Today is the day of a special election in Massachusetts, and it’s important — it could weaken the Democratic majority in the senate, and derail what little hope we have for sensible health care. Get out and vote for the Democrat, Coakley, even if you think she is a little yellow dog.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Massachusetts Special Election | ||||
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At least the phone calls will stop. I have had them from Push polls, Obama, half a dozen Kennedys, Clinton, PACs and who knows who all, at least half a dozen a day for the past 10 days.
Good luck to us all on this vote !
Britomart
A Brown win would be catastrophic for Democrats nationally, ending their filibuster-proof Senate majority and forcing all kinds of unpleasant choices on health care. It would also reinforce the notion that the Democrats are struggling politically and that Obama’s popularity is fading.
The Democrats have a majority? [/sarcasm]
Frankly I’m not sure the Dems WANT to win this one. With a majority in the House and 60 votes in the senate, if they deliver a crappy healthcare bill they’ve got no one to blame but themselves. But if the Republicans have 40 senate votes and can threaten to filibuster, then the Dems can complain about obstructionist tactics. That would explain why they’ve put up a candidate so useless she’s in danger of losing Ted Kennedy’s seat.
If you prefer your politics less cynical than that, perhaps you can suggest how democracy is best served by a hobbled opposition? Why is it a good thing that the majority party has the votes to pass anything they see fit?
I merely ask for information, of course.
‘Tis Himself, OM: That’s some mighty fine snark you have there, friend.
I’m still trying to understand how the Dems let this happen so easily. I assume they took it for granted that this would be an easy win. If Coakley loses, the tea partiers are going to have one giant organized orgasm.
I wonder if it will affect my random number generators?
My housemate, a liberal and politically active, is deliberately going to vote third party against Coakley.
I don’t know for what specific reason (communication here is not good).
No… do NOT vote for Coakley. Republicans actually want the health reform bill in its current form to pass, or at least appear to. It should be noted that one does not need a majority of 60 to pass an amendment, just 51 in fact. Yet, republicans skipped that opportunity, either through incompetence (unlikely) or as an intentional ploy.
GOP rep John Shadegg recently said this of the new bill: “Well, you could better defend a public option than you could defend compelling me to buy a product from the people that have created the problem. America’s health insurance industry has wanted this bill and the individual mandate from the get go. That’s their idea. Their idea is “look, our product is so lousy, that lots of people don’t buy it. So we need the government to force people to buy our product. And stunningly, that’s what the Congress appears to be going along with. Why would they do that?…The notion of forcing Americans to buy a product they don’t want to buy from companies that aren’t doing it right right now is goofy…”
I suspect that if the bill passes, Democrats suddenly are labeled by the non-thinking (with help from the corporate media) as the corporatist party. Knowing how excellent spinsters the republicans are, it won’t be long before they bill themselves as the noble underdog party which fought hard to prevent you, the voter, from being crushed by this evil,industry sellout. Dems are setting themselves up for horrendous failure in the November election either way; if anything, we need a people’s movement to prop up the White House and the Congress for a progressive agenda, far more than we need new weak-knee politicians.
PZ said: ‘…it could weaken the Democratic majority in the senate, and derail what little hope we have for sensible health care.’
‘Pends on what you mean by sensible. I don’t see further enriching an already fabulously wealthy industry at the expense of taxpayers — present and future — as particularly ‘sensible.’
The Democrats don’t deserve a 60 vote majority. They have governed during the last year as if a majority of the voters’ ideology matches that of the party leadership, when it clearly doesn’t. Progressives can whine all they want about the Blue Dogs, DINOs, or what have you, but the fact is that country is no more progressive than it was during the first half of the decade. People just got sick of the ineptitude of Bush and congressional Republicans.
I posted on this already earlier this morning…
This is the first test of the republican strategy of getting in the way and gumming up the works enough to cause democrat voters to be dissatisfied with the pace of government and therefor stay away from the polls. It’s a slimy and despicable tactic, and has the side effect of completely neutering actual government for the purpose of personal gain, but it might actually work.
Having 60 seats was the worst thing that could have happened to the Democrats. It gave them a ready-made excuse to continue their spineless, compromising, stand-for-nothing ways.
At least 50 Democratic Senators must now either grow the nads to kill the filibuster for good, or prepare to go down the tubes themselves. No country is governable when its supposedly democratic legislature requires a supermajority on every vote.
Today is the day of a special election in Massachusetts, and it’s important — it could weaken the Democratic majority in the senate, and derail what little hope we have for sensible health care.
Why does this sensible health care have to include an extra tax for people who refuse to have anything to do with it?
I live a healthy lifestyle and I have no need for doctors. I have no desire to subsidize slobs who smoke, drink, eat junk, and never exercise. So I don’t waste my hard earned money on health insurance I would never use. Now President Obama, who I voted for, but who I may never vote for again, wants to penalize me for not paying for something I don’t want.
It seems to me the Democrats need the Republicans to keep them under control. This idea I should be forced to buy something I don’t want and don’t need, or else pay a penalty, is what I would expect from a dictatorship.
Will you take the same view should you have a serious accident ? I do trust you will refuse all medical help, even if that means you are left on the side of the road to die. After all, what can doctors do to help someone dying from traumatic injuries.
Ummm… I’m not sure if you’re aware, but the health care bill is not the only thing that matters, where the senate is concerned.
As a liberal and a democrat, I’m concerned with quite a bit more than the healthcare bill, and to be able to achieve many of the other pieces of legislation that we, as progressives, would like to see passed, we can NOT allow a guy like Brown to be elected. The Republicans already do everything they can to stand in the way of ANY legislation introduced by democrats. They don’t even need to see it… if it was authored by a dem, the answer is no. Brown being elected simply makes this continued process a certainty. As I said, it’s part of the strategy to leave the voting public, and especially the democratic base, feeling frustrated and dissatisfied. This lowers voter turnout for the dems and means an easier road to getting rethugs elected.
Is it just me or does the comment from a.human.ape at #13 personify the quote in the Colbert clip perfectly?
Dunno. I am not allowed to view it where I live.
Steve LaBonne: I disagree; remember that a filibuster does not prevent the passage of a bill, it merely delays it, and the opposition has to be very careful about how they use it, because constantly filibustering for no reason is a great way to piss off the electorate.
In a way, a filibuster is rather like a trade union strike. Used in a just cause with public support, it is an essential tool. Used carelessly or spitefully, it loses you support and weakens your case.
If you support the abolition of the filibuster, do you also support a ban on strikes?
I see a lot of comments in this thread exemplifying exactly what I was saying… seems the liberal left has become impatient and dissatisfied… we didn’t get all that we wanted and were perhaps even promised in the last year, so fuck it… we’re done. We’re taking our toys and our angry scowls and going home. (I’m not saying all of you… just far too many, and clearly enough to be affecting the outcome of a senate seat election that should be an easy lock for the democrats).
Considering the realistic alternatives, do you think we’d be better off letting the republicans regain control and win senate seats?
This is simply not correct. That’s the way it USED to work. It doesn’t work that way- at all- any more. There is now simply a routine requirement for 60 votes on everything- and if Reid doesn’t count 60 “yea”s there IS no vote. No muss, no fuss, no price at all to be paid by the obstructive minority. If that continues the country will simply be ungovernable when Democrats are in the majority.
Quote says: “Electing Scott Brown will send a clear message to the nation: I got mine, Jack. You can suck it!”
Bolds mine.
What a fucking stupid, mindlessly short-sighted dumbass you are.
Yeap, Ape’s comment does personify that.
or cancer, late onset genetic disorders, injuries from violent crime, or …
Mystifies me, too. It’s like taking a crowbar to your headache because the Tylenol isn’t working.
It’s not just healthcare: Brown seems to want to roll back everything to the Bush era. Funny how he makes no reference to this, or to his republican credentials, during the current spate of vapid ads.
I live a healthy lifestyle and I have no need for doctors. I have no desire to subsidize slobs who smoke, drink, eat junk, and never exercise. So I don’t waste my hard earned money on health insurance I would never use.
I am willing to bet that if your car ever gets hit by a MAC truck, you’ll demand and expect the best health care possible. Even if you cannot afford it. And you will get it and the cost of your freeloading irresponsibility will be laid upon those of us who do the right thing.
If people refuse to acquire affordable health care (notice the qualification) and are in a massive accident, treatment should only last so long as they have liquid cash or a sugar person willing to front them the money. Once the funds run out, the care stops. After all, nobody has a constitutional right to a bailout from their own stupidity.
…or catch one of any number of serious “no-fault” diseases, or age…
First, I can’t vote in MA (I live next door), but I did put in a day of canvassing in Springfield over the weekend, in an effort organized by Coakley’s SEIU supporters. I desperately want Coakley to win, but I’m afraid they’re running a bad campaign (Coakley’s organization, I mean, not SEIU). For one thing, the literature we were delivering during the canvass was a glossy 8 1/2 × 11 piece, and 3/4 of the space (half the front and all of the back) was devoted to… Scott Brown… and the dominant color was brown. Only half of the front of the piece was pro-Coakley, and in the Coakley campaign colors. Worse, the piece included two photos of Brown, one of Bush, only one of Coakley, and none of Obama or Kennedy. All this might have been OK if it were an effective negative piece, but in fact, the photos of Brown make him look like a nice guy, and the tagline for the negative part of the piece is “What Can Brown Do For You?” Even though the supplied answers are all negative points, the first-blush impression this leaves is to associate Scott Brown with the strong, trusted UPS brand! Grrrrrr….
Still, Brown is a tool, and the loss of this particular seat would not only damage the Obama legislative agenda, it would demoralize the Democratic base nationally going into the 2010 elections. And while I know many on the left are disenchanted with the Democrats right now (I think that’s a mistake, based on false perceptions, but that’s another conversation) the fact is that the alternative in 2010 will not be something more progressive than Democrats; it will be teabagging rightwing nutbags. This year is, I’m afraid, make-or-break for any hope of a decent society going forward: We can withstand losing some seats, as we inevitably will, but if it’s a wipeout that involves losing control of either house, the progressive agenda will have been set back a whole generation. (I was recently accused of being “cheery,” and I am, in general, fairly positive about the deep philosophical questions; about the messy logistics of how those questions play out in this world in which we’re livin’, though, sometimes I just have to give in and cry.)
So I’m with PZ (or at least with how I interpret this post): We need to vote for Democrats every chance we get (holding our noses where required, though I don’t think it’s required as often as some do).
I agree with some that having 60 senators nominally caucusing with the Democrats has been something of a curse, in that it’s created false and unrealistic expectations that the Dems could do pretty much whatever they wanted… but even so, I think we must defend every seat, every time: 60 is problematic; there’s no sense in which 59 or 58 is better.
As for the filibuster, I disagree that it should be killed. When Republicans controlled the Senate under Bush, and Senate leadership threatened to permanently kill the filibuster (the so-called Nuclear Option), I opposed that, as did most Democrats; it would be hypocritical to argue differently now that the shoe is on the other foot. That said, elections ought to have consequences, and the winning side should get its way, within reason. The value of the filibuster is to enforce that “within reason” business… to serve as a check against the abuses of a runaway majority. While I don’t support killing the filibuster, I would support some sort of modification to make it more the exception than the rule it has become (though I confess, I don’t know what that modification might look like). I face the same concern with a last-resort checks and balances measure run amok on the local level: There’s a provision for the town budget to go to popular referendum. It’s intended as a check on an out-of-control Town Council… but the requirement to call a referendum is so easy to meet (only 200 petition signatures, out of just under 20,000 qualified electors) that it’s become standard practice to have a referendum every year. This totally subverts the concept of representative government (and also makes the eventual bankruptcy of my town’s public schools inevitable, if something doesn’t change), and I think the filibuster, as it’s currently being applied, does, too. But as big a problem as the current version of the filibuster is, ending it outright is a “cure” worse than the disease.
The situation prior to this election is:
– The Democrats don’t have a 60-vote majority but they kid themselves into thinking they do (Lieberman isn’t really a Democrat), and thus water down bills in a futile hope to get everyone on board. The result being that they end up passing legislature that was mostly authored by their opponents.
The situation after this election if Brown wins is:
– Exactly the same as above, but at least the Democrats would finally realize it and stop running strategies that depend on the 60 votes they don’t have, and instead switch to strategies that only need the 50% majority they do actually have.
I live a healthy lifestyle and I have no need for doctors.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read so far today.
Ron Sullivan
http://toad.faultline.org
@19 FTW!! How can it be that Celtic_Evolution hasn’t been Mollified?
Coakley may not be great, but do we really want another bigoted anti-gay-marriage Republican in the Senate?
This is going to be a disaster. Everyone I know from Massachusetts says they will hold their noses and vote for Coakley. That’s not a good turnout situation.
Far better candidates, my friend… I’m happy just to chime in when I can. Thanks for the compliment, however. ;^)
Agree that it would be hypocritical. Why is it so important for the filibuster to be in place, though? Shouldn’t the government act like grown-ups and simply vote against bills that they are opposed to (whether due to them going to far or not far enough)? What purpose is there in simply delaying a vote on a piece of legislation? While it might serve a purpose in a mature legislature where it was used sparingly for good reasons, it is detrimental when used to bring any legislation to a halt under flimsy (or no) pretenses.
I’ve never suggested keeping the filibuster, so it’s in no way hypocritical for me to advocate killing it,although I recognize it will never happen — the minority party always enjoys the filibuster hammer, and the majority party always opposes it. It might be nice if there weren’t “minority” and “majority” scripts being readily exchanged between Republicans and Democrats.
What do you mean “might”? It’s worked for them plenty of times in the past. Voters have short memories.
@35,
I’m ok with the fillibuster as long as they actually have to stand up there an talk for 36+ hours like they used to. Now they just have to say fillibuster and it’s on. Where’s the fun in that?
