Dems go Nuclear! Possum shows signs of twitching!

[thejeff]

LazarX wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

LOL, the clearest proof of ideological zealotry is when you start utilizing absurd hyperbole to describe your opponents and claim with utter sincerity of belief that you are the "good guys" and don't do what the "bad guys" do.

Grow up.

Meh. There are differences between the parties. Pretending they're exactly the same is just as childish, if more cynical, as claiming they're good guys and bad guys.

They're not exactly that different, and they've both evolved over time. Bill Clinton in his policies was considerably to the right of Richard Nixon, who was considered (and rightly so) poison to the progressives of his time. Not that George Wallace was any shining knight himself, considering his segregationist past. And as it's been pointed out, the Affordable Care Act in it's present pro-buisness form, was pretty much conceived in a right wing think tank, and actually executed by the Obama's Republican opponent in his home state. and most likely would be sailing through Tea Party approval if it was labeled ReaganCare instead.

The thing is they both serve the same masters, candidates in both parties are heavily beholden to the same sectors for election funds, even though individual sources may vary. (although many companies contribute heavily to BOTH parties.) And both parties will use many of the same tactics, including gerrymandering, to get their goals done. (Democrats generally prefer more of a tactic of limiting voter choices by keeping progressives from third parties off the ballot, whereas the Republicans favor their inclusion to split traditionally Democratic numbers.) Hence the parties very different approach to Ralph Nader.

The big difference however is that Republicans, in particular the Tea Party faction are willing to go a lot further to reach their goals.

Sure, both are made up of politicians. I'm certainly not saying the Democrats are shining pure examples of all that is good and just in the world.

My point in that whole post, which you seemed to skip over, is that there are basic differences in the party pitch to the voters which make their behaviors different. Democrats need to make government work which makes them more inclined to compromise even when Republicans are in control. Republicans claim government is a bad thing, so they're perfectly fine breaking it when Democrats have a majority. The filibuster is a better tool for the current Republican party than for the current Democrats.

As for your more specific points: Nixon was to the left of Obama on some points and to the right on others. Economically to the left, to the right on civil rights, LGTBQ issues, etc. And that's mostly because the country has moved, not so much because of anything about them. Nixon was pushing an economically more liberal country in a conservative direction, while capitalizing on white racist reaction to the Civil Rights era. Obama is nudging a much more economically conservative country back towards the left, if nowhere near as fast as I'd like, while consolidating gains on LGBTQ rights, if again somewhat reluctantly.
Comparing politicians from different eras isn't really much use.

I doubt "ReaganCare" would get anywhere with a Tea Party President/Congress. Maybe if public pressure was high enough that something had to be done. It was conceived in a right-wing think take and signed by Romney in Mass, but it was mostly designed to counter pressure for real health-care reform. You'll notice it was never taken up again after it was proposed as an alternative to HillaryCare. In Mass it was also used to get something Romney would accept, rather than force him to deal with a less business friendly alternative.
Of course, as I argue above, if it had been proposed and passed, Democrats would have tried to make it work, as they did with Medicare D. Big government programs failing are bad for Democrats, even if they're Republican programs.

As for gerrymandering, Republicans tend to go much farther there, at least these days. I believe most of the states that now draw districts in a non or bi-partisan fashion tend Democratic.

[Scott Betts]

Kryzbyn wrote:

This will work for the Dems until the Repubs eventually end up in majority again.

Not very farsighted, that Harry Reid.

What's more likely here: that Harry Reid - a seasoned politician who has a fair amount of successful political maneuvering under his belt - completely failed to consider what might happen if the GOP regains majority control, or that he did consider it, and decided that, on balance, he'd prefer to make it easier for appointments to be made in any legislature than to allow the GOP's hallmark obstructionism to continue?

[Scott Betts]

Doug's Workshop wrote:

In 2005, Harry Reid said of the filibuster "It encourages moderation and consensus. It gives voice to the minority, so that cooler heads may prevail."

Oh, and "Now Mr. President, I will not stand here and say the filibuster has always been used for positive purposes."

