I think it shows Max Baucus, Democratic Party shill (am I using the word correctly?) for the insurance industry, nixing single-payer and pumping out Romneycare writ large.And you feel that Max Baucus is an appropriate stand-in for the Democratic party at-large, and that the Republican party supports the same approach to health care?
It depends. Do I think he is an appropriate stand-in for the rank-and-file party membership at large? No, probably not. Is he an appropriate stand-in for the bought off politicians who stand for budget cuts, union-busting free trade agreements, and privatizing public education? Yeah, he seems to be a fair representative of the Other Party of Neoliberal American Empire.
I suppose, though, that you're right--despite some early blips in the direction of Obamacare from Nixon to Romney, no, the Republicans probably don't share the same approach to health care.
EDIT:
Damn early morning, pre-coffee mind-cloudiness. I'd like to change my answer:
Citizen Betts wrote: And you feel that Max Baucus is an appropriate stand-in for the Democratic party at-large, and that the Republican party supports the same approach to health care?
Yeah, I think the Republicans would have nixed single payer, too.
Hatch, Grassley, Cochran and McConnel have all been in the Senate since 1985 or earlier. These are senior senators who consistently push the parties top agendas.
There's another 5 who have been in the senate since 1995 or earlier. Of those 9, 3 also served for a combined 20 years in the House. If you expand it to 1997, you get 4 more senators and 16 more years in the House.
And this doesn't include the 2 outgoing republican senators, Dick Luger and Olympia Snow, both prior to 1985 (1977 for Luger, who lost in the primary to a tea party candidate).
So 13 of 47, or 28% of the republican caucus in the senate are from 1997 or earlier. I think it's pretty safe to say that a federal politician was probably a member of the party a decade prior and active in politics in some fashion. These are also the people who hold the most important committee chairs and are able to decide which of their parties initiatives actually get support.
They didn't turn against the measure because they suddenly changed their mind on the issue. The decided to hate it because the president adopted it as a measure of compromise and they vowed to not work with him.
Also, the individual mandate was laid out as recently as Bush Sr's term... by Bush Sr.
Citizen Betts wrote: And you feel that Max Baucus is an appropriate stand-in for the Democratic party at-large, and that the Republican party supports the same approach to health care?
Yeah, I think the Republicans would have nixed single payer, too.
Again, do you think the approach the Democratic party took to healthcare reform is an approach that is supported by the Republican party?
The insurance mandate has been a republican proposal since either the 70's or 80's.Is it your opinion that the Republican party of today is the same party, in terms of ideology, as the Republican party of the 70's?
Yup.
1870's.
Again, do you think the approach the Democratic party took to healthcare reform is an approach that is supported by the Republican party?Citizen Betts wrote: And you feel that Max Baucus is an appropriate stand-in for the Democratic party at-large, and that the Republican party supports the same approach to health care?
Yeah, I think the Republicans would have nixed single payer, too.
I already answered that. I know I added an edit, but my original answer is still there.
Again, do you think the approach the Democratic party took to healthcare reform is an approach that is supported by the Republican party?Citizen Betts wrote: And you feel that Max Baucus is an appropriate stand-in for the Democratic party at-large, and that the Republican party supports the same approach to health care?
Yeah, I think the Republicans would have nixed single payer, too.
No, but only because the Democrats did it.
The insurance mandate has been a republican proposal since either the 70's or 80's.Is it your opinion that the Republican party of today is the same party, in terms of ideology, as the Republican party of the 70's?Yup.
1870's.
The Republican Party of the 1870s sent federal troops to the South to fight the Klan...at least until 1877. The Repubs were pretty alright for the first 2 decades of their existence. Unlike the Democrats...
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Max Baucus is an example of how the democratic party shoots itself in the foot.I think it shows Max Baucus, Democratic Party shill (am I using the word correctly?) for the insurance industry, nixing single-payer and pumping out Romneycare writ large.And you feel that Max Baucus is an appropriate stand-in for the Democratic party at-large, and that the Republican party supports the same approach to health care?
Max Baucus is an example of Big Tent Parties. He's a democrat. His voice is heard within the party.