Well said, Steve.
Have to disagree. I can’t vote in the senate race, but I can vote for your Molly.
The reality is that we wouldn’t get much of what we want even if the Democrats had 62 seats in the Senate, because the Democratic Party does not want to pass what we want. They are beholden to the health insurance companies, the defense contractors, and the entertainment industry. I realized a long time ago that neither party represents my interests, and I hope you do too.
Not only is Brown against health care reform, he is a clone of Dumbya Bush with exactly the same policies. His winning will push the Republican party closer to Fascism.
Point taken… but I had though it would take more than just that strategy to turn over the democratic senate seat held by Ted Kennedy for 40 years.
While I agree with you to an extent, I am still forced to abide by the reality of the 2 party system we are governed by… and given that reality, I must continue to support the party that at least implies a platform that coincides with some of my own personal political views… and I sure as hell am not going to advocate a course of action that leaves us with the alternative… and the only way I can ensure, in my own way, that doesn’t happen is to continue to vote for my party and impress upon others to do the same…
Health care you never use? Someday you might want to get help for your personality disorder, mental problems, and inability to think coherently.
A tough case like yours would require a mind transplant and those are expensive.
I will give you credit for one thing. You apparently don’t have a spouse and little children that will need medical care at some point or another. Don’t reproduce, whatever you do for the good of humanity.
Can somebody tell historypunk that his “healthy lifestyle” does not make him immune to infectious diseases, accidents, congenital conditions, aging, and being a clueless moron?
Hold on a minute, PZ. You’re endorsing the woman who made her career on trumped-up accusations of child abuse, supported by bullshit “recovered memory therapy” quackery? I’m honestly baffled; I thought your vendetta against whackaloons was nonpartisan.
“sensible healthcare”???!!!!
What is sensible about any state of the monstrosity being passed back and for the between the House and Senate?
I’m no fan of Republicans, but I’m so disgusted with the Democrats and their half-assed “hey, it’s something…soon we can pat ourselves on the back” attitude towards passing legislation.
If the abomination they have now passes, I think we’ll all be regretting it in due time.
I live in Massachusetts and all I can say is, I wish the Democrats had picked a better candidate. I mean, Martha Coakley? The prosecutor who fought to keep the Amiraults in prison? Really?
Hold on a minute, PZ. You’re endorsing the woman who made her career on trumped-up accusations of child abuse, supported by bullshit “recovered memory therapy” quackery? I’m honestly baffled; I thought your vendetta against whackaloons was nonpartisan.
Not when the alternative is a complete disruption of politics in Washington. This is a special election. She can be primaried when it is time to run for the real election. But Scott Brown is a yes-man for the tea party brigade.
Stephen Wells,
In this instance, history punk was quoting and responding to what a.human.ape said above. A blockquote would make it clearer, but those weren’t history punk’s words.
Don’t you just love the way that as soon as conservatives got into government, they set about proving that government doesn’t work. Now, after having reached the apotheosis of incompetence where a wilfully ignorant buffoon took the country out on an 8-year joy ride and wrecked it, they want us to give up on the remedy afer only one year. They tell us that both parties are two sides of the same coin, so it doesn’t matter who is in power.
I beg to differ. One party has managed to push through the only significant effort to fix our health system since the Great Society. It is imperfect, but it is a start. One party has managed to restore at least some of the prestiege our country once enjoyed. One party is sufficiently in touch with reality that they realize we need to do something about climate change.
The other party merely says “Nope.”
“Why does this sensible health care have to include an extra tax for people who refuse to have anything to do with it?”
What a concept.
I’m 17 and heading off to college later this year. Soon after that I will be paying taxes.
I don’t support the military and want nothing to do with it, and yet 36% of my taxes will end up going to it, not including the veteran’s fund or for Iraq and Afghanistan.
I don’t use libraries, yet I’ll still have to give up a portion of my paycheck to support them.
Quite a bit is already taken up by health care so…
Why are you complaining and I’m not?
I have felt that for a long time too but have always voted out of fear that the Republican would win and, I don’t know, erode our freedoms, bring us to the brink of financial collapse, our plunge us into war. What I didn’t understand until now is that YES, Democrats are just as beholden to the corporatists as are the Republicans, but where the Republicans are brash and bold in all that they do the Democrats are tepid and weak – thus walking us SLOWER to the edge of the abyss. I’m not sorry (okay, not REALLY sorry) that I have voted Democrat in the past because I think they are too timid to do the real big damage that the Republicans see as their birth right but I know that they are now just as corrupt. We need a a new party, but when they too become a willing participant in the corporate corruption that inevitably leaks into politics AND THEY WILL, we need to be ready to walk away from them too.
I used to complain that my Republican friends were voting against their own best interests. Now that I know I am voting against mine, how can I continue to vote Democratic and not be a hypocrite?
If anything displays your idiocy, that sentence right there does it.
You a big fan of Bill Maher are you?
ahumanape-
You realize the reason you can live such a healthy lifestyle is based on things like-
Vaccinations
the CDC
School lunches
Phys ed programs
goverment funded research into dietary studies
Water Treatment
USDA- Food regulations
I am not one for calling names but you make it real hard.
“Can somebody tell historypunk that his “healthy lifestyle” does not make him immune to infectious diseases, accidents, congenital conditions, aging, and being a clueless moron?”
That is my fault. I forgot both the blockquotes and the quotation marks. I was quoting #13.
Insurance is not an investment. It is not meant to return to most people what they put in. It is intended to pay out only to those who need it. Any sensible person would realize that they are buying insurance in the hope of never making a claim. Only by having a majority of healthy people paying in is it possible to cover the claims with a reasonably small premium.
There are more than two parties.
Good Lord, People: QUIT YER FRICKIN’ WHINING!!! We are trying to stop the decline of this country after 30 years of drifting the wrong way. Did you really think this would be a fricking cake walk?
Yes, the current healthcare bill is a disappointment. It was, however, the best that could be cobbled together with the current crop of DINOs, special interests and money politics. However, in case you didn’t notice, it does do some very important things: It keeps your insurance company from dropping you when you get sick. It ensures people with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. It helps millions of people get insurance. AND it is the first major health reform since Medicare and Medicaid. No President since LBJ has been able to get this far.
So let’s first stop the rot. Then we can start to rebuild. We didn’t dig this hole overnight. It’ll take a while to get out of it. Somehow, we have to make this work.
Even an actuarially fair system would be of benefit. It’s not necessary that the healthy bear more than their ‘fair share’ in order for insurance to be desirable.
If you breathe, your expected health care costs are more than zero (in a statistical sense), and the standard deviation on the costs is staggering. Insurance reduces standard deviation at the cost of raising expected costs.
Still, I disagree with the ‘fair share’ notion on general grounds — private health is a public good in ways that are pervasive, surprising, and hard to quantify. That’s aside from it being the moral/ethical option.
@37,
Yes, it was slightly more palatable when the filibuster required actual action, true. And with such required procedures, it would be easier to show average citizens just how ridiculous filibusters can be.
But then, I’m also not very contented by the idea that my tax money could go to pay someone to stand on the floor for 36 hours reading War and Peace (and 99 other people to sit there and listen), so there should at least be an “On Topic” rule (perhaps let a majority vote to declare something off topic, at which point a Senator loses floor speaking privileges for x amount of time).
Re: Maslab @52
I can understand the objection to funding the military, I’d prefer to cut it rather than eliminate it, but libraries?
What have you got against libraries & can a person actually get through college today without using them?
You’re absolutely right, _ray_, and I want Coakley to win. I wish we had a better candidate, is all.
truthspeaker says, “There are more than two parties.”
Not that actually govern.
I haven’t heard anyone say “Yellow Dog Democrat” for a couple of years now, haha.
I’m afraid, though, PZ, this is one I’ll have to disagree with you on… we lost sensible health care months ago. All we have left are mandates and a big win for the insurance companies.
So, no, I wouldn’t vote for Coakley, even if I could vote in Masschusetts. If electing Brown is the only way that the current bill is going to fail, then I support electing him.
InfraredEyes, Damn straight. So let’s fix the process. One thing I’ve wondered about: What about a tax on camapaign advertising that goes directly into the Public Fund? 10% maybe?
“What have you got against libraries & can a person actually get through college today without using them?”
I have no problem with libraries. They are a great resource for knowledge, which I fully support. I was just trying to make the point that “I don’t use them, so why should I have to pay for them?”
a_ray… (@51):
What you said! Now my Molly ballot for January is complete (assuming I don’t forget before it comes up).
truthspeaker (@40):
Leaving aside the fact that I think your “realization” is too cynical by half, if your “interests” include a more progressive society, you only have two reasonable choices: Eiterh you can [1] advocate the overthrow and replacement of our current system of government, or you can [2] vote, in every instance for the most progressive candidate that can plausibly win, and support, in every instance, the most progressive legislative agenda that can plausibly become law.
If you withhold your vote, or vote for more ideal, albeit hopeless, progressive candidates, or demand that your representatives support proposals that can never become law, you’re abandoning the field to the people who quite clearly, deliberately, dogmatically don’t represent your interests.
So we must support (and for those of us who are eligible, vote for) Martha Coakley, not because she or her campaign necessarily deserves our support, but because a Coakley win is better for the things we care about than a Coakley loss.
Unless you’re advocating literal revolution, a more progressive society isn’t going to come in one fell swoop; it’s going to come through chipping away, with mostly tiny little hammer blows, at the antiprogressive aspects of the world we live in.
I mentioned this in another thread, but I can’t understand the number of people who hang out on an evolution-focused blog as much as we do here, and yet still can’t wrap their heads around the power of tiny changes.
Bill Dauphin,
I agree with what you’re saying about voting, but I feel compelled to point out — maybe because I’m being perverse — that this process of continually voting for the most progressive candidate / supporting the most progressive law will not necessarily yield the most progressive government possible beyond the immediate term. A significant shift toward more progressive candidates / policies may drag the candidates / proposed policies to the left in the face of continued losses from the center.
If we continue to vote for democrats who move further and further to the right politically, we may be forging a pyrrhic victory.
“If you prefer your politics less cynical than that, perhaps you can suggest how democracy is best served by a hobbled opposition? Why is it a good thing that the majority party has the votes to pass anything they see fit?”
I can answer that, but I can’t answer why a strong majority is any better.
The tactics used by the minority party are too strong for the original design of senate procedural rules. Those rules were built assuming much less homogeneity. Getting a united minority was HARD back when the rules were written, but so was getting even a thin majority, so there’s a good reason to look into revising the things the minority party can do to obstruct the majority party; Why? Well, they DO need to have the ability to obstruct or otherwise slow down the opposition to a degree, but it needs to not be potentially infinite, requiring a nigh-veto proof majority JUST TO GET TO A VOTE.
I acknowledge Coakley’s history, and the problems with the so-called health reform bills, but Brown is a pro-torture tea-bagger, promising to stop the reform, and to let the bankers keep their stolen loot. I sometimes cast protest votes, but today I voted Coakley.
And TypePad still sux, and does not work with Opera.
Christ on a fucking cracker this is NOT simply a vote on the goddam health care bill!!! You would vote for a republican that can do years of damage and stonewalling progress just to kill a fucking health care bill? That’s pretty fucking myopic.
You vote republican if that party aligns with your political views and you think that party will serve your interests better… you vote democrat for the same reasons… you don’t fucking vote for a candidate for the sake of a single goddam bill!!
I still think you’re misusing the metaphor. I see no sign that progressive small changes exhibit a greater “fitness” in the current political landscape, and thus no reason to assume that they will result in positive change overall.
The power of tiny changes in evolution is directly related to the selective pressure being used to determine which changes lead to greater fitness. If the fitness landscape favors organisms that survive in hotter temperatures, all your tiny changes to improve fitness in colder temperatures aren’t going to add a whole lot. If the fitness landscape favors politicians that pander to the lowest common denominator and bow to corporate interests, your attempted tiny changes towards campaign finance and lobbying reform, or towards deciding actions based on reason instead of mindless fear, are not going to be more fit than those put in motion by the corporatists and the fearmongers.
Yes, but considering that in the 2008 election all the third party candidates combines got less than 2% of the vote, third parties aren’t really a viable option. I know the two major parties have stacked the rules against third party candidates. But if all 1.67 million third party votes had gone to McCain then Obama would still have won the election.
I know I’ve written this before (and will probably post it again) but the last time a third party became viable in the US was before the Civil War.
Until the 1850s the two major political parties were the Whigs and the Democrats. Sectional antagonisms fomented by the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 tore the Whigs apart. The Democrats embraced a pro-slavery stance but the Whigs refused to become the anti-slavery party.
By 1854 mass meetings were being held in Michigan, Wisconsin, and other Midwestern states, and the Republican party was born. A coalition made up principally of former Whigs (Lincoln had been a Whig) and disgruntled Democrats, the movement spread to other Northern states. In 1856, the Republicans nominated John Fremont for the presidency and, although the Democratic candidate, James Buchanan won, Fremont did quite respectably.
Because the Republicans were purely sectional and strongly anti-slavery, Southerners viewed the Republican Party’s growth with dismay. A Republican presidential victory, many warned, would so endanger Southern interests as to warrant secession from the Union. When Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election, the threat became reality.
OK… setting aside that your argument may be accurate, what do you propose is the answer? Certainly it’s not simply withholding your vote or voting for the party that clearly contradicts your own interests…
You make a salient point here:
which I think could be the single thing that might change the landscape dramatically in a way that would prevent what Miki Z points out above: “If we continue to vote for democrats who move further and further to the right politically, we may be forging a pyrrhic victory.”
That point is the one about bowing to corporate interests. What we desperately need, as much if not more than health care reform, is campaign finance reform and lobby reform. Make contributions from any and all corporations illegal. Period. I would gladly commit .5% of my salary to a tax that would go towards campaign funds and remove corporations and lobbyists from the equation altogether. That way we could potentially have a government that is motivated by the will of the people instead of the pocketbooks of lobbyists.