Also, "Of course the President would like the power to name anyone he wants to lifetime seats on the Supreme Court and other federal courts. And that is why the White House has been aggressively lobbying Senate Republicans to change Senate rules in a way that would hand dangerous new powers to the President over two separate branches – the Congress and the Judiciary. Unfortunately, this is part of a disturbing pattern of behavior by this White House and Republicans in Washington."

And the kicker . . . "Some in this Chamber want to throw out 217 years of Senate history in the quest for absolute power. They want to do away with Mr. Smith coming to Washington. They want to do away with the filibuster. They think they are wiser than our Founding Fathers. I doubt that’s true. "

I'm as surprised as anyone that I find myself in agreement.

We're talking about the blanket obstruction of necessary political appointments, not the Mr. Smith Goes to Washington-style legislative filibuster.

[Scott Betts]

Doug's Workshop wrote:

"We won, and it's not fair that we can't do what we want." My toddler doesn't whine as much as those guys do.

...says the guy whining about the GOP no longer being able to do what they want. The best part is that your guys didn't even win, and you're still whining.

[Scott Betts]

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

Anyone who doesn't realize that this whole thing is the Democrats' plan to stack the courts with pro Obamacare judges for the coming avalanche of lawsuits just isn't paying attention.

Good lord, I should hope that's the case.

[Scott Betts]

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

LOL, the clearest proof of ideological zealotry is when you start utilizing absurd hyperbole to describe your opponents and claim with utter sincerity of belief that you are the "good guys" and don't do what the "bad guys" do.

Grow up.

Like when you characterize the desire to prevent further crippling political obstructionism as a "power grab", the sort of thing that the GOP would never threaten to do (hint: they've threatened to do it)?

This is the greatest.

[Klaus van der Kroft]

I honestly don't know enough about internal US politics to give a fair or appropriate opinion, but comming from a region -Latin America- where decreasing legislative quorums "in the sake of governability" and "because the other parties are blocking everything we do" happens on a constant basis, I can at least give the insight of our experience (which my own country also suffered, taking us several decades to recover from) in noting that while strict quorum systems that make it hard to pass laws can seem problematic, they often are a better alternative to a system in which every change of government brings the possibility of a full turnover.

When parties become ideologically extreme (which, from the outsider's perspective I have seems to be the case with both Democrats and Republicans), governing will be a problem regardless of what you do. I just think it's better to have a problem of passivity than a problem of throwing everything overboard on every cyle; the former takes a while to fix -a while during which very likely few sweeping changes will take place, with all the good and bad such a situation implies- and requires parties to calm down and start seeking consensus again eventually, while the latter gives exactly the opposite incentive. We get a lot of that in this side of the continent and, while context is certainly different, it's never been a good thing.

One of the big reasons some Latin American countries like Chile and Uruguay have been able to become stable and comparatively more prosperous than their neighbours has been a cooling of heads and realising that making things easier for the current government by lowering quorums (a tool meant to force consensus and avoid the easy change of important governing mechanisms) is often not the best strategy in the long term.

Keeping proportions, of course, but I think it's a point worth considering for the debate at least.

[BigNorseWolf]

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:

I honestly don't know enough about internal US politics to give a fair or appropriate opinion, but comming from a region -Latin America- where decreasing legislative quorums "in the sake of governability" and "because the other parties are blocking everything we do" happens on a constant basis, I can at least give the insight of our experience

I think there may be a few differences here. See if any of them change your mind.

First off, we only have two parties. Whichever one of them is in power is representing a large chunk of the populace, not just the 1/5th of them that all managed to get their stuff together or run one charismatic figure. This is the inevitable consequence of our winner take all system: getting 1/4 of the vote gets you NO representation in government at all.

Secondly, the two parties disagree on very little. There's no huge, radical differences between the two on most of government. They're both going to keep going with our capitalistic world ruling empire with most of the wealth concentrated at the top: they just disagree over the degrees.

Third, most of the differences are played up if not manufactured outright for the sake of riling up the voter base. Its not debate its anger theatre.

