the endstate of democratic systems. If you need the populace to vote for you (whether directly or through representatives in a parliament or whatever), you inevitably end up down selecting based on key issues. Which means you get more and more coalitions based on, generally speaking, the French Revolution (i.e. Left and Right).
The US is obviously ahead of the curve. But we are increasingly seeing coalitions between the political parties in Western Europe and so forth. Because they understand that splitting the vote between the three left leaning parties that disagree on the exact level of taxation or the priority queue is just a guaranteed loss once the other side has already stopped doing that.
Ranked choice voting theoretically helps with this (and isn't too dissimilar in impact to things like the party primaries in the US...) but it still ends up on 2-3 core mega-parties.

They enshrined the 2nd amendment for a reason. but for now its enough to do simple things like:

boycott / disrupt any local companies that aid and abed ICE/national guard/armed forces. grocery stores/hotels/restaurants. etc.
disrupt these peoples ability to sleep.
repeat the above for any federal agents in your state who are carrying out trumps agenda.

“Checks and balances” in the context of US federal government just means that each branch has the ability to check the growth of power of the others. It’s not “a lie” because it’s still true. Right now congress could, if they wanted to, impeach the president or pass laws preventing him from doing the things he wants. The SCOTUS could stop him too if they wanted to actually take up cases on the law instead of using the shadow docket to avoid making rulings.

Trump partisans hold a trifecta in government right now so they are not going to use their checks they have available to them. But one branch refusing to check another because its members were elected from the same stock of partisan lunatics is not the same as checks and balances not existing.

The executive is exceeding its power. Whether the other branches are just ok with it doesnt matter, they fail their obligation to the constitution. The executive does not have the power to rewrite the constitution. The executive does not have the power to write law. The executive does not have the power to deploy the military. The executive does not have the power to tariff. These are all things that are going unchecked.
The legislature doesnt even have some of these powers without a super majority. They are only stalling the process to prevent the checks from occuring.
- The checks still exist to correct those abuses of power. Just because congress or SCOTUS is unwilling to use them doesn't mean they don’t exist.

You guys are getting taught stuff?.jpg