I think that is realistic change that can, and should happen.
I don’t know if the change itself is realistic in this country, because you’d be taking on THE ENTIRE LOBBY SYSTEM, but I know the system itself can be run pretty well.
I wish I had an answer. For now, I vote for whichever candidate closest fits my views.
In what world is that realistic? You need the politicians to make corporate contributions to their own campaigns illegal. As much as I agree that it is the right (and my preferred) answer, there’s no way I consider it a realistic change. I’d even go further and mandate that any “junkets” that politicians go on to learn about corporations or products should be taxpayer funded. I’d gladly pay a portion of my wages to be sure our politicians aren’t being corrupted by free trips for (ostensibly necessary) information gathering purchases. It’s absolutely insane that civil service employees need to report any “gifts” in the range of $50, while the people that actually make huge decisions are assumed to be unimpeachable, incorruptible sources of virtue when it comes to getting free stuff.
But what Senator is going to vote against their perks? I can imagine maybe half a dozen that might consider voting for that type of bill out of principle.
Yeah… I should have better worded that… I think it’s realistic in terms of the mechanism… i.e. a change that could easily be implemented… not that I realistically expect it will actually happen.
You are right though, it would take a revolutionary level of public will to force through such a change, I agree.
We’re better off without the health care bill they’re going to pass. There will be no enforcement mechanism for any of the insurance regulations. There will, however, be one for us. If you don’t have an insurance policy, you’ll be fined by the IRS.
There is no public health insurance option. There is no real restriction on lifetime caps (not that it matters, see enforcement, lack of, above).
This health care “reform” bill is a farce.
Purely from that perspective, we’re better off without Coakley.
If you don’t think Coakley is progressive enough, I suggest you vote for someone else.
*sigh*
#13’s real name is obviously Andrew Ryan, and he is scared to death that the KGB and CIA are both out to invade his underwater city of Rapture and steal all his plasmids. (Bioshock reference) lol
‘Tis Himself, OM @ 74, actually the US national penchant to divide ourselves along lines of ideology began shortly after assumed self governance, and there were quite a few different political parties representing various ideologies long before the Whigs and Democrats. The earliest that I’m aware of were the Federalists, founded by Alexander Hamilton, and the Democratic-Republicans, founded by Thomas Jefferson.
Although some might argue the earliest parties evolved into the modern Republican and Democrat parties of today, I believe a review of the relevant history doesn’t bear this out. Certainly while some of their ideologies are still germane in today’s politics — the size, scope and role of the federal government, national defense, intervention in foreign affairs — things have changed so much since then than many of the topics affecting national policy we debate today would be incomprehensible to members of the earliest parties.
Given the changing political landscape, the movement of politicians between dying political parties and a willingness on the part of party leaders to swap ideologies with changing political winds in early US politics, I think is fair to say the earliest parties dissolved rather than evolved.
Miki Z (@69):
Well, at some level, the immediate term is everything, because it’s not ever going to remain static: If you sacrifice the immediate term in preference to a longer term strategy, the anti-progressive forces won’t wait around for you to get there; they will drag the the starting line to the right as fast as they can. I strongly doubt the existence of long-term strategies that can overwhelm the abdication of the immediate term1.
You move a party to the left in primaries or in caucuses, conventions, town party meetings, etc. You cannot move a party to the left by losing general elections to candidates to your right. I’ve never suggested that voting for the Martha Coakleys of the world is sufficient to achieve a more progressive future, only that it’s necessary.
Paul (@73):
I still think you think I’m making a more detailed metaphor than I really am: I don’t mean to be making a categorical comparison of electoral politics to evolution, I only mean to be pointing out the potential for large effects from tiny changes. I picked evolution as a metaphor because it seemed relevant to this community… but it could just as easily have been the creation of stalactites and stalagmites, or the erosion of the Grand Canyon.
All that said…
The fitness landscape in electoral politics favors what wins; you can never influence the fitness landscape in your favor by losing to the forces that most oppose what you want. As I point out to Miki Z above, I believe there are ways to influence the fitness landscape positively (and they’re more accessible to “regular people” than most realize)… but losing general elections to rightwing nutbags isn’t one of those ways!
(@77):
Why do you think that? Most of the politicians I know hate fundraising, and particularly hate the forms of fundraising that don’t involve contact with actual voters/constituents. As hard as it is to believe, most of them got involved in the first place because they care about policy, and about their constituents; they see the requirement to raise money for campaigns a burdensome distraction.
I have some concerns about 100% public financing of campaigns (in CT we passed a public financing plan, and the most liberal minor parties in the state have sued to get it overturned; go figure…), because I think being a small-dollar donor gives a voter a sense of investment in the process that is a positive good for representative government. I also wonder if limitations on third-party political advertising can ultimately survive constitutional scrutiny. That said, I would support any effort to take instutional money and very large donations out of the process… and my sense is that most officeholders would be quite happy to be relieved, to any significant degree, of the burden of constant fundraising.
You really think people go through all of the tsuris it takes to become a U.S. Senator just so they can scam a vacation or a free round of golf here or there? It takes decades of incredibly hard work to get to that level of politics (well, it does unless your name is Kennedy or Bush <g>): It’s got to be the hardest way imaginable to get “free” stuff!
1 Hmmm… after I wrote my comment, it dawned on me that you may have meant “term” more literally, as in “term of office.” I was reading it as is the distinction between near-term (or short-term) and long-term approaches, and that’s how you should interpret my comments.
OK, Celtic_Evolution, what are you giving up when this thing passes? Are you going to be saddled with a choice of spending thousands of dollars for insurance that won’t meet your needs? I am, and so are millions of other Americans.
You, like all other condescending asses I’ve encountered, haven’t answered the most basic and obvious objection – there is no enforcement mechanism. They deliberately left it out. Like Medicaid funding for 48 of the 50 states, they left that little problem to the states, who have already proved they’re not up to the task.
So, if you’re not giving up something, then kiss my furry butt.
Celtic_Evolution @ 75 said, ‘I would gladly commit .5% of my salary to a tax that would go towards campaign funds and remove corporations and lobbyists from the equation altogether.’
Especially considering we are likely paying much more than that already. The money corporations spend on lobbying is reflected directly in higher costs to you and me for the goods and services they produce. And if I’m not mistaken, lobbying costs are tax deductible.
None of which, of course, takes into account the waste inherent in the corruption our political system breeds.
cujo359 (@84):
Gee, thanks for the link to your ramblings. Taking your assertion that a poor family of 4 (making do on $20k/yr) will be obligated to pay $1,600.00 for health insurance at face value, let me ask you this: Do you really believe it would cost a family of 4 less than that to be uninsured?? If you think so, you either haven’t ever had a family, or you’re a manifestly unfit parent.
Your argument that life sucks for the working poor is persuasive; your argument that not having health insurance makes it better for them is fucking stupid.
As to your question about what Celtic_Evolution would give up, I can’t speak for another poster, but I would happily accept higher taxes in exchange for a sane national healthcare policy. The notion that those of us who support healthcare reform are in it for some sort of pecuniary gain is bullshit. I already have great health insurance; I want my neighbors to have great health insurance, too. If this bill passes, and it turns out in practice to be a net negative for the working poor (I don’t believe it will, but stipulating for the sake of argument), I will support — and campaign for, and donate money to — candidates who promise to raise my taxes to fix it.
So please, get your dogdamn furry butt out of my frackin’ face.
May Coakley win big and go on to an illustrious career of compromise and sell outs to corporate America, reliably voting for war and oligarchy like the rest of the club.
That’s what’s called a self-defeating prophecy.
The problem with your analysis is you’re starting from presidential elections. Political change starts from the bottom up, not the top down. As long as we voters continue to think we are at the mercy of the system, instead of the other way around, we will be stuck with the two parties. Once we realize that we could be in control if only we seized it, things can change.
In 1998, in my home state, we had a brief respite. We elected a loud-mouth who turned out to be the best governor we’ve had in decades. It can happen, but only if we stop letting the parties and the press tell us how the system has to work.
Whether or not they hate it, it’s how elections get won on the national level. Even somewhat more locally, the “forms of fundraising that don’t involve contact with actual voters/constituents” are where the real war chest comes from. Even politicians that don’t like it will not vote against it because it wouldn’t pass. Do you really think that Republicans that depend on large astroturfing efforts and corporate support would not filibuster anything to do with campaign finance reform?
Nothing I said implies that. My point did not discuss motives for achieving office, they discussed what they do once they’re in office. It doesn’t just apply to politicians, so there’s no need for the fainting couch on behalf of the poor put-upon Senators. Do you lobby your employer for longer working hours and fewer vacation days? Would you raise a referendum in your office to vote on it?
Whether or not they were at all motivated by “perks” in their decision to run for office, they exist and they are used to influence legislation to a very scary degree. Is this controversial? That was the only implication I was making.
That’s the problem with our democracy. Voters aren’t nearly cynical enough.
If you aren’t cynical about politics, you aren’t paying attention. Most Democrats voted for the DMCA, for the Iraq War, for telecom immunity. They serve at the pleasure of business interests and do their bidding. They do not work for us.
And that’s what I do. But I have no illusions it will lead to progress.
And when you automatically assume some things aren’t plausible because the political and media establishment says they aren’t, you’ve already lost the game. It was plausible that a single-payer health care plan would pass until the establishment decided it wasn’t. It would have been plausible to prosecute Bush administration officials for authorizing torture but neither party will allow that to happen.
I was born in 1970, when both major parties supported the Vietnam War. I’m sure both parties had advisers telling them that opposition to the war wasn’t politically expedient. The situation now is pretty much the same.
truthspeaker@88 said: ‘Political change starts from the bottom up, not the top down. As long as we voters continue to think we are at the mercy of the system, instead of the other way around, we will be stuck with the two parties.’
There is even more to the equation, as reflected in the following quote (often misattributed to Alexis de Tocqueville assuming wikipedia is correct):
‘The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.’
While I agree with your sentiment truthspeaker, I fear we have a Sisyphean challenge ahead to convince the majority…
@87: I can’t believe that you think that a vote for Brown would be better in this respect. His ties to Wall Street are well known, despite not advertising them in his campaign literature.
What’s going on in Mass. is backlash due to the economy. One of the immediate implications is a more difficult (at a minimum) health care environment. Massachusetts already HAS a mandate — and 97% health care coverage. Put there, might I add, by a Republican governor. Mass. has been hit hard by the economic crisis — its main economic sector is Manufacturing which has been hit disproportionately hard by the recession. And American voters are well known to cut off their nose to spite their face. “They aren’t doing it, so even though the other party has no ideas either, I need to vote for them.”
Bill Dauphin @86
I, too, would happily give up higher taxes for real health care. Like Celtic_Evolution, though, you have failed to understand the basic point – that’s not what this is. How private insurance operates will remain the same under this new bill. What will change is that we are now forced to pay for it.
Let me emphasize, again, because you don’t seem to have comprehended this. THERE IS NO ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM for insurance. There is only an enforcement mechanism to make you buy insurance. Perhaps the congressional priorities inherent in those conditions give you comfort, but they wouldn’t be a comfort to anyone who understands why we have police and prosecutors.
So, until your reading comprehension skills improve to at least the level of a moron, I’d say your evaluation of my writing isn’t going to have much effect on my style.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case. What really happens is they’ve discovered they can bribe a very small number of people in the private sector with the public’s money, while said private sector folks kick back a portion of that money to help Congress keep getting re-elected. At least if the public were being bribed, they’d get something out of the situation.
Their perks are more than that – many of them get lucrative jobs in the very industries that lobbied them while they were in politics.
But I think many politicians at the national level are well-meaning doofuses who really think they are doing the right thing for the country. They are just so naive that they get snowed by lobbyists and the leaders of their parties, who deliberately chose easily-manipulated, well-meaning doofuses to run as candidates.
linky
truthspeaker @ 95
I wouldn’t want to comment on the relative numbers at this point. There are clearly plenty, though, who know where their bread is buttered. For them, I think the priority is to stay in power, and they’ll do whatever they think it takes. They may or may not feel sorry for us little folks, but in the end we’re really not their problem.
@#72
You’re right, it’s not just a vote on the shoddy-ass healthcare bill, and that’s not reason alone to vote for Brown.
But a lot of people are encouraging Massachusetts residents to vote for Coakley JUST because of this bill, so turnabout is fair play.
She’s a Democrat, but that doesn’t mean she’s a good one. It doesn’t mean she knows how to relate to her constituents, and it doesn’t mean she’ll listen to them. Based on how the Democrats have acted in recent years, I can’t count on them to act based solely on their supposed principles.
One Republican is not going to do years of damage or stonewall progress. Republicans haven’t had a majority like the Democrats would have even if Brown won since 1923, yet they still managed to accomplish quite a lot, thanks.
This is not the end of the world for Democrats, y’all can all calm yourselves.
truthspeaker (@90):
Wow. I’m prepared to entertain the idea that I’m not cynical enough, but that’s too cynical. On the whole, I’d rather have my problem.
People say this, but I see no evidence that the opposition to single-payer (aka, “goddam European socialism”) would have been any less fervent, or any less effective, than the opposition we’ve seen; indeed, I see plenty of evidence that it would’ve been even more committed.
Did you attend any of the health care town hall meetings this summer? I did, and even though I live in a deep blue state that’s probably more friendly to the idea than all but a handful of the other states to single-payer, yet there never failed to be strong opposition to single-payer whenever the issue was raised. And that was even in the relatively sane, civil sessions I attended before the teabaggers got all spooled up. I may be wrong, but in my estimation, any attempt to push single payer (which, BTW, would be my personal choice for reform, in a perfect world) at this moment in history would’ve resulted in [a] no healthcare reform at all, [b] sweeping defeat for Democrats for at least two election cycles, and possibly [c] literal blood in the streets (i.e., I quite seriously felt in fear for my safety at one of these meetings… and that was in CT, with nothing approaching single payer on the table). Of course, we may end up with [a] and [b] anyway, but I think our odds are better on those counts, and I’m pretty sure we’ll avoid [c].