He might not toe the party line... but he gets elected, and has a say in shaping that line.
Parties are means for individuals to get elected. If they weren't helpful in doing that, they would not exist. People don't run for office in order to advance a party's agenda - they get elected to advance their own.
I know that's just a lame zinger, but it just makes you look silly.Yup.
1870's.
I thought it was a pretty good zinger, actually, it was just off by a decade. And not even that really, the Radicals, unfortuantely, weren't the only faction in the Repubs back then.
So, who's got a favorite Radical Republican?
I'm torn between Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner. I don't, alas, know any of the names of the black dudes. Oh, you know who else was interesting? This guy. (I'm doing this from memory--he might not be as interesting as I remember.)
Okay, so a quick glance doesn't confirm my memory that Longstreet was a Radical Republican, but this is pretty cool:
"The Republican governor of Louisiana appointed Longstreet the adjutant general of the state militia and by 1872 he became a major general in command of all militia and state police forces within New Orleans. During protests of election irregularities in 1874, referred to as the Battle of Liberty Place, an armed force of 8,400 White League members advanced on the State House. Longstreet commanded a force of 3,600 Metropolitan Police, city policemen, and African-American militia troops, armed with two Gatling guns and a battery of artillery. He rode to meet the protesters but was pulled from his horse, shot by a spent bullet, and taken prisoner. The White League charged, causing many of Longstreet's men to flee or surrender. There were casualties of 38 killed and 79 wounded. Federal troops were required to restore order. Longstreet's use of black troops during the disturbances increased the denunciations by anti-Reconstructionists."
I mean, you know, he tried, anyway.
(Edited)
It's hard to overstate just how epic Longstreet's about-face was. The role of a former Confederate in Reconstruction was pretty much by definition to continue the war for slavery by other means. When they got elected to Congress, some of them showed up in their Slave Power uniforms.
For a guy who was literally one of Lee's right hand men, marching against the White League was about as total a reversal as you could get. It's like of Himmler started mailing big checks to every gay disabled communist bar-mitzvah boy.
Also: Definitely Sumner. Dude went on the floor of the Senate and called one of the other Senators a "pimp for slavery". Of course he later went on to help hand the South back to the Klan crowd.
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Man, if only I lived in Florida.
Vive le Roseanne!
Also: Definitely Sumner. Dude went on the floor of the Senate and called one of the other Senators a "pimp for slavery". Of course he later went on to help hand the South back to the Klan crowd.
Yeah, no matter how much I read that stuff, I always forget the details about how the Republicans betrayed Reconstruction.
Anyway, my image of Sumner is probably tainted by Gore Vidal's Lincoln (did I ever mention I like Gore Vidal?), having his skull cracked by that slaver's cane and then having conversations with God about freeing the slaves.
Why can't we have fundamentalists like that anymore?
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Also: Definitely Sumner. Dude went on the floor of the Senate and called one of the other Senators a "pimp for slavery". Of course he later went on to help hand the South back to the Klan crowd.Yeah, no matter how much I read that stuff, I always forget the details about how the Republicans betrayed Reconstruction.
Anyway, my image of Sumner is probably tainted by Gore Vidal's Lincoln (did I ever mention I like Gore Vidal?), having his skull cracked by that slaver's cane and then having conversations with God about freeing the slaves.
Why can't we have fundamentalists like that anymore?
We have lots of them: problem is that they are in the Church and not on TV.
Hmm. I don't watch TV, but I don't go to church, either.
Who are these fundamentalists out there like Charles Sumner?
Pfft. Sumner was cooler than both of them.
Although, honestly, I am not sure he was actually a fundamentalist. EDIT: I'm no theologian--can one be a fundamentalist Unitarian?
Waitaminnit! Both of those guys are on TV!
Hey, Samnell, the wikipedia page has Sumner authoring the Civil Rights Act of 1875, opposing the Grant administration's attempt to annex the Dominican Republic, and championing equal rights until his death in 1874 (I know, a year before the CRA!). That's all pretty cool, but at the same time he joined Greely's Liberal Republicans and called for conciliation with the South.
Which doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess I'm going to have read Foner soon.