Fourth, the republicans are obstructing EVERYTHING. I see no need to pretend that because there's conflict both sides must be at fault and must be the same: the republicans are at fault here. They rely almost completely on misdirecting anger and that anger has gotten a little out of hand and formed the tea party: which is a subset of republicans. The other republicans can either split and then be able to do NOTHING, or go along with them and scream that everything is bad, the president is a socialist communist muslim atheist kenyan!

[Kevin Mack]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

This is the inevitable consequence of our winner take all system: getting 1/4 of the vote gets you NO representation in government at all.

Um actually technicly you can become president with only 1/4 of the vote

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wC42HgLA4k

from 4.15 onward.

[Scott Betts]

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:

I can at least give the insight of our experience (which my own country also suffered, taking us several decades to recover from) in noting that while strict quorum systems that make it hard to pass laws can seem problematic, they often are a better alternative to a system in which every change of government brings the possibility of a full turnover.

Right, but that's not a concern with this change because it doesn't affect legislation. All it does is prevent the deliberate obstruction of appointments - there's no possibility of a full turnover, because the requirement of these appointments can't necessarily be predicted or controlled in advance, and because any attempt to roll back or overturn legislation would require a tremendous amount of work even with the full cooperation of all political appointees.

No one is talking about removing the legislative filibuster. But the government is struggling to function dealing with all of these vacancies that are only remaining vacancies because the Republican party is no longer interested in reasonably vetting appointees, but is now committed ot the wholesale obstruction of any political appointments at all.

[LazarX]

thejeff wrote:

My point in that whole post, which you seemed to skip over, is that there are basic differences in the party pitch to the voters which make their behaviors different. Democrats need to make government work which makes them more inclined to compromise even when Republicans are in control. Republicans claim government is a bad thing, so they're perfectly fine breaking it when Democrats have a majority. The filibuster is a better tool for the current Republican party than for the current Democrats.

There are local Democrats who've pled for Obama to show some sign of what the Democratic Party actually stands for these days. Those pleas have fallen on deaf ears as the White House continues to keep itself isolate even from it's own party.

And keep in mind, Democrats have used filibusters when it suited their purposes. The only real difference in today's Republican majority in Congress today as opposed to prior majorities, is the lack of earmarks for the Speaker to hand out as carrots to get votes in line.

I have very little interest in party "pitch" as opposed to party action... or the lack of it. The Affordable Care Act was a major give me to the insurance companies as the White House put single payer as DOA before the negotiations with the Republicans even began.

[bugleyman]

Let me jump to the end of this thread and save everyone some time:

The person/people with whom I disagree represent(s) unprecedented* evil -- double-plus-ungood, even -- and must be stopped at *all* costs. Anyone who disagrees is stupid/misguided/uninformed.

You're welcome.

<lock>

* I know this had been said every year since forever, but I it's really true this time. Trust me.

[thejeff]

bugleyman wrote:

Let me jump to the end of this thread and save everyone some time:

The person/people with whom I disagree represent(s) unprecedented* evil -- double-plus-ungood, even -- and must be stopped at *all* costs. Anyone who disagrees is stupid/misguided/uninformed.

You're welcome.

<lock>

* I know this had been said every year since forever, but I it's really true this time. Trust me.

And since this is obviously a strawman, the opposite really must be true: There must be no real substantive differences between the groups. No particular reason to choose one or the other.

Might as well just stop paying attention.

[bugleyman]

thejeff wrote:

bugleyman wrote:

Let me jump to the end of this thread and save everyone some time:

The person/people with whom I disagree represent(s) unprecedented* evil -- double-plus-ungood, even -- and must be stopped at *all* costs. Anyone who disagrees is stupid/misguided/uninformed.

You're welcome.

<lock>

* I know this had been said every year since forever, but I it's really true this time. Trust me.

And since this is obviously a strawman, the opposite really must be true: There must be no real substantive differences between the groups. No particular reason to choose one or the other.

Might as well just stop paying attention.

Stop paying attention? Never.

Stop trying to win arguments on the Internet, on the other hand...