People seem to think the only variable in the “getting things done” equation is the commitment of the advocates; they tend to ignore that other term: the strength of the opposition. The big Democratic gains of 2006 and 2008 are somewhat illusory: They didn’t happen because the country moved sharply to the left; they happened because the Bush adminstration marked an historic confluence of evil and incompetence, and because the Republican party moved so far to the right that it left moderates and centrists behind. That’s a recipe for many positive changes; it’s not a recipe for moving the policy “center of mass” very far to the left. And howevermuch I lament that we’re not moving sharply to the left, I’m not willing to turn my back on the good things we can do.
Which brings me to…
This I agree with… but it would’ve been the only thing we got accomplished. I admit my bias is to favor getting shit done over punishing people for bad shit that’s already happened, and I conceed there’s another side of that argument. But I don’t apologize for being on the side I’m on. Disappointed as many are with Obama, the things he’s already accomplished have more power to make my life — and all y’all’s, too — better than any amount of shame and legal retribution we might have heaped on Bush, Cheney, et al. YMMV.
I still say the best path to a more progressive future is to work within the currently most progressive viable party to make it both more progressive and more electorally competitive. To those on other paths, I say good luck. Please recognize that our goals are the same, even though our paths are not.
Can’t they both lose? I hate republicans more than anyone, but if getting another Democrat makes it easier for them to pass half-assed legislation that doesn’t fix the problems we need fixed while giving huge handouts to massively profitable corporations then I’m not interested.
Hell, no, because town hall meetings are a complete waste of time that add nothing to democracy. The fact that you are basing what you see as political reality on staged protests at staged town-hall meetings tells me a lot about your level of naivete about our political process.
It’s not just about shame and retribution, it’s about preventing them or people like them from doing similar things in 2, 6, or 10 years. One of the biggest mistakes the Democrats made after Watergate was letting the investigations, especially the Church committee, die down. The people who dragged this country’s name through the mud during the Cold War learned that they could break the law and get away with it, so when Bush brought them back into government, they did it again.
Even when the party leadership is dead set against the former, and convinced that becoming more moderate is the only way to acheive the latter?
I vote Democrat, mostly, in the short term, but ultimately I want to see the party split or destroyed entirely. It is beyond saving at this point.
I do not like the democrats plan as it simply is the wrong way to do this. On the other hand, I am displeased with the republican’s lack of a plan (is deregulation that hard? Why not promote some competition aka. Natural Selection>?)
Consumers alway win when there is competition instead of this artificially created insurance environment.
Personally, I think the Democrats need a good “come to jeebus” wake up call. They have been dictating from the top instead of doing the will of the people. I have seen the will of the people at the local town hall meetings…. My rep is NOT doing what the people want… in fact he is doing the exact opposite.
Even in my area where you can’t win an election unless you have a D next to your name.
Wow, history and economics fail.
If we deregulate health care, the very rich will have excellent health care, the affluent will have decent health care, and everyone else will have none.
“Martha Coakley–The Picture Of Psychological Entitlement”
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/adventures-in-old-age/201001/martha-coakley-the-picture-psychological-entitlement
What part of this is not just about the healthcare bill do you not understand?
Is it conceivable to you, you fucking pretentious douchebag, that I can in fact oppose the current healthcare bill and still see it as critical that we get a democrat elected to this senate seat for the long term good?
Get your head out of your ass you short-sighted piece of shit and perhaps try to see that this election isn’t simply about the one thing you would like it to be about.
Frankly, I can’t think of anything Obama has done to make my life better. I will give him credit for putting actual restrictions on how banks can use bailout money, but that’s about all I can think of.
#102
There have been Republican plans. Why do you suppose they haven’t been mentioned in the press?
I suppose because they involve things the insurance industry opposes, such as being allowed to buy policies across state lines.
The worst thing about the plan under consideration is it would force people to buy policies without doing anything to improve the quality or competitiveness.
Just a question: how many things have you bought that looked less desirable the closer and longer you looked?
truthspeaker:
The fact that you think them having been staged means they don’t matter tells me a lot about your (admittedly somewhat ironic) level of naivete. Of course those crowds were manipulated… but those were real people (at the meetings I attended, nobody was bused in) and the fact that they’d been lied to for the purpose of stoking their fear doesn’t make their emotion any less palpable. Everyone’s quick to declare that the Good Guys™ are influenced by the effects of money in the process, but the invidious effects of the Bad Guys’© money are equally quickly attributed to the Good Guys’™ cowardice. Heads, I win; tails, you lose, eh?
The facts on the ground are that, howevermuch the forces of darkness have cheated to make it so, the opposition to any health reform is deep and committed… and the opposition to single-payer was always strong, even before they started cheating.
You’re assuming facts not in evidence. But even if you’re right, the answer is to for each progressive to become one of the party leaders. It’s more plausible than you might think.
And now I’m done for the day, because I grow weary of people trying to convince me that it’s all just too fucking hopeless, and that I’m an idiot for imagining a better future. Y’all may be right, but if so, I’m happier being wrong. ‘Night, all….
Are you familiar with the 1870s to, oh, 1900s in Merika?
You’re not an idiot for imagining a better future, but if you think that future will be acheived through the Democratic party…
Bill, the reason posts like yours get me so riled up is that it is obvious that both parties are horribly, horribly corrupt, and the reason they get away with it is that there are too many people who wilfully blind themselves to that corruption.
No… I don’t necessarily… but I do think that supporting it, right now, is the best of my available realistic options to affect the kind of change that most closely resembles what I’d like to see…
In the meantime, I can and will continue to seek a better way… but until then, I simply can’t condone throwing up my hands and giving up or supporting a party a know is the polar opposite of what I believe.
And no, I’m not saying you are necessarily advocating those tactics either, truthspeaker. I agree with much of what you are saying in principal, and would actually like to know what you think are some good ways we could affect real change in the way our government currently works.
Aggressive deregulation of the mortgage market in the early 1980s triggered innovations that greatly reduced the required home equity of US households. This allowed households to cash-out a large part of accumulated equity, which equaled 71 percent of GDP in 1982. A borrowing surge followed: Household debt increased from 43 to 62 percent of GDP in the 1982-2000 period. A lot of that debt was called in just a couple of years ago. Remember the economic meltdown?
This is a special election. The choices aren’t great, but it beats the governor selecting the replacement – maybe.
To change the political climate will require work. I currently write all my representatives, most times receiving a form letter in reply. Sometimes, however, I have received a more personal response. It does get frustrating to have them vote in ways I’m against.
I live in Washington State, and usually attend the caucus. I’ve met my Representative, but neither of my Senators. I do try to keep up on the more local candidates as well, and will vote/work for the more progressive LOCAL candidate. The only real way I see that changes can happen at the State and Federal level is to have the groundswell of progressives at the local level. Kind of what the Cons are trying/doing.
I voted this morning!
truthspeaker:
No it isn’t.
That is, it’s not “obvious,” I don’t believe it’s broadly true, and to my personal knowledge it’s not true in my town or my state, nor of at least 5 members of the U.S. House that I could name.
If you truly believe what you say, and aren’t just repeating the talking points of hopeless cynicism, show me something better. In the meantime, I’m actively working to support and improve the best of what we have.
I’m not “willfully blind” to anything; you might consider the possibility that you have been blinded (I won’t insult you with “willfully”) by the conspicuous corruption of the relative few to the honesty and good work that characterizes the vast majority of those actively involved in politics.
In any case, you say you vote along the same lines as I do, and the only difference is that you do so without hope… and that’s preferable… why??
Election update:
I voted about 4:00PM. The polling place in my town was more crowded by far than at any other election in the over 20 years I’ve lived here. That includes Presidential elections.
Whether a heavy turnout is a good sign or not, I can’t really judge. The weather is crappy but lots of people are voting anyway. If it means anything, Coakley had two sign-wavers outside the polling place, and Brown had about a dozen (raw wet weather or not).
Considering the realistic alternatives, do you think we’d be better off letting the republicans regain control and win senate seats?
Well, this thread is yet another instance demonstrating that, just because someone is an atheist or a scientist, that doesn’t guarantee that they aren’t an ignorant arrogant moron without an understanding of how politics works or the maturity to take the action leading to the best consequences even when those aren’t the consequences they desire.
Uh…lack of corruption? Surely you don’t think it’s a coincidence that opposition to health care reform can be predicted based on the list of people who receive money from the health care lobby? Or that defense contractors spread their operations out to many different states so as to make sure Congresscritters are on board because when they approve of defense spending, some of it will go to their state and thus make them look good when it comes time for re-election?
Is your argument really that even if the world sucks, you’d rather pretend it doesn’t to keep the warm fuzzies coming in your head? I mean, that’s fine, but don’t act like people who prefer to try and see things as they are instead of as they wish they were are somehow misguided.
Uh…lack of corruption? Surely you don’t think it’s a coincidence that opposition to health care reform can be predicted based on the list of people who receive money from the health care lobby?
Non sequitur. It seems you didn’t read or comprehend what Bill wrote.
No, I read it. It’s more of what he’s been saying, “I and the politicians I rub elbows with aren’t corrupt, so any allegations of widespread corruption are ill-founded”. The fact that I don’t have a 10 point plan suggesting action to fix it doesn’t mean that pointing out corruption is more widespread than he wants us to believe is not relevant.
Celtic_Evolution @ 105 – What it is about to you is what it is about to you, pretentious little shit for brains. If you don’t like what I make it out to be, that’s fine, but don’t act like anyone who disagrees with you is dumber than you are, asshat.
Incidentally, pissant, the health care bill is just symptomatic of a far larger issue, which is that the Democrats don’t give a damn about us. It’s been shown by their priorities in the banking crisis, in their continued quest for unconstitutional powers, and in their general habit of saying what we want to hear and then doing something entirely different.
Oh, and crotch-face, I assume that since you didn’t mention that you’re giving up anything you’ll really miss, you aren’t.
Thank you for playing, you pretentious, dimwitted asshole.
You’re not an idiot for imagining a better future, but if you think that future will be acheived through the Democratic party…
Are you an essentialist? Do you think the Democratic Party is a fixed entity? Once upon a time, a better future for millions of people was achieved through the Republican Party, but it changed. The Democratic Party too has changed, having shifted in the progressive direction through a concerted effort of progressive activists — not that you or a lot of
other uninvolved armchair commenters here would know anything about that. Smart progressives continue their struggle to wrest power from the blue dogs and other reactionary elements in the DP, while foolish cynics continue to satisfy themselves with ignorant, stupid characterizations of “the Democratic Party” as if it were a fixed unified entity.
That is truth speaking.
@ https://openid.org/cujo359
Fail.
Smarter ones would realize that is a hopeless cause and leave to form a new party.
No, I read it.
Then you didn’t comprehend it, and you continue to dwell in the false dichotomies of the immature cynic.
Smarter ones would realize that is a hopeless cause and leave to form a new party.
History and logic indicate that only cretins would think that.
And by the way, “truthspeaker”, you stupid arrogant smug ass, what party have you started recently? What action of any use whatsoever have you taken?
So just fuck you.
I don’t have a good solution. I have a few ideas, including trying to mobilize and educate people directly, instead of working through politicians. But that only works if voters are willing to put in the effort, and do so constantly. Too many people seem to think that if they just elect someone who, on paper, agrees with their views, then they can just let the politicians handle things until the next election. But elected officials need to be prodded constantly. If we don’t prod them, someone else with more money will.
Some of the tools are out there, for those willing to see – Common Cause keeps a pretty good list of what groups donate to what candidates. If you correlate that with their voting records, you get a good idea of who works for whom. But again, voters have to be willing to put in the effort to find this information.
One thing we really need to do is start ignoring the mainstream American press. They only have power if we listen to them. If, everytime we share news with friends, we share a link to the BBC or Reuters, that will help people realize there are other sources out there than the crap on TV.
And we should definitely be supporting third parties whenever possible at the local and state level. Even within the Democratic party, we should be supporting the progressive candidates over the ones picked by the leadership, and try to subvert and discredit the party leadership at every turn.
Finally we should learn something from the Republican base, who have been awfully successful: don’t be afraid of making a stand on a single issue. Imagine if state parties across the country had added a plank to their platform that no Senator who voted for the Iraq war resolution would get that state’s party endorsement. Being obnoxious and single-minded is, unfortunately, often effective.
But none of this matters if the voters don’t pay attention and make the effort. The price of liberty is constant vigilance. People with a lot more money than us spend a lot of time telling our elected representatives what to do. We can’t just sit back and hope that nice people who mean well will do the right thing.
truthspeaker says, “There are more than two parties.”
Not that actually govern.
And not that can obtain power in our first-past-the-post voting system, as demonstrated by election theorist Ken Arrow — not that an ignoramus like “truthspeaker” would know anything about that. Such cretins don’t understand political forces or strategies, treat political parties as fixed uniform entities, and are completely unaware of internal party forces and history.
Even within the Democratic party, we should be supporting the progressive candidates over the ones picked by the leadership
Well, you’re not a compete idiot, but you are an arrogant one, ignorant of the progressive movement that has been doing just that, putting their money and their feet where your mouth is. The end result should be, of course, to replace the leadership — again, these institutions are not fixed entities. Howard Dean as the chair of the DNC was a consequence of progressive efforts, it led to the “50 state strategy” that was heavily opposed by conservative elitist elements of the DP, the strategy that was picked up by the Obama campaign. Despite the many justified criticisms of Obama, he better represents progressive interests than John McCain and Sarah Palin, who would be in the White House if the DLC were still running things.
