Powerful thread about how making public spaces dangerous threatens democracy

[tblue37]

Link to tweet

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Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

There is a direct connection between destroying opportunities for safe public gatherings and menacing American democracy. 1/

Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

In a pluralist democracy it is vital for for people of varied backgrounds to be able use and enjoy public spaces together. Gathering for parades, for entertainment, for education etc. builds a sense of civil society that allows for diversity of religion, race, gender, creed…2/

Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

Our public spaces and accommodations- streets, shopping areas, sports venues, schools, parks, buses, etc. - are where we ordinarily come together, interacting in small ways with people unlike ourselves, learning how to share civic life. 3/

Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

We ordinarily can learn that we can be together happily both despite and because our differences. Gun violence in this country interferes with this, and this why anti-democracy institutions and people actively want more guns available to more people. 4/

Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

By making it dangerous for people of diverse backgrounds to gather in public, gun mongers promote fear and suspicion of one another. 5/

Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

By making public space so vulnerable to deadly violence, those who promote and push guns strike at the civil fabric. 6/

Heidi Li Feldman
@HeidiLiFeldman

We must insist on a return to a livable interpretation of the 2A, more civil accountability for the gun industry - not out of dislike of arms but out of a love for American pluralist democracy. 7/7
2:58 PM · Jul 4, 2022

[applegrove]

1. I've read traditionally civil society participation was higher in the north than in the south of

the USA. Lack of civil society benefits one party rule and authoritarians I would say.

[Ohio Joe]

2. K & R - nt

[Midnight Writer]

3. I recall Senator Thune saying Americans need to learn how to make themselves small.

This was in response to, I believe, the Vegas mass shooting.

Putin's puppet in the past has spent his July 4 in Moscow, guest of his patron.

[calimary]

11. How ANY self-respecting American would choose to spend July 4th in MOSCOW

is more than a little bit beyond me.

ESPECIALLY if we’re talking about a duly-elected United States Senator!

I would think that would be anathema to any duly-elected United States Senator or ANY other duly-elected official for that matter.

You’re in MOSCOW on AMERICA’S birthday??? Just strikes me as totally incomprehensible, not to mention hideously unpatriotic, to fraternize with a widely-recognized adversary on your country’s biggest national holiday!

Unless it was to “dance with the one that brung ‘im”?

[Sogo]

14. Well said.

It was a whole group of them.

The group, which included seven Republican senators and one House member, was the first congressional delegation to visit Russia since the country’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

The GOP lawmakers, Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), Steve Daines (Mont.), John Thune (S.D.), John Kennedy (La.), Jerry Moran (Kan.) and John Hoeven (N.D.), and Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), spent July 4 in Moscow’s U.S. Embassy, NPR reported.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/395719-gop-senators-visited-moscow-on-july-4/

[calimary]

15. Yep. Them. 2018.

And I STILL don't understand why ANY self-respecting and near-boastfully patriotic would spend 4th of July in Russia.

What a disgrace. I would think, on America's birthday, of all days, Russia would probably be THE LAST country on the list where you would want to be seen and photographed, ESPECIALLY if you were supposedly "representing the American people." THIS "American people" wouldn't want you anywhere near America's longtime chief international adversary.

Call me weird.

[Bluethroughu]

4. Wow excellent.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Democracy can't survive in an atmosphere of constant violence...nt

[Kablooie]

6. I'm afraid the Republicans and 6 Supreme Court members don't want a democracy anymore.

All their focus seems to be to turn the US into a fascist authoritarian religious government so this argument doesn't hold any weight with the people that create the problem.

In fact it tells them that they are on the be on the right track to accomplish their goals.

[Beartracks]

7. The radical Republicans have no use for democracy, so no biggie to them.

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[Solly Mack]

8. Yep.

We're hostages. Nothing free about that.

[ancianita]

9. What I'm talkin' 'bout, this right here.

Can't feel united as a nation when we don't feel safe gathering for holidays, church, shopping, etc., or even rightfully protesting just after the overturning of Roe, a constitutional law.

[Mr.Bill]

10. Wait until the gun fanatics

watch us lose all out civil rights, hava an authoritarian government take over while they cheer it on, and then, wait for it...

they come to take their guns away.

[LoisB]

12. Amen!

[elleng]

13. 'it is vital for for people of varied backgrounds to be able use and enjoy public spaces together.'