Wikipedia’s nonprofit status questioned by D.C. U.S. attorney

> Before being named U.S. attorney, Martin appeared on Russia-backed media networks more than 150 times, The Washington Post reported last week. In one appearance on RT in 2022, he said there was no evidence of military buildup on Ukraine’s boarders only nine days before Russia invaded the country. He further criticized U.S. officials as warmongering and ignoring Russia security concerns.

This is getting ridiculous. Is there anyone associated with this administration who does not have a record of promoting Russia's positions?

We voted for this! This is “democracy” at work

I mean yes? Democracy is a pretty poor model for governance. IMO peak enlightenment happened circa the 17th or 18th century when classical liberalism decided government should be based on individual liberties and anything outside of that is decided democratically not because it is a good system but because votes are roughly a tally of who would win if we all pull knives on each other because we didn't like the vote.

Ah yes, the wonderful time of enlightenment when all straight white Christian land-owning men's rights became recognized, not just the nobility's. Just a few short centuries from there, the rights of poorer white men, children, women, people of any other skin color, non-Christian, and LGBT people would be recognized too.

You jest, but skin in the game is argument is not irrelevant. It is called a franchise for a reason after all. You want a slice of the pie, you should be able to prove that you know what you are doing. Owning land was a good enough proxy then. We can argue what would be a good proxy now.

You’re saying that people who owned land (and humans) as property had skin in the game while everyone else did not. Just stop.

There is no reason to conflate the two. To be frank, I explicitly stated land ( and not property as a more generic term ), which makes me question how much of a good faith of a conversation this is. My point stands on its own merits, but you seem to want to rely on cheap rhetorical theatrics a good chunk of the audience here can see through.

Okay, owning land then. My bad. All humans existing in the nation have skin in the game by the fact that they exist there. How do landowners have more of a stake?

They have land that can be taken or voted away. I don't think only land owners should be able to vote, but it's worth noting worldwide having significant property is one of the most common ways for immigrants to qualify for a resident visa (other two common ways is job or business investment). Right or not it signifies enough skin in the game to many if not most societies to reflect reciprocated integration the community.

Remember in the early days there was almost no immigration control as well, so finding proxies for skin in the game might have been more challenging than today, when emigrating is almost impossible for the poor so they are stuck with their skin in America whether they like it or not.

> They have land that can be taken or voted away.

The assumption that these privileges would be voted away implies an eventual equal distribution of such thing. Then all would have equal skin in the game which would justify democracy under this bizarre definition of skin in the game.

> I don't think only land owners should be able to vote, but it's worth noting worldwide having significant property is one of the most common ways for immigrants to qualify for a resident visa (other two common ways is job or business investment).

That has got nothing to do with the political franchise.

> Right or not it signifies enough skin in the game to many if not most societies to reflect reciprocated integration the community.

No. It means that they want people with means. Same basic reason why some nations may want people with advanced degrees. Or for that matter poor people who are willing to work for low wages. They want to import people who will benefit the nation state.

<< They want to import people who will benefit the nation state.

You might be getting a little ahead of yourself. Yes, the nation state does what serves its interest, but we are not discussing what the nation state wants. We are not even discussing what the populace through small d democracy wants ( as the two are automatically aligned ). We are discussing, who is a part of the group that can want.