And yet, occasionally third party candidates get elected.
What I’d love to see is the Republican party split between it’s godbot crowd and it’s big business crowd, who really have very little in common with each other, and see the Democratic party split between its progressive crowd and its big business crowd. This would introduce new problems, but change is better than stagnation.
I want to thank Bill Dauphin for bringing a mature, informed voice to this discussion, and to Truth Machine for calling us out with an important question: What have we done to change the things we complain about?
I would love for the Democratic Party to move in a more progressive direction. I believe it is actually doing so, but the process is a slow one – and you’ve got to have the foresight to stick with the long slog.
I moved from Massachusetts to North Carolina – hardly a bastion of liberalism. I am lucky enough to have a Democratic Representative and to have a recently-elected Democratic Senator (Kay Hagan). When I had concerns over public policy a few months ago, I was able to call both of their offices and voice my concerns, and while I wasn’t able to speak to either of them directly, the staffers I spoke to were not only polite and generous with their time, but I got a call back from Senator Hagan’s office later that evening (after regular hours) with answers to my questions.
So you use your voice, to start with. But if you feel your voice isn’t enough, you march (I have), you organize (I have), you negotiate across a table (I have) – and you take responsibility for your government.
Two bad choices in Massachusetts? That may be, but in this case, one choice is FAR more inimical to a progressive agenda than the other. Don’t like it? Do the things I mentioned above. As we used to say on the picket line, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” (Thank you, Mr. Gandhi.)
I don’t think Howard Dean getting coopted by the establishment is the kind of thing I wanted to support.
I mean, his strategy worked, the Democrats took over Congress in 2006, and then they did nothing with it. No hearings on the Iraq war or the WMD intelligence. No hearings on domestic spying or torture.
There’s a time to try to change something from within, and a time to get the hell off the sinking ship.
I am a longtime green and I don’t live in Massachusetts. But given how she handled the Amiraults affair I would rather vote for a creationist conservative than that woman.
And yet, occasionally third party candidates get elected.
And occasionally people win lotteries, but it’s not a good financial strategy.
What I’d love to see
There are lots of things we would all love to see. As I said, it takes maturity to take those actions that lead to the best (available) consequences, even when they aren’t the consequences we dream of.
change is better than stagnation
Again, the DP is not a fixed entity; sheesh. It is not stagnant, despite your nearly complete ignorance about it.
See, I would vote for her, precisely because I’m cynical. I expect every election to be between the lesser of two evils. And that’s my answer to Bill’s question earlier. Why do I vote like he does? Because I’m choosing the lesser of two evils, as I expect to do in a country with a democratic form of government. And then once that lesser evil is elected, I hammer him or her at every turn in an attempt to counter the other forces that are trying to influence him or her.
So we should just have faith that the Democratic party is slowly, quietly (very quietly) changing from the inside?
The only way it is going to change from the inside is if we publicly, loudly criticize every wrong move they make, point out every vote they take that was dicated by a lobbyist, threaten to withdraw our support whenever they fuck up, and, most importantly, remember that power attracts the crooked like a light attracts bugs.
There’s a time to try to change something from within, and a time to get the hell off the sinking ship.
And then there are ignorant morons like you who dwell in stupid analogies that have no relation to reality. Political parties aren’t ships with fixed infrastructures that get holes in them, they are groups of human beings and thus far more, um, fluid.
What’s so fucking magical about “a new party”? There’s corruption in both parties because corporations buy who they can — what would make a new party immune?
Nothing. It would become corrupted in 2-12 years. And then we would try to reform it, and if we couldn’t, we would leave it for a new party and start all over again. That’s the idea.
And more groups would be more fluid.
Am I the only one who finds this confrontation between two people with the most self-important handles around Pharyngula hilarious for that reason alone?
It would seem that we have some folks here with very short memories. Hmm, wasn’t it just over a year ago that we were having a debate about whether waterboarding was torture or not. And about the same time, weren’t we forbidden from harvesting stem cells from embryos that were about to be autoclaved anyway? And wasn’t the response to climate change, “We’ll study it,” rather than hopping on a frigging plane and trying to salvage some deal out of Copenhagen.
The Democrats aren’t perfect. They frustrate the hell out of me. However, they do at least seem to exchange holiday greetings with reality. Yes, Coakley is a douchbag, but she is at least a douchebag who will keep Republican’s from reading War and Peace on the Senate floor while the country burns.
Obama has been in office 1 year, people. Think where the hell we were a year ago. The economy was in freefall. Our reputation was in tatters. Healthcare reform was a shoal on which Democratic leaders wrecked. Compare that to where we are now and hold your frigging nose and vote!
*Chomps popcorn while watching the fun.*
But who is the real Spartacus?
I don’t think Howard Dean getting coopted by the establishment is the kind of thing I wanted to support.
Sheesh but you’re a cretin. Dean’s strategy got us far more progressives in Congress, and a Dem President instead of (as I repeat one of my many points that you ignore) John McCain; that his strategy won out over the elitist establishment’s does not mean that he got “coopted”. And the result of getting more progressives in Congress was not “nothing” — the power of the reactionaries and the corporations is strong and not easily overturned — a point ignored by immature fools like you with your “new party” magic wand.
So we should just have faith that the Democratic party is slowly, quietly (very quietly) changing from the inside?
Who said anything about faith? It’s only quiet to ignoramuses — like how quiet transition fossils are to creationists who indulge in similar argumentum ad ignorantiam.
The only way it is going to change from the inside is if we publicly, loudly criticize every wrong move they make, point out every vote they take that was dicated by a lobbyist, threaten to withdraw our support whenever they fuck up, and, most importantly, remember that power attracts the crooked like a light attracts bugs.
Do you ever read DailyKos, Democratic Underground, or other progressive Democratic blogs? This is exactly what they do. However, threatening to withdraw support has its limitations, because the reality (something with which you seem unable to cope) is that the alternative is even worse. That’s why we can’t afford to treat the DP as some static thing that we either support or not, we have to change it by gradually replacing power wielders we don’t like with those we do.
Ok, the election is nearly history and I’ve had enough of this shit arguing with ignorant cynics. Bye.
Nnnnnnope.
….*Kg really shouldn’t have said that, though*
*/armchair commenter* ;P
I think I’ll change my handle to really-truly-absolutely-and-utterly-the-truth-the-whole-truth-and-nothing-but-the-truth-honest-and-no-returns! Then maybe I’ll be believed!
Am I the only one who finds this confrontation between two people with the most self-important handles around Pharyngula hilarious for that reason alone?
At least my handle somewhat fits my content, as numerous people here have observed and attested.
Nothing. It would become corrupted in 2-12 years. And then we would try to reform it, and if we couldn’t, we would leave it for a new party and start all over again. That’s the idea.
A transparently stupid idea, not least because 2-12 years isn’t enough time to
win enough seats to achieve anything. And this bit about “if we couldn’t” — kindly provide an operational test for determining that a party cannot be reformed, and demonstrate that the DP satisfies it.
It would seem that we have some folks here with very short memories.
The ability to not remember, or to pretend to, is a prerequisite for intellectual dishonesty.
Then maybe I’ll be believed!
Your high credibility doesn’t rest on your handle and neither does mine. I’ve changed mine before but I went back to this one because it was well known.
Sorry, still funny.
Sorry, still funny.
I know, but I like like to play it straight.
And more groups would be more fluid.
Non sequitur and incredibly stupid and dishonest in context.
[cynical rant on]
It’s not corruption, it’s not campaign contributions. The real power the large corporate lobby groups (banking and finance, militaro-industrial, pharmaceutical and insurance, mega-retail…) hold vis a vis our governments is not via these mechanisms. They hold our politicians by the balls because our over-developped economies have become so fragile and chronically dependent on these large corporations that no politician is going to take the risk to let one of them fail and cause a complete collapse.
The name of the game for all politicians in charge is, how to kick the can the furthest down the road so that it doesn’t explode whilst they are in charge.
You don’t want to bail out this big bank ? Fine, let it fail, you’ll see the mega-chaos you get into.
You want to change the regulations on bonuses ? Fine, we’ll move to dubai or Sinagapore.
You want to reduce significantly the military spending ? Fine, how many people are we going to fire ?
You want to change the regulations for the social or medical insurance schemes ? Fine, it will just collapse a bit faster because there’s no way there are enough reserves to cover the unfunded liabilities that have accumulated.
That’s where the real power of the lobbies stand.
The problem repeats itself more or less everywhere in the over-developped-over-indebted world : all major parties (those that have a chance to assume power through the electoral process) have become only slightly different flavours of the same corporatist party (dems or GOP in the US, UMP or socialist in France, Conserv. or labour in the UK, PP or PSOE in Spain, etc…).
Soon, we will arrive at the end of this era : there’s simply no way we can put humpty dumpty back on his feet again. The only question is for how long can we maintain this illusion of prosperity built on debt. The outcome of this election isn’t going to change much.
But for the time being, rationally, we should still vote for the less of two evils and vote for the democratic candidate.
[cynical rant off]
They’re Speaking Truth to…. Truth?
:)
Frankly, I can’t think of anything Obama has done to make my life better. I will give him credit for putting actual restrictions on how banks can use bailout money, but that’s about all I can think of.
Argumentum ad ignorantiam. Obama has signed numerous executive orders — are you familiar with any of them? How about the fact that CO2 is now considered a pollutant? That his administration is science-friendly? Does that make your life better, or is it too distant from your personal concerns, you ignorant self-centered idiot?
All I can say is that voting for a third party candidate because none of them are progressive or liberal enough reminds me of those people who voted Nader in 2000. That turned out to be a smart move, didn’t it?
When there’s a decent chance that the batshit crazy one will be elected, you should hold your nose and vote for the one most likely to beat the batshit crazy one. Do differently and my schadenfreude at your stupidity will be the least of your worries.
But given how she handled the Amiraults affair I would rather vote for a creationist conservative than that woman.
It’s fascinating how ready some people are to demonstrate themselves as grossly irrational.
negentropyeater #154
There’s been a perfect storm battering middle-class households. In addition to financial deregulation, there was the continuing transfer of a larger proportion of the wealth in this country to a small percentage of the population. That, plus the ineffectiveness of labor unions, meant that real wages for many Americans increased slowly if at all or actually fell. The solution to that problem that saved households previously, adding a second income by having both spouses work, had already been used, so families took on extra debt to preserve their life styles. All this, too, was the result of politics, of course: the politics that glorified corporate profits and CEO compensation while claiming that such benefits would trickle down to the middle and lower classes.
One more rant and then I’m done.
Reagan’s rise, the inability of the Democrats to even blunt, and often assist, the “greed is good” mentality of the period from about 1982 through today, and the embrace of free market ideals, points to moral erosion. Some time in the ’70s we changed from being a nation to something more like a confederation. We bought into the snake oil of economists who either didn’t understand Adam Smith or deliberately mislead the public. Who said we’d all be just fine if we just exploit each other. The symptoms of that change from a sense to treat each other fairly to the War of All Against All was the viciousness of continued blind deregulation in the face of one financial disaster after another. All justified by the laissez faire marketeering of our most prestigious business schools.
What’s most appalling is that philosophers and historians warned about the insipid greedy pap of Ayn Rand and the WSJ for millennia. Confucius, Herodotus, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, the Bible all warned against structuring societies on a foundation of greed. Adam Smith understood that risk since he was a student of these philosophers and he too warned against much of what we’ve done. The so-called Invisible Hand was not magic; but it reflected wise actors in the markets, not those who followed Milton Friedman and Gordon Gecko.
What we need most right now is a return to honesty about the human condition and our limitations. The system building of the Chicago School has foundered on the shoals of reality, and we have to accept reality above all.
Wow, it looks like she might actually have lost. So far over 50% of the vote has been counted and she’s behind. Yikes. Then again, it’s hard to root for someone who ran such a crappy and smug campaign.
I didn’t pay any attention to this race so I don’t know what the implications are.
Hard to believe Massachusetts couldn’t find a reasonable Democratic candidate but they must have.
Maybe this cold bucket of reality will finally motivate the Dems in congress to get off their knees.
Maybe the prospect of squandering the biggest political opportunity the party has seen in over a decade (thanks to GWB) will help them rediscover their spines, and their balls (metaphorically speaking with regard to the female members).
Maybe they’ll discover that progressive issues are worth fighting for because it’s better to loose a fight on your feet, than it is to “win” the appeasement Olympics on your knees.
It’s really simple. Don’t vote for candidates who don’t represent you.
Neither Democrats nor Republicans represent me, so I’m not going to vote for either of them. Now, you might say “What a fool! He can’t get his way, so he shoots himself in the foot?” or something to that effect.
Truth is, if everybody only ever voted for candidates who genuinely represented them, instead of idiotically strategic voting, we probably would have a more diverse, vibrant congress.
FUCK!
Tis: Don’t forget the alliance with religious nutbars (especially virulent anti-abortion nutbags), since religion dominionism has consistently been such a fine vehicle for instilling the Us v Them mentality for so long.
Religion and extreme 1890s-nostalgic Republicans also thrive on widespread desperation. Yes, it seems like prosperity would actually work better for both of them, but prosperous people tend to find better things to do than go to church, they’re less inclined to pop out tons of babies because they can afford birth control (and/or abortions), and they don’t work for crappy wages in crappy conditions. What a dilemma!
But wait! There’s a solution: Volume, volume, volume!
The more people you have, the more scrambling over resources, the more desperate they are for work, the more likely they are to work for crap wages in crap conditions, which increases their desperation. The more desperation you have, the more they will look to any kind of hope–even a false one. Who has centuries of tradition (earned and granted) in capitalizing on that kind of desperation? Hm… Religion for 500, Alex.
And what a bounty it can be. The more people you have in church, the more people you can blackmail into ponying up $$$ not only in collection plates and tithes but for weddings, funerals, baptisms–the revenue streams are amazing!
When considered this way, it is no mistake that the robber barons and the anti-abortion religious freaks banded together; it was inevitable.
Good point Aquaria. The religious ideologues sure seem like a great bunch of mindless peons to me.
Well, looks like pharyngulating this poll was not enough. Sorry PZ.
Brown’s in, Coakley’s conceded, and the hyperchristians are celebrating with their customary style and grace:
Headline of Randall Terry’s press release:
yeeeeaaaaaahhhhhhhh… so maybe instead of convincing the boyfriend to move to Fargo, I should be convincing him to move to Europe; or Canada; or Cuba.
Well, I’ve been out all evening, and I see others have taken up the cudgels.
I won’t try to “catch up” with the whole thread, but I will say this: Corruption actually means something, and “supports positions (or groups) I disagree with” ain’t it. There have always been, and always will be, instances of actual corruption in public life, but there is no evidence that politics is broadly, inherently corrupt, by any reasonable definition. Declaring that it is (usually amid much armwaving and virtually no facts) is the refuge of people who don’t want to take responsibility for the world they live in: If you can write disagreement off as dishonesty, you’ve absolved yourself of any obligation to change anyone’s mind.
Tonight I attended a candidates’ forum featuring those running in 2010 for the Democratic nomination for three statewide offices: Secretary of the State, U.S. Senate, and Governor. Included among the candidates were the current Attorney General, the Majority Leader of the state House, a state senator, three mayors (well, one of them was a first selectman, but that amounts to the same thing), and two private-sector entrepreneurs (one of them, Ned Lamont, y’all may have heard of). The event was hosted by a consortium of 27 Democratic Town Committees (all volunteers), and attended by interested voters, Town Committee members, and local elected officials from around the state. The candidates were accompanied by earnest, mostly young, volunteers and staffers, who represent the next generation of political leadership.
Neither on the stage nor in the audience was there the slightest whiff of corruption or cynicism. This was a room full of people dedicated quite simply to making life better for their fellow citizens. People with exceptional talents, great ideas, and unimpeachable commitment.
This is what politics really is, and if you’re sitting on the sidelines throwing turds without having experienced it, I abjectly pity you. It was a great night.
Then I got in the car, turned the radio on, and heard that Martha Coakley had lost.
Fuck.
I don’t know Martha Coakley; possibly she’s not fit to hold the coat of any of the people I listened to tonight. But I fear that her loss will make the work of those talented people much harder, and blunt its potential to make the world better. I desperately hope I’m wrong, and that those of you who’re spinning this as a good thing, some kind of wakeup call for progressives and Democrats, are right and I’m wrong… but I’m afraid we’re truly fucked.
Jadehawk, I was having similar thoughts. We just watched the teabaggers win a Senate seat in libruhl old Massachusetts. It’s unconscionable!
still room here in New Zealand…
bring money!
:)
It’s heartbreaking.
Jadehawk & Aratina:
My first thought was to wonder if the RosettaStone people had a course in Canadian, or perhaps New Zealandish… but then I came to my senses and said fuck that; I’m’a stay an’ fight!
One way in which this really might work to our advantage is to force Senate Dems to think hard about the current SOP of the uncontested filibuster. I don’t support killing the filibuster, but I don’t support making it easy, either.
We are fucked. If we lose MA, we will lose Indiana, Illinois, and Delaware. The State of the Union is the last stand. Obama needs to commit to bipartisanship, even though it might just be Olympia Snowe or George Voinovitch. Americans are sick of partisan politics. Both liberal and conservative. Though she probably lost because of her shitty campaign.
Americans are sick of partisan politics.
LOL
the lie is easily put to that statement by the mere fact of WHO they just elected in MA!
I can’t IMAGINE a better way to make partisan politics even a bigger fuckmess than what MA just did, elect a goddamn moronic teabagger!
the only thing I agree with in your post was the first 3 words.
and to that i say…
What you mean “we” kimosabe?
:)
According to the Washington Post, Brown won.
To frustrated Americans,
Plenty of room up here in Canada. In addition to universal health care we have more than two political parties (including the Marijuana Party of Canada!!!). Also, watching the news here is less frightening/frustrating. Besides all that (and some French) we’re practically American.
If you decide to stay and fight that’s cool. However if Palin/Beck wins 2012 we might need to build a southern border fence….
Actually Scott Brown is only seen as a tea bagger in national politics. In the MA State Senate, he votes with the Democrats 55% of the time or something like that.
We need to defend our seats NOW. If Tim Kaine had any dignity, he would resign as chairman of the DNC.
Australia is nice… not quite NZ, but still nice. Warmer than Canada.
echidna (@182):
Yah, and the politics is interesting, too. But I’m not quite ready to give up on the USofA yet.
Hmmm, I wonder if anyone ever showed up to a Marijuana or Sex Party meeting and was utterly disappointed.
Damn it PZ, why is it the one time your ability to control polls matters, it doesn’t work? D:
Bipartisanship? That is what screwed us on this health care issue. When one side ***won’t move to compromise***, any changes end up sliding *one way*, in this case towards the piece of garbage that probably won’t manage to pass anyway. This is hardly made any better when you get people that appear to have been sleeper agents on the left, and jump ship, after years of claiming they support certain things, the moment those things are actually proposed (never mind, in one case, stating they plan to run the next time for the party they just sided with, now that their cover was blown). This entire stupid assed mess has been one side trying to work, as hard as they could, to come up with something both sides wanted, and the other side saying, “Well, if you change this so we like it, we **might** think about it, but… we will probably just suggest something else we don’t like, and demand you change it too.”
Again, you can’t have one party use the same idiot policy they came up with for drugs, sex, and sex education, i.e., “Just say no!”, and extend it to every damn thing that gets proposed, and end up with “bipartisanship”. All we got was the people claiming that they supported such efforts jumping overboard with half contents of the treasure chest, the moment the captain offered to let them help guard it. Strangely, the same people where all later seen on some other ship, flying the bloody jolly roger.
Just, holy shit. I think John Stewart said it best when he went into conniptions the other night. There are Holy Cows in this country’s politics, such as “Capitalism = Always Best,” “Christian = Always Good,” etc. A solid majority of the public is ready to jettison the former and shit like the Uganda scandal are pushing the majority against the other as well. As always, politicians and the MSM are leading us down the path of least resistance – The Drain. If I ever get the money together to tough it out in another country til I get citizenship, I’m out. For the 2000th time since 2000, Fuck this Horseshit.
This just in…”Scott Brown has won the Massachusetts Senate seat once held by Senator Ted Kennedy. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Brown has beaten his Democratic challenger Martha Coakley 52-47 percent.”
WooHoo!
Truth is, if everybody only ever voted for candidates who genuinely represented them, instead of idiotically strategic voting, we probably would have a more diverse, vibrant congress.
The truth is that this is an example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma; it’s irrational to do what would lead to the best result if only everyone did it.
WooHoo!
Fuck off and die.
Dendy, shouldn’t you be trying to find a couple of people on the internet who will actually read your blog, rather than posting news we’re already aware of? Or maybe trying to get a decent profile picture together?
Wow, Islander… You’re right. Dendy is ugly as dogshit. Probably proud of it though. Gives him caveman cred.
You know, I’ve noticed every time someone says, “Americans are tired of partisan politics,” their next suggestion is that we all just go out and vote for the most bug-fuck insane conservative out there. Think about people like Glen Beck, who repeats that mantra over and over again. “We need to ignore the D’s and R’s, and vote like Americans!” It’s just that they believe ‘Merikans all want expanded military, fewer social programs, and less oversight of banks and big business.
Well, reality is a funny thing. Sure, when polled, a solid majority of Americans feel that there’s too much partisanship in Washington. But the majority also believe single-payer health care would be a good thing, with even more in support of the public option (I remember seeing one poll report 72% in favor of). A vast majority of Americans have been against the Iraq war for some time now, and recently the Afghanistan war saw it’s support numbers slip below 50%.
So, in a way, the worst possible scenario for Republicans and their bat-shit cheerleading squad of free-market Reagan zombies would be if partisanship ended, and “the people” started getting what they wanted.
Bill Dauphin re:Australia
Ah, well, Australia is not perfect, I know. For most of us, it’s hard to leave your home country, even when the situation becomes untenable. The USofA seems to have lost a collective sense of “the common good”, and is the poorer for it. But that may yet change.
BULLSHIT! It’s full of Aussies!!
And warmer than Canada, yeah, right, – if you like living in an oven, and culturally it is like the dark side of the moon.
Oz has one thing going for it, it is NOT US-of-fucking-A. Yet.
NZ is full of Kiwis, but most of the crap ones have moved to – you guessed it – R-fuckin’-strailia!
And no, I’m not 100% serious, only 99.999%.
There are good Aussies, and I know all three of them!
This won’t mean much now, but it could help avert a similar problem in the future:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2010/01/it_would_be_a_nice_gesture_for.php
I might well consider moving to the United States one day. I like American culture, and wide open spaces with virtually no people (something that’s in short supply on our little crowded island).
Of course, in many parts of America these days it seems like I’d be considered a flaming liberal: since I support gay marriage, I don’t support creationism in schools, and I think Sarah Palin is an idiot. Maybe I should move to Maine; I always liked the look of the fictional town of Cabot Cove on Murder, She Wrote (apart from all the murders, of course). :-)
I heard Mitt Romney comment on this on the drive home, something like ” that’ll teach those elitist liberals in Washington”. I was like, WTF
The fundie republicans are really playing with the political foundations of the US, with their fake and dishonest condemnation of anyone who can read or write and point to a foreign country on a map as “elitist”, or anyone who doesnt want to head back to the dark ages or execute homos as “liberal”.
No moving to the US for this one.
Despite Shonny’s view that Australia an oven-like cultural-dark-side-of-the-moon, with only three good Aussies in it, I’m with Rorschach.
No moving to the US for this one.
Being from the UK, I don;t understand this 60% thing. Why is it that the minority party are in control? The health care bill seems to have been written by the Republicans, and the Dems seem unable to vote for it. It seems that the best course is for the Dems to lose the election comprehensively, let the Republicans into government , and then pass a decent health care bill. Or have I missed something? Over here, 51% would be enough to pass a bill.
So it’s just a coincidence that gigantic campaign contributions from businesses are followed by failure to pass meaningful regulation?
I’ve participated in a political convention. Can I throw turds now?
Are those exclusive possibilities? Maybe you are fucked and it would be better if your leadership wakes up to it.
davem, I think it weird too.
Apparently it has to do with 60 seats in the Senate representing a “filibuster-proof majority”.
Well, I didn’t need health care anyways. I’ll just refrain from getting sick or injured…
Shit.
Ah I see CE had already expressed my thoughts on this perfectly @ 11 !
The problem is that the minority party appear to be able to get all the benefits of the filibuster without the inconvenience of actually having to carry one out.
Mass. voters who voted for him deserve what they get.
The Democratic party, who has botched up everything this term, deserves what they get.
I’m just not so sure the rest of us in the country deserve what we’re about to get.
Walton, that fictional town of Cabot Cove that you liked the looks of was the real town of Mendocino, California.
Very cool place in many ways, I stood on the cliff of the doghole (tiny) bay there and watched a grey whale circle around just beneath me, while a “blowhole” in the cliffs spouted behind me.
Very beautiful houses, walked the streets looking at people’s gorgeous gardens, deer ran past me.
But you’d have to be a millionaire to own a home there.
(In case I’m not clear, what I’m saying is, Murder She Wrote exterior shots were done in Mendocino, California. That’s the town you like the looks of.)
So… they filmed it at the exact opposite end of America from its purported location?
Not much chance of that in my case. *sigh*
“So… they filmed it at the exact opposite end of America from its purported location? ”
Yes. Closer to Hollywood.
davem> We have some fucked up Parliamentary procedures in the U.S. Senate… while 51% is enough to pass a bill, the minority is allowed to filibuster, i.e. talk about absolutely nothing (now I think they’ve amended it so they simply have to whine on topic instead of reading from the most boring thing they can find) until everyone simply gives up. A 60% majority has the ability to end debate and push such a bill to a vote, but less than that does not.
From outside, it looks very much as though (even before this election), the Rethuglicans have simply refused to surrender power despite comprehensively losing the 2008 elections, and the Dimicrats have allowed them to get away with it. Where’s the outrage, the mass demonstrations and civil disobedience, against this quasi-coup?
Maybe it’s just time to pay the piper. America’s been calling the tune for a long time, toppling left-leaning democracies in Guatemala, Iran, Chile, Haiti, etc, making the world safer for transnational corporations by killing hope in countries around the world. Now maybe it’s time for hope to die in America. Natural consequences. At least America still has the second amendment. It is perhaps a small consolation but at least you don’t have to live with the mess you’ve caused.
Knockgoats, I have no idea what you’re talking about. It sounds like meaningless hyperbole.
The Republicans lost the presidency, and lost several seats in both Houses of Congress. None of the defeated officeholders attempted to use unconstitutional means to stay in office. Meanwhile, the remaining Republicans in office have continued to use the legal means at their disposal to affect the public policy agenda – just as the Democrats did when they were in the minority. No unconstitutional behaviour has taken place. So where is this “quasi-coup” of which you speak?
The US political system is not, of course, like the UK one, where the party with a majority in the House of Commons has carte blanche to put its whole agenda through, while the minority party has virtually no power. But that’s a feature, not a bug. I don’t think the strength and rigidity of political parties in the UK system is even remotely a good thing.
What a stupid, offensive and morally bankrupt thing to say.
echidna (@182): “Australia is nice… not quite NZ, but still nice.”
Yea sure, australia’s great if you want everything to try to kill you!
Come on my friends, come to our Canada, buddies.
Or what about Germany? Sure, the place may be a run-down socialist hellhole, but hey, we’ve got the best beer in the world. PZ himself gave it a ringing endorsement last summer.
Oh, and you can go see a lot of beautiful, old, and – most importantly – empty churches. If you’re so inclined, you can also obtain a gay marriage certificate on the way.
Walton,
I called it a “quasi-coup” for exactly the reason you point out: it has used legal, but thoroughly undemocratic methods, including barefaced lies on an unprecedented scale. (If you don’t know what “quasi” means, why not look it up?) You will note that the counter-measures I called for fall far short of what would be legitimate (armed force) if a real coup took place. As has been pointed out on this thread, the Rethuglicans (plus one or two red-dog Dimicrats) have used the threat of filibuster in a clear attempt to hamstring government completely. This is new in US politics: up until now the threat of filibuster has been used sparingly, and both main US parties have had less control over their elected representatives than in the UK; but the Rethuglicans are now simply voting as a block, and they appear to have decided that the Obama administration is illegitimate.
You’re not really ignorant enough to think that the political systems of the US and UK are the only possibilities. These are, indeed, the least democratic among those of rich countries. As you’d know if you paid attention, as long as we have representative rather than direct democracy I support proportional representation using something like the additional member system we have in Scotland, where a parliamentary majority requires an absolute majority of votes or very close to it, and multiple parties are viable.
True. But a more democratic system isn’t necessarily better.
Well, direct democracy is a really, really bad idea. In most cases where it’s been implemented successfully, the result has been that the foolish majority, led by demagogues and propagandists, have used it to give effect to various forms of prejudice and stupidity. Look at Proposition 8 in California, for instance, or the recent ban on minarets in Switzerland (motivated almost entirely by racism). If there were direct democracy in the UK, the majority of the populace would almost certainly vote for much harsher treatment of immigrants and asylum seekers, more punitive measures against criminals, and other stupid and oppressive measures.
Plus, the majority of voters have no understanding of fiscal reality. California’s budget crisis, for instance, is in part the fault of direct democracy; voters keep approving tax limitations, yet they also want the state to keep spending tons of money on various services. Letting the public vote directly on government finances just doesn’t work.
As to proportional representation, I can see its merits – in particular, it would eliminate the current de facto disenfranchisement of those voters who live in “safe seats” – but, on balance, I’m not in favour of it. My principal problem with it is that, since most forms of PR rely on parties to draw up lists of candidates, it gives more power to the political party organisations. Also, through the formation of coalitions, it allows small whackaloon parties to have an influence in government. (Look at the radical left in France, the Jewish religious right in Israel, and “Family First” in the Australian Senate, to name just a few examples.)
The Additional Member system used in Scotland and Wales, being a compromise, isn’t quite so bad. But it still suffers from some of the problems I noted earlier, and has the additional drawback of being sufficiently complicated that the average voter doesn’t understand how it works.
Rather, I’d prefer to adopt Daniel Hannan’s proposal of having US-style open primaries in every constituency, so that voters, not party committees, select the candidates. This would reduce the power of the political parties, and would mean that all voters, including those in safe seats, could have a real say in choosing their MP. (A possible downside, though, would be the possibility of making campaigns more expensive.)
I’m not denying that the Republicans have been using a range of methods to obstruct the Democratic legislative agenda. But they’re entitled to do this. The US political system is designed – rightly, in my opinion – to guarantee the minority as well as the majority some influence in public policy outcomes.
A majority, or at least a plurality, of US voters may want substantial health care reform. But a substantial minority is adamantly opposed to such reform. In my opinion, therefore, it’s absolutely right that whatever comes out should be a compromise between the wishes of the majority and those of the minority. Liberal constitutional democracy doesn’t mean that the majority should always get its way.
I also agree that many leading Republican figures and pundits have been using lies and hyperbole on a large (but certainly not unprecedented) scale. But this kind of demagoguery and dishonesty is a normal, and entirely inevitable, feature of democratic politics. If you believe in a liberal democratic/pluralist political system, you have to accept that some people will exercise their freedom of speech by talking utter bullshit, and that other people will believe and act on this bullshit.
It is, of course, equally possible to have a Chávez-esque or Morales-esque populist dictatorship, which pushes through radical social and economic changes by overriding the interests of the minority. But I don’t think you’re advocating this at all; you’re not that type of leftist (and I would have far less respect for you if you were). I think you believe, as I do, in the values of liberal constitutionalism; but I would argue that part and parcel of this is to accept that some people will advocate, and seek to implement, harmful policies based on wrong and/or dishonest rhetoric.
Hmmm. Walton, if the foolish majority will vote for prejudiced and foolish policies directly, and then you propose open primaries so they can select the candidates, why will they note vote for prejudiced and foolish candidates? I would have thought you can either argue for representative democracy or for universal open primaries, but not both. Thoughts?
Myself I think approval voting might be better than PR, as it avoids the party list issue and also the fringe party issue.
Personally, I think that it’s a crime for the Republicans to just block legislation that will help the people without proposing their own plan. When our liberals are conservative and our conservatives are nearly fascist, it is important for the people to demand change. Unfortunately, half the country is why we come here, to this blog. They, the christian right, does not seem to understand the urgency of our own necessary change. Their view point is the same as their religion, “America is great because it’s America.”
Seriously. WTF? Are the american electorate really this insane?
I suppose in the short term, this is good for the EU. The Americans can continue on their merry way crippling their international companies with unsustainable medical insurance costs; in the meantime the anglo saxon banking model has taken a savaging, and more responsible banking is now in the ascendancy.
The US obsession with ideology – at the expense of what works – is of tremendous commericial benefit to the EU, and EU based companies.
However, I don’t like to think short term. I wish the US would just get over the lunacy and join the rest of us to sort out the very pressing problems we face.
My take on the vote last night and what I think it means… for anyone remotely interested…
May I recommend, Walton, at least reading the report published in 1998.
That proposed a system which wasn’t perfect either but it did maintain the link of the individual MP with a constituency and avoid the closed list which, I agree, would not be progress.
Although it was commissioned by Blair, by the time it was published his gnat-like attention span had moved on and nothing was done, either to implement it or to come up with a better idea. That’s why the House of Commons is still muttering and mumbling and no progress has been made.
Even if you’re not in agreement with it, this Jenkins report is worth reading, just to prove than official documents can be written in elegant and fluent English – even though that is very rare.
I presume you have read it, Knockgoats.
mb
Looking at Scott Brown’s Wikipedia article, he really doesn’t look like that bad a candidate. He’s hardly a radical conservative: he supports the right to abortion, and though he says he’s personally against same-sex marriage (as Obama is), he’s in favour of civil unions and accepts Massachusetts’ settled same-sex marriage law. He also supported the 2006 health insurance bill in Massachusetts. He comes from a working-class background and worked hard for his education. And he has serious military experience, both as a front-line soldier and as a military lawyer (working on the defence side in courts-martial). There are quite a few stupid things he’s said, of course. But he doesn’t seem like an idiot or a total wingnut.
Martha Coakley, by all accounts, was an incredibly dodgy prosecutor, who was determined to make herself look good at the expense of justice and due process. (She seems to me to be a perfect example of why prosecutors should not be popularly elected; but that’s another issue). I think, on balance, I would have voted for Brown, if I were American and lived in Massachusetts.
I think, on balance, I would have voted for Brown, if I were American and lived in Massachusetts.
Yet another reason to make sure the little fuckwit doesn’t make it over to this country.
Stupid, offensive, and morally bankrupt, eh Walton? Where’s my green card?
Maureen: I’ve seen the report before, and yes, I think it’s an interesting option. As I said, I can see the merits of electoral reform in some respects. I’m not 100% sure where I stand on it.
I think that’s more to do with the fact that the two main parties have a (self-evident) vested interest in continuing the existing electoral system, since it helps preserve their dominance. So I don’t think there’s much chance of electoral reform in the UK; by definition, any party which gets into government has benefited from the existing electoral system, and is therefore naturally unlikely to want to change it.
IanM,
Yes, your comment at #212 was stupid, offensive and morally bankrupt. I’m not interested in getting into a discussion about the merits and demerits of past US foreign policy (it’s completely irrelevant to this thread, and I’m not an expert on it); but to suggest that the ordinary citizens of the US deserve some kind of “payback” for the past actions of their government, and to talk so blithely about people shooting themselves, is offensive and morally bankrupt.
This isn’t a partisan comment on my part. I’d find it just as offensive if someone suggested that the people of Russia or China deserved “payback” for the foreign policy actions of their governments.
Perhaps the Democrats should simply proceed and dare the Repubs to employ the filibuster. How would it look for a 41% minority to continuously thwart the will of a 59% majority on procedural grounds indefinitely? At the very least it exposes (even more than before and in even more obvious terms) the republicans as pure obstructionists, totally bankrupt of constructive ideas of their own.
And, procedurally, the republicans are going to have to maintain iron party discipline through the whole thing, and 100% attendance. If a single moderate senator flips sides, or even just one (two?) sleep in or miss the bus or something, and they drop to 39% in attendance. . . .
Jon Stewart nailed it. American politics is at risk of causing debilitating damage to both head and desk, not to mention face and palm. The Dems still have a bigger majority than Republicans have had since 1928. Too big to fail? Apparently not.
If the Republicans feel the need to filibuster, then I say, let them filibuster. The old fashioned one, where they have to read the phone book with everyone present in the room. Enough of the threats.
The majority answer to the filibuster is to call them out and make them do it. Stop the government until we get an up/down vote on healthcare.
Not that I think it would necessarily make their populations blameworthy but I didn’t realize that the Soviet Union and People’s Republic of China had representative democracies, unless you are conceding that neither does America. As for the charge against me of moral bankruptcy with respect to the second amendment, the irony makes my heart flutter. Besides I was only observing, not condoning.
Walton, that depends on exactly what one means by “payback” (and IanM did not use that term). Certainly it is not in good taste to make jokes about gun-related suicide, but while the people of the old USSR and current day China are not responsible for their governments’ actions, the people of the US are. As are the people of Canada, and the UK, or the people of Athens during the Pelopponesian War, or the people of Rome before the Caesars.
The people of democratic countries are responsible for the actions of their governments. That’s what democracy means.
@234: The difference between Soviet and Chinese (and Iranian for that matter) government and ours is that the slate of candidates in those countries chosen directly by the party leadership — in the case of Iran, by veto. That is not the case here. In nearly every office in this country, the party members — i.e. the electorate — choose the candidates. The fact that the dems in Mass chose poorly is their own fault.
Simplistic bullshit. In any democratic jurisdiction where decisions are made by majority vote, you’re going to find plenty of people who disagree with the majority decision. It’s hardly their fault that they were outvoted. Are you saying that all Californians, for instance, are somehow morally responsible for Proposition 8 – even those who voted and actively campaigned against it? Nations cannot be “collectively responsible” for anything. People don’t (in general) choose their nationalities, and they’re not morally responsible for how their fellow countrymen choose to vote.
Plus, we’re talking about foreign policy decisions, and military interventions in particular – which, in America, have often been decided by the President with very little input from anyone else. It’s in the nature of foreign policy that it’s primarily an executive function, and successive presidents have arrogated more and more discretionary power to themselves, with little oversight from Congress or the public (the most extreme example was Nixon not even bothering to brief Congress before he bombed Cambodia). Yes, of course the president was elected – but do you seriously believe that a person who votes for a political candidate is thereafter morally responsible for every single decision that candidate makes in office?
Democracy does not mean that “the people” make the decisions. It means that the current majority (or, more often in practice, the wealthiest/most powerful sectional interests) make the decisions. It certainly does not mean that all the people in a country, however much they may have opposed and worked against a bad government decision, are somehow to blame for that decision.
people make me sad, this thread makes me sad :(
1)you don’t know anything about American Culture.
2)if you’re not going to be a millionaire, don’t bother moving here; unless you like playing Russian Roulette.
I might well consider moving to the United States one day
one more reason to be glad i moved to NZ.
Walton,
First, I completely agree with you about IanM’s comment.
You have some valid points about direct democracy, and I admit I wouldn’t want to see it adopted at a stroke; rather, I’d favour introducing elements of it and see what the result is. On PR, you need a reasonable threshold, say 5% – Israel’s is 1% I think. Having seen primaries in the USA, I’m amazed you think them a good idea. The Scottish system has worked quite well, with the results so far of either a reasonably coherent (Lab-Lib) coalition, or a minority government, obliged to find support from opposition parties for its measures. I haven’t read the Jenkins report, and can’t recall what system it advocated. The UK system is grossly unfair, allowing a party with a minority vote more or less complete power, but I don’t think the US system, which appears designed to maintain a duopoly, is any better. Moreover, compromise is not always a good thing: a compromise measure may be worse than either alternative, because it may well be incoherent, or even deliberately “poisoned” by the minority.
An alternative that would greatly reduce party machine power is what I now call (I think I may have described it before): “One Constituency, Transferable Option, Permanent Election Democracy” (OCTOPED – that should bring in some support here!). Each voter has v votes, all candidates stand in a single constituency covering the whole area concerned (this could be done at several levels). A voter can divvy up their votes any way they like, between any number of candidates up to v. They can transfer these votes between candidates at any time. At the end of every three months (or whatever), those candidates (including sitting members) with most votes are elected for the next period. This is the “pure” version – there are various ways you could modify it to increase stability if desired – e.g., give sitting members some sort of advantage such as only some of them being eligible for replacement in any period. In the UK, the obvious place to try it out would be the Upper House. Elected members would be representing electoral rather than geographical constituencies.
@ # 158, the person with the unfathomable handle said:
Spot on. With a two party first-past-the-post system like the U.S. has, all voting for a third party candidate does is reduce the chances of the candidate whose views *you are most closely aligned with* getting into office, by diluting their vote.
The way to realise our long term goals of putting more progressive candidates into office is to get the high quality ones running in the primaries, so that they are not the lesser of two evils on election day, but rather a clear no-brainer choice for our ‘side’.
MetzO’Magic @ # 242: The way to realise our long term goals of putting more progressive candidates into office is to get the high quality ones running in the primaries…
That’s one way, and sometimes it even works, but it’s scattershot and personality-dependent.
A more reliable and systemic remedy would be widespread adoption of instant-runoff voting, so that “3rd parties” can enter a race without being spoilers, and have a realistic chance to build themselves to significant players.
Of course, that requires that the public learn about this option – hardly a favorite of cable news – and force the existing duopoly to allow it (about as likely as Microsoft going open-source, and for the $ame rea$on).
Gee, why do the Yanks (and I am an ex-pat) have to rename things all the time just to confuse people. I had a cursory look at the site you linked to, and your ‘instant-runoff voting’ looks to me to be exactly the form of proportional representation voting used here in Ireland that is called ‘single transferable vote’.
Notwithstanding the uncredited rip-off, it’s not a bad idea…
Irrelevant, Walton. Every citizen is part of the system, and if that system gives them all the freedom to engage in political discourse, even if that freedom is something so simple and limited as discussing politics with your neighbour over a beer, giving you the opportunity to influence his/her single vote by some tiny likelihood, that is enough. You have influence. You have responsibility.
It doesn’t matter one whit whether “your” side wins or loses the election. You are a part of the system, you derive benefit from the system irrespective of which side wins, and if you choose to remain in that system and continue to derive those benefits despite “losing” the election, you shoulder your share of the responsibility for everything the system does.
Yes I do. Absolutely without question. Not wholly of course, but the responsibility is shared. More for those who voted with reasonable foreknowledge that such decisions could be made, less for those who voted without any opportunity to obtain such foreknowledge, less still for those who did not vote, and least of all for those who voted against that candidate. But even these share some of it, for the very act of living in a democracy and benefiting from the freedoms provided by a democracy.
That is why it is so important to vote with thoughtfulness. Your vote is an exercise of political power, and you are responsible for ALL the consequences of your choices, to the degree that your choice impacted those consequences. THAT IS WHAT IT MEANS TO HAVE POWER.
amphiox,
You’re ignoring the fact that in all representative political systems, most individual voters are unlikely ever to find candidates whose views precisely reflect their own. Most of the time, people have to vote for the least bad option, and accept that the candidate they choose will do some things of which they disapprove. So I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that voters are to be blamed for every single thing that their chosen candidate ever chooses to do.
Plus, voters can’t always accurately predict the future. Most politicians lie, or at least equivocate, in their campaigns; and however honest they are, they frequently find that being in government changes their perspective. President Obama, for instance, is certainly not governing in the way that many people (both his supporters and opponents) expected him to govern.
And, on the most radical (and frankly absurd) part of your post:
So how, exactly, would a disaffected citizen go about choosing not to “remain in the system”, as you put it? Yes, there is the hypothetical (though impractical, for most people) possibility of emigrating; but even so, citizens only have the choice of moving to a different state. They don’t have the choice of opting out of state control altogether. Short of starting an armed insurrection (which I hope you wouldn’t advocate), I don’t exactly see how a citizen who doesn’t like his or her government’s policies is supposed to “opt out” of the system.
In the end, I just think it’s fundamentally wrong to ever ascribe collective “blame” to “a nation”. In the vast majority of cases, individuals do not choose their nationality; they have it imposed upon them by birth. People are individuals, not simply parts of a collective. Those who plan and execute state policies, and – to a lesser extent – those who vote and campaign in favour of state policies, are the only people who are “to blame” for those policies. It is grossly unfair and absurd to blame an entire nation or community for a policy that you don’t like.
Do you, sincerely, think that Californians are collectively “to blame” for Proposition 8, including those people who voted and campaigned against it? Do you think that all Americans are to blame for every decision of George Bush, including those who voted and campaigned for Gore or Kerry or for third parties?
That is also irrelevant. I mean really, completely, so. IT DOESN’T MATTER. Vote=power (not much, just a little!). Power=responsibility (and again, not much, just a little!).
If you really, really, cannot countenance the actions of your government, then the only moral course is Gandhi’s – peaceful noncompliance, and full acceptance of any and all consequences that follow. You’re right that there is no easy way or practical way to opt out, but again, that is irrelevant, IT DOESN’T MATTER. It sucks, but life’s not fair. The sharing of responsibility is the price citizens of democracies pay in exchange for being in a democracy. And frankly, given the benefits of living in a democracy, it really isn’t that unfair a tradeoff. Remember that my very first distinction wash that citizens of undemocratic societies were NOT responsible for their governments’ actions. (And thus the American people are responsible collectively for Bush Junior’s actions only to extent that the Bush administration’s acquisition of power was democratic – that being a debate for another time).
“Blame” is your word. I never used it. The word I have used over and over again is “responsible”. There is a difference.
And remember, the responsibility is shared. No individual (indeed, not even Bush himself, as it were) is wholly and solely responsible. Each is responsible only a little bit, and the little bits all add up to the whole.
I’m actually a little surprised, Walton, that you have not previously considered this (or maybe you have?) because it’s a Libertarian dream scenario.
What would have happened if the greater than half of Americans who supposedly opposed Bush’s policies had chosen the path of peaceful non-compliance? If half of all of them refused to pay their taxes, refused to comply with the police, refused to go to work, if half the soldiers refused to fight, if everyone, in short, refused to contribute in any way to the society whose actions they no longer approved of? And did it passively and peacefully, accepting the legal consequences, allowing themselves to be carried off the jail, for example?
No police force can uphold the law without the willing compliance of the vast majority of the citizenry. No society can function without the willing participation of its members. The whole country would grind to a halt. AND THE POLICIES WOULD END. The state would rapidly cease to have the power to implement any of them.
But we did not do this. We chose not to do this. We each had our reasons. Many of them were good reasons. We may have been afraid of the personal consequences. We may have felt that we had other obligations. We may have decided that the government was doing other things that we approved of. But in the end all the reasons boil down to versions of one – that we each decided that in the balance of all factors, it was better to comply and continue to contribute to the society to which we all belonged, than not, even if not everything our society was doing were things we personally approved of. And in so doing we assumed our share of the responsibility for all those actions, both those we approved of and those we didn’t.
We each make this decision every moment of our lives. And each time we make it, we continue to accept the responsibility.
But we did not do this. We chose not to do this. We each had our reasons. Many of them were good reasons. We may have been afraid of the personal consequences. We may have felt that we had other obligations. We may have decided that the government was doing other things that we approved of. But in the end all the reasons boil down to versions of one – that we each decided that in the balance of all factors, it was better to comply and continue to contribute to the society to which we all belonged, than not, even if not everything our society was doing were things we personally approved of. And in so doing we assumed our share of the responsibility for all those actions, both those we approved of and those we didn’t.
well stated.
some of us even feel the guilt of (failing) that responsibility still.
…and you can state this over and over again, and there will still be a large number of people who don’t get it.
It doesn’t matter one whit whether “your” side wins or loses the election. You are a part of the system, you derive benefit from the system irrespective of which side wins, and if you choose to remain in that system and continue to derive those benefits despite “losing” the election, you shoulder your share of the responsibility for everything the system does.
indeed, one only has to think the word “teabagger” to see how even when one side loses an election, it sure didn’t affect how they felt their influence should be felt, for better or worse.
a more democratic system isn’t necessarily better
That’s what you would expect a so called libertarian to say, yeah. Of course, in their undemocratic dream, THEY are the ones who make the rules. If not it wouldn’t be fair!
It is, of course, equally possible to have a Chávez-esque or Morales-esque populist dictatorship
Bullshit. Definition of dictatorship by right wing libertarians: “governments I dislike too much”.
As for your fears about a true democracy bringing total chaos and majorities voting for stupid things, it wouldn’t happen with a proper education. It’s that simple. Not easy to make it happen, but simple to understand how it would work. People educated in reality based thinking wouldn’t vote for homosexuals to be shot, because it’s just stupid, there’s no reason to do it.
What this kind of system would actually bring is a fair division of property, power, knowledge, decision making, wealth, etc. There lies the reason why “libertarians”, undemocratic as they are, are so scared of it.
What this kind of system would actually bring is a fair division of property, power, knowledge, decision making, wealth, etc.
And rights, too, I forgot.
Walton, that fictional town of Cabot Cove that you liked the looks of was the real town of Mendocino, California.
Some establishing shots and occasional scenes might have been filmed on location, but many were filmed right on the Universal Studios lot in LA. For instance, the “lake” or whatever it is that we see in Cabot Cove is the exact same body of water used to film just about all of the movie, “Jaws,” and Cecil B. DeMille’s parting of the Red Sea from The Ten Commandments (the Jaws animatronic shark is there to scare the shit out of tourists, too!).
Source: I took a friend on the Universal Studios tour in 1987, and “Murder She Wrote” was shooting exterior “town” scenes where you could see from the tour bus. I recognized those scenes when the episode finally aired. :)
I think this all depends. As you acknowledge later on in your post, there are circumstances in which it might be right for a moral person to accept and obey an unjust law because, on balance, total non-compliance would be a disproportionate response:
This is true. For example, I strongly disagree with the UK government’s policy of developing a “national identity database” to keep track of everyone. Yet it would be overkill for me to refuse to co-operate with all government activity simply because I object to this policy; on balance, the UK government does a fair amount of good, both for me personally (higher education funding) and for the community as a whole (national defence, police, fire protection, medical services, and so on), and I do not want the UK legal order to be overthrown. Rather, my best course of action is to campaign against the ID cards scheme, and to vote – as I intend to do – at the next election for a party which opposes ID cards. (And I can hope that, by the time I have to renew my passport, the oppressive database will have been abolished – though I’m far from confident of this.)
Conversely, though, I disagree that peaceful non-compliance would always be the “only moral course” in response to a seriously immoral law. If, for example, my government was committing genocide against a minority population, I would consider it my moral duty to engage in armed insurrection against the government to stop the genocide. There are times when it is necessary to fight back against a regime which is committing unconscionable acts; civil disobedience would not be sufficient in such a situation.
This, in most cases, is complete fantasy. There is no way that half the population, in the UK or US, would ever, in a normal circumstance, be motivated to refuse to co-operate with all government actions in sufficient numbers to make the operations of the state grind to a halt. Especially not those – police, soldiers and civil servants – who have the actual power to enforce the government’s policies; they, after all, signed up voluntarily to serve their government, and in most countries they take some sort of an oath to obey lawful orders.
(The only way I can envision this kind of mass disobedience happening in the UK would be if an ultra-right government was to be elected which sought to implement racist policies. And even then, they would have their supporters in the services of the state.)
The closest the UK has ever come to the scenario you envision was with the riots against the “poll tax” in the 1980s. And even then, the government abolished the tax because it was the most politically convenient course of action; if they had been truly determined to impose it come what may, they probably could have accomplished this via brute force. (Don’t get me wrong: the “poll tax” – or community charge, as it was officially known – was a ridiculous idea, and I fully sympathise with those who refused to pay it.) “People power” can make a difference at times, on those rare occasions when the country is sufficiently united on something. But a single individual cannot control when this will happen; he or she can certainly mount a campaign of disobedience, non-violent or otherwise, as an individual, but in most cases this will simply lead to him or her being imprisoned, which is not a fate most people are willing to accept (nor one which you can legitimately expect them to accept).
Fundamentally, it is not practical for an ordinary citizen, with a job and a family to support, to rise up in revolt – whether peaceful or otherwise – against the policies of his or her government, risking imprisonment and poverty. You seem to be saying that everyone who doesn’t take this course of action is ipso facto responsible, to some degree, for the policies his or her government puts in place. But I think you’re expecting too much of the average citizen.
Sorry for this long, rambling post. :-) But this is a genuinely interesting discussion that I think makes an important point. I totally agree with you that people are morally obliged to exercise their votes responsibly; I hate it when people with no knowledge of politics vote on the basis of arbitrary factors, as they often do. But I do think that a person who votes and actively campaigns against a given government policy is, in most cases, absolved of personal responsibility for that policy. Though, of course, there is an exception to this for a grossly immoral law (like one implementing apartheid or genocide); there are circumstances when a citizen whose government implements truly unconscionable policies should, IMO, be willing to resist by force if necessary.
Knockgoats:
Sorry for the delay in replying. OCTOPED certainly sounds interesting, but I agree with you that it would have to be tried on an experimental basis – perhaps in an upper house, or in a subnational jurisdiction – to see whether it could actually be stable enough to work. If it could work, it would remove a lot of the problems with accountability, certainly.
I don’t particularly support replacing the British House of Lords with an elected house, though. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a fan of the status quo; but I do think there’s a value in giving people who are independent of day-to-day politics, and who have expertise in a variety of fields, a voice in the legislative process. While I can understand the reasons for abolishing the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit, I think it’s unfortunate that the result of Labour’s reforms thus far has been a house with more political hacks (“Tony’s cronies”, as they were known in the Blair years). A possibility, maybe, is to have a mixed upper house like the Irish Senate (which is partly elected by a variety of special constituencies, and partly appointed). I think it’s good to have a mixture of people with experience in business, trade unions, education, the health service, agriculture, the military and other sectors of society, who can provide an independent and expert voice on relevant legislation.
Walton, for once I quite agree with you.
Shame parties have platforms with multiple planks; in my experience, I find I agree vehemently with some, and likewise vehemently disagree with others.
I would wish I could vote for policies, rather than for parties (note I’m in Australia, but the principle stands), except that (a) I recognise that most people are easily swayed by demagoguery and primarily think of themselves (and, at that, in the short term), hence this would be a recipe for disaster and (b) I think most successful politicians are cynics.
Non Edible Nacho,
I’m not convinced this is true – well-educated people are still capable of making stupid decisions, in my