BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

What's the take on Boehners resignation?

The one column I read surmised that the resounding applause from the Repugs was because he was unable to completely kibosh Obama's agenda but I thought elections were to determine who is in charge.

 ggwhiz, on 2015-September-29, 14:34, said:

I'm torn. I think that Boehner was one of the worst speakers of the house ever.
With this said and done, I expect his replacement to be worse.

Until the Republicans are willing to give up on the Hastert rule and start marginalizing the far right, I fear that we are in for "interesting" times. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen until they start losing some elections and its going to require quite a voter backlash to make up for the gerrymandering that is in place these days.

Right now, I have pretty much written off congress until 2020. Maybe 2024. Short term, the big thing that I care about is getting a Democrat in the White House in 2016.

Then we just need to wait for a Supreme Court justice to die.

 hrothgar, on 2015-September-29, 15:06, said:

Let's hope it is Scalia and not Ginsburg.

John Boehner? He was a disaster as a minority and majority leader at a time when this country faced the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression which he and his party made worse. He had "a good run" maintaining party unity in opposing everything the Democrats tried to accomplish; he wasn't as insane as many of his colleagues; and, no doubt, he repaid his corporate backers who contributed $17.1 million to his 2014 election campaign (his opponent spent $192,079) by catering to their interests. But none of those things are criteria for leadership in my book. Good riddance JB. And God help us now.

To my mind, the Speaker being, in effect, the leader of the party rather than a neutral is one of the weakest parts of the American system. It is the sort of thing you can just about get away with in a 2-party parliament but, to me, has little to do with the democratic ideal.

 y66, on 2015-September-29, 19:40, said:

Quote

The truth at last: the Benghazi select committee was a Republican led political hatchet job organized to embarrass Hillary Clinton.

 Winstonm, on 2015-September-30, 07:49, said:

Well, maybe not the truth at last since the truth has been known all along. But yeah, what a blunder by McCarthy. The Republicans seem to have taken Pope Francis' encouragement to confront polarization quite seriously. Now they're all doing themselves in.

 y66, on 2015-September-29, 09:32, said:

actually per my question...almost no one I repeat no one sees usa as a more racist country than their home country


If racism is a world wide problem in every country including yours ok...but that is not proof usa is a more racist country


I fully grant the usa has big problems....but racism seems to not be the biggest

per my posts in other threads I understand many believe the police and justice system are killing young black men ...murder them.


based on responses this belief seems to not be more than murder of people of color or others in their home countries.....

 Winstonm, on 2015-September-28, 09:38, said:

Of course they do.

I blame the Martians.

 blackshoe, on 2015-October-01, 00:01, said:

fwiw if baby born on mars=Martian?/



why put earth priority one??


posters keep making earth a god...not if born elswhere

 mike777, on 2015-October-01, 00:42, said:

Don't be silly! Everyone knows the ice warriors are the real martians (and they definitely do not give citizenship by place of birth).

 Zelandakh, on 2015-October-01, 02:07, said:

again you do not qUOTE ME IN FULL.


but given all of that


I agree

aND THEY ARE WRONG AND I HAVE SAID THIS OFTEN VERY OFTEN

 mike777, on 2015-October-01, 02:14, said:

Come on, Mike. When people quote you in full the CAPITALS DON'T FIT ON THE SCR



Rik

 mike777, on 2015-October-01, 02:14, said:

The ice warriors are wrong not to give citizenship by birth? Strangely I do not remember reading this in any of your previous posts.

 mike777, on 2015-October-01, 02:14, said:

If we

quote you in full


should we also copy your


annoying habit of

putting lots of blank lines

in the post?

I think the general consensus about republicans is very, even dangerously wrong.

1) People do not vote in their narrow self interest
This is well known. There have been a ton of surveys done on it in the UK. The why is more interesting - most people see their country as more than a vehicle for their individual prosperity. It is some slightly anthropomorphic entity, and they want the country to do well. People have very different views on what that means and how to do it. I think the line of argument that "Republicans vote for policies which make them poorer they must be stupid lol" is both wrong and insulting. They vote for a republic party despite the fact that it makes them poorer because they think that the republicans will make America great again.

2) Polarisation arises when a polity has a substantial difference of opinion about the goals of policy, rather than the means.
If you want to understand why the American nation is so divided, start asking people what the ideal American looks like. Dollars to donuts if you start asking that dems will give some variation of a college educated, secular, career orientated professional. Republicans will give you something along the lines of the second Bush - a ranch owning, gun toting, self sufficient Christian. Republicans see the ideal American as the kind of 'get up and go' that characterised the Old West, where people made fortunes of the sweat of their own brow. This is really at the heart of Republican's indifference to education generally - their idol's didn't need it.

3) Conservative electorates view the Supreme Court as engaging in significant judicial overreach. And they are right.
What every student of political science learns is that divisive political issues require a political settlement with buy in from all segments of society. That's why, in Poland and Ireland abortions are Illegal, and yet they are still signatories of the Human Rights convention. Europeans understand that any attempt to force them into line with the rest of Europe is more likely to force them out the EU than it is to force them to comply. Multiple times in the last fifty years the Supreme Court has short circuited the democratic process, and that is a terribly dangerous system, because westerners broadly buy into the idea of democratic solutions. If abortion rights in the US had been decided at the ballot box, then there would not be the same level of vitriol that there is now in the US. Just compare to the UK? We have an equally large and vocal pro-life movement, but our politics are largely free of any stigma about it because everyone understands that if you want to change policy you have to get a majority of the people onside. If you can get the majority to change their minds then you should be able to change the law. There is no such understanding about supreme court decisions.

4) People tend to regard history as having a certain amount of inevitablity, whereas in reality it was often balanced on a knife edge.
This is basically a commentary on how democrats seem to view supreme court decisions. That because these decisions have repeatedly gone in a liberal direction, that was inevitable and really the only logical outcome. But that just isn't true. For example, european courts under very similar legal frameworks to US courts have sometimes/often taken a different view. For example, in the Gay Marriage case, the ECJ decided that the European Bill Of rights Article 12 - the one about marriage - did not apply to same-sex marriage because that isn't what the framers meant by marriage. So the ECJ took a different view and accepted as valid an argument which the supreme court of America specifically rejected as invalid. The supreme court could easily have decided, with echos of Roe vs Wade, that it wasn't for the Supreme Court to decide what marriage meant, and turfed it back to the states/federal government. Alternatively, the SC could have decided that actually they did have the authority to decide when life begins (which seems no less woolly a question than what marriage means!) and decided in 1960 that every conceived person was entitled to legal protections, then it would be the democratic party who would be rabid single issue voters. As soon as you short circuit the democratic process you end up with a system that lacks buy in from all segments of society. If your courts repeatedly decide things that are better decided at the ballot box then a polarised society is the inevitable result - just as much as if an autocratic leader keeps deciding things contrary to the will of the people, his government will be seen as illegitimate (which is how any number of european monarchs ended up with their heads on the chopping block!).

Phil's points1 and 2 match pretty well with my way of thinking.

 Zelandakh, on 2015-October-01, 08:27, said:

I have said this often...very often....sorry you miss this, In fact this is really an important pt.

 barmar, on 2015-October-01, 09:12, said:

sure why not.....if annoying to you I should do less so as to not annoy if posters find my spacing annoying I should do less, ty

 Zelandakh, on 2015-October-01, 02:07, said:

I strongly disagree, to not space ....babies born on mars will be martians....this is really important...you miss an important event in history


babies born on mars are martians