[Winstonm]

Republican quote of the day:

Quote

"We're not going to be disrespected," Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) told The Washington Examiner. "We have to get something out of this. And I don't know what that even is."

But I will continue to hold my breath until I turn blue.

[ArtK78]

Someone is going to have to inform Mr. Stutzman that respect is earned, not granted.

By the way, I looked up the Washington Examiner. From what I see, it is essentially the Washington local equivalent of Fox News.

[c_corgi]

Winstonm, on 2013-October-03, 08:06, said:

...
I am growing more strongly aligned with the faction that adheres to the idea that belief systems lacking objective verification or objective evidence are the root of interpersonal human problems. Regardless if the belief system is Reaganomics, Statism, Islam, or Christianity, the end result is to create a schism between A) the followers, and B) the non-followers.

When those small, narrow-minded groups of believers and followers gain power, the end result is predictable: conflict. Eliminate the underlying cause of the conflict, and at least one reason for human conflict is eliminated, though others remain.

The underlying cause is people who want to manipulate or exploit others for their own benefit. Belief systems that lack objective verification have proved a powerful and malleable tool for such people, but eliminating them will not address the underlying cause, it will just mean that different tools are favoured.

[Winstonm]

c_corgi, on 2013-October-03, 08:39, said:

The underlying cause is people who want to manipulate or exploit others for their own benefit. Belief systems that lack objective verification have proved a powerful and malleable tool for such people, but eliminating them will not address the underlying cause, it will just mean that different tools are favoured.

It will not eliminate all underlying causes - just one of them.

[y66]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-03, 01:35, said:

I must be missing something here. Can anyone explain to me how 80 Tea party members can convince 137 out of the remaining 152 Republican members (>90%) that it is a good idea to shut down the government?

Can anyone explain to me why this is seen as something that the Tea Party Republicans are doing when more than 90% of the other Republicans are doing the same?

Rik

K-O-C-H I-N-D-U-$-T-R-I-E-$

[y66]

Inane post deleted.

[blackshoe]

ArtK78, on 2013-October-03, 08:08, said:

One day, probably not in the too distant future, Obamacare (although it will not be referred to in that manner) will be viewed in the same way that social security and medicare are viewed today - absolute necessities.

Social Security dates from the Franklin Roosevelt administration, and Medicare dates from the Lyndon Johnson administration. This is not ancient history.

Yes, and the people who view those things in that way are wrong.

[mycroft]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-03, 01:35, said:

I must be missing something here. Can anyone explain to me how 80 Tea party members can convince 137 out of the remaining 152 Republican members (>90%) that it is a good idea to shut down the government?

So, *this* is where the gerrymandering comes in. Because of the way that the congressional districts have been carved up (and both sides are responsible for this (in different places), because neither side actually *wants* a contested election - but there's several million votes pointing out that the Rs have been more successful in the game for these 10 years), effectively, you can't lose the 2014 election, no matter what your electorate think, unless you're a total dumbass and show it in public. Given the way the media has been trained to treat politics, that effectively means cheating on your wife, or using prostitutes when being a "hard on vice" candidate, or twittering Mr. Danger to unsuspecting female interns. I.e. dumb things, but nothing to do with politics.

You can, however, lose your party's primary. And the electorate in general don't vote in the primary - only your side, and primarily the hard core on your side (I'm handwaving like mad lots and lots of niggling details, and every state's primary rules are different, and...) And it's been made quite clear that you, the Republican representative for district N, don't have to put on your tricorn hat and fife and drum, in public or otherwise; but if you break ranks with those that do, there will be a Tea Party challenger in your primary next year, and, because there are very deep pockets that miss the robber baron, company town days, that challenge will be WELL funded, and you could easily lose.

Add to that the Republican policy in modern times of "disagree in private, belly up to the party line in the house", and this is what we get. In fact, the biggest problem from a Republican viewpoint is that the New Republicans refuse to hear the "in private" bit because they don't seem to think that breaking kayfabe means anything anymore.

Please note, I'm neither American nor right-wing enough to be a Democrat, and I can't actually read the R-biased news without my head exploding, so assume there's a fair bit of known and unknown bias in the above.

[ArtK78]

mycroft, on 2013-October-03, 14:44, said:

Please note, I'm neither American nor right-wing enough to be a Democrat, and I can't actually read the R-biased news without my head exploding, so assume there's a fair bit of known and unknown bias in the above.

I assume that you meant' "left-wing enough to be a Democrat" or, alternatively, "right-wing enough to be a Republican."

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on 2013-October-03, 13:43, said:

Yes, and the people who view those things in that way are wrong.

Well, we in the majority certainly appreciate that you have pointed out where we have gone wrong.

[ggwhiz]

We have 3 major parties in Canada and a couple of wannabe's that together provide our version of checks and balances.

If the Tea party had to set out on their own they would stand or fall (thud) on their own ideology. Granted you might need a real socialist party to overcome the kind of vote splitting that would hand the Democrats unending power but 2 Republican based parties could vote together on areas of agreement keeping the more rabid ideas at bay.