Hey, Samnell, the wikipedia page has Sumner authoring the Civil Rights Act of 1875, opposing the Grant administration's attempt to annex the Dominican Republic, and championing equal rights until his death in 1874 (I know, a year before the CRA!). That's all pretty cool, but at the same time he joined Greely's Liberal Republicans and called for conciliation with the South.
Which doesn't make much sense to me, but I guess I'm going to have read Foner soon.
Yeah. It's not that he's pure, absolute evil. But insisting that Reconstruction was accomplished at a time when there was pretty much still a low-intensity war going on against any black person who thought about voting is pretty far beyond the pale.
Hmm. I don't watch TV, but I don't go to church, either.
Who are these fundamentalists out there like Charles Sumner?
Funny story about that. By and large the white denominations that were full of cool abolitionists either merged back with the white power denominations they split from or went on to go hard right and become their ideological inheritors without the merge.
But modernism pretty much shot theism in the head and then ran it over with a truck, several times in a row. Between that and the development of modern social welfare programs, what's a leftist church for? Not a hell of a lot, so they lose members like crazy. One may as well join the local secular humanists. Those left behind in the mainline churches are people uninterested in stuff like post-17th century thought and so naturally gravitate to the loony bins, which continue to grow in an era when religion is dying at the rate of about a percentage point a year even in the god-soaked US.
But that stands to reason. Fundamentalism, in one mode or another, is the natural form of a religion that must compete.
But modernism pretty much shot theism in the head and then ran it over with a truck, several times in a row. Between that and the development of modern social welfare programs, what's a leftist church for? Not a hell of a lot, so they lose members like crazy. One may as well join the local secular humanists. Those left behind in the mainline churches are people uninterested in stuff like post-17th century thought and so naturally gravitate to the loony bins, which continue to grow in an era when religion is dying at the rate of about a percentage point a year even in the god-soaked US.
Its like evaporative cooling, but instead of ice in the desert you fundies.
Yeah. It's not that he's pure, absolute evil. But insisting that Reconstruction was accomplished at a time when there was pretty much still a low-intensity war going on against any black person who thought about voting is pretty far beyond the pale.
I guess I'd have to go back and read how he thought being pro-equal rights and pro-ending Reconstruction were compatible goals.
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Anyhow, to get back on the original topic, last night I watched the Indiana Gubernatorial Debate on C-Span. The Libertarian was actually standing center-stage (he looked like a lumberjack... and wikipedia just confirmed that he is Rupert from "Survivor"). I probably would vote for him if I still lived in Indiana.
Personally, I think that you should vote for the candidate you feel should do the best job, not whoever the major parties throw up there.
FWIW, if you said you wanted to amend the system so we don't have, as others have termed it, a "first past the post" system, I'd be all for it. Or just election reform in general, which to me should look like a standardization of election regulations not every state for itself. Voting is a right on a federal level and there should be more federal involvement in states election processes.
FWIW, if you said you wanted to amend the system so we don't have, as others have termed it, a "first past the post" system, I'd be all for it. Or just election reform in general, which to me should look like a standardization of election regulations not every state for itself. Voting is a right on a federal level and there should be more federal involvement in states election processes.
But every time we've done that, we ended up with a fairer system. We must learn the lessons of history!
From my very superficial reading, it looks like he opposed the rampant corruption of Reconstruction and Grant's administration more than opposing the concept of Reconstruction.
And he kind of had a point there. It's possible to argue that Reconstruction, as implemented, was doing more harm than good
Which brings us back around to Citizen Wolf's snappy zinger.
But, still, even allowing for rampant corruption, I can't ever imagine that as the greater evil compared to, say, rule by the Ku Klux Klan. Unless, of course, you're willing to sacrifice the rights of the black population.
I don't know; I'd have to read up on the stuff to see how things were actually argued out back then.
And I'll just leave this here.
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I think it shows Max Baucus, Democratic Party shill (am I using the word correctly?) for the insurance industry, nixing single-payer and pumping out Romneycare writ large.
A little late, but, oh, look:
Obamacare architect leaves White House for pharmaceutical industry job