One thing I was taught growing up is that our most productive governments were minorities where the ruling bunch needed support from one of the other two to pass anything of substance.

Just musings here as I don't know enough about the US situation but from the outside looking in it doesn't appear that 2 parties in a 51 to 49% split is doing very well

[mycroft]

mycroft, on 2013-October-03, 14:44, said:

Please note, I'm neither American nor right-wing enough to be a Democrat, and I can't actually read the R-biased news without my head exploding, so assume there's a fair bit of known and unknown bias in the above.

ArtK78, on 2013-October-03, 14:48, said:

I assume that you meant' "left-wing enough to be a Democrat" or, alternatively, "right-wing enough to be a Republican."

Nope, meant what I said. The fact that you can't believe that, from a Canadian replying to someone from the Netherlands, is a serious data point about how far the Republicans have pulled the Overton Window in the U.S.

Remember that in the U.S. there are two major parties - the Centre-Right coalition, and the Republicans.

[sfi]

ArtK78, on 2013-October-03, 14:48, said:

I assume that you meant' "left-wing enough to be a Democrat" or, alternatively, "right-wing enough to be a Republican."

What he wrote sounded accurate to me. If American politics were a bird, there's no way it would be able to fly.

[FM75]

Winstonm, on 2013-October-02, 14:15, said:

I recently saw on CNN a quote from, I believe, New Yorker, that stated that the 80 members of the House who made up the tea party minority represented 18% of the U.S. population. Seems like gerrymandering is a loaded weapon passed out to children with which to play.

80 / 435 = ?

[blackshoe]

Winstonm, on 2013-October-03, 14:51, said:

Well, we in the majority certainly appreciate that you have pointed out where we have gone wrong.

No you don't.

[Winstonm]

FM75, on 2013-October-03, 16:15, said:

80 / 435 = ?

No, the population of the combined districts represented by tea-party members makes up 18% of the total US population is my understanding.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2013-October-03, 08:06, said:

Mike's post hits at the heart of the enigma for me - how can otherwise intelligent folks hold on so desperately to ideology that flies in the face of facts, data, evidence, and history?

Look up "cognitive dissonance". Preexisting beliefs are extremely powerful, and the mind is adept at ignoring facts that would require you to change them.

[akwoo]

Trinidad, on 2013-October-03, 01:35, said:

I must be missing something here. Can anyone explain to me how 80 Tea party members can convince 137 out of the remaining 152 Republican members (>90%) that it is a good idea to shut down the government?

Let me give another explanation for this.

Basically, the Tea party members have threatened to blow up the Republican party if they don't get their way.

Keep in mind there are more Democrats than non-Tea-party-Republicans. The non-tea-party-Republicans have a choice. They can either go along with the government shutdown and remain what is essentially the senior partner in a coalition, getting their way on most things, or they can stop the shutdown and become the junior partner in a coalition (with the Democrats), getting their way on fewer things.

Of course, the shutdown is a rather big thing, and it's questionable whether having your way on many other things (or even everything else) is worth it.

There are some interesting similarities between the US crisis and the Belgian crisis a couple years ago. We have a significant minority of the legislature (Tea Party or NVA) whose aim is to disband or at least emasculate the federal government. It fits their goals to be completely obstructionist and oppose every piece of legislation proposed by anyone. This minority has strong support from a particular segment of the populace, so it is immune to political embarrassment or electoral defeat. In effect, everyone else has to form a supermajority to actually get anything done. Given the wide disagreements among the other parties, as well as political instincts (on all sides) from a different time that trained politicians to aim for 51% rather than 65%, everyone else is having a great deal of trouble accomplishing this agreement.

[kenberg]

I am not at all sure there is a way out of this mess. I think the fundamental problem is this: In order for there to be productive negotiations and avoidance of a defualt on our obligations, there has to be agreement that shutting down the government and defaulting on our payments would be a bad thing to do. It's not at all clear that there is such consensus.. The original Tea Party, the one in Boston some years back, was an act of rebellion against a hated government. We laugh at the modern Tea Party, we ridicule them, but they seem to be getting their way. If we like our government intact, functioning, paying its bills, I think that we need to be very very clear about this, hope that others think so as well, and hope that this is adequate to bring about results. I am pessimistic. . There really are quite a few who do not. see the effective collapse of government as a bad thing. Some, I know some, are idealists. They want a much smalller government and don't mind at all if government in its current form goes belly up. Others are much more cnical and mostly just want large profits, no regulation and of course no taxes. Or at least no taxes on them. Whatever their reasons, explaining to them that continuing on the current course is highly destructive is not an effective argument. They are fine with that.

[Trinidad]

As far as I know, there is this "wisdom" in US politics that it is a good idea to have a president from one party and a congressional majority for the other "to keep a political balance".

Might it be a good idea to point out now that it also leads to political stalemates, "political hostage taking" and a disfunctional government?

Bridge players know (or should know) that a pair will be more succesful playing one bad system than two different good systems. Wouldn't it be better to have a well functioning government that globally reflects your political ideas, even if on details their ideas may be different from yours?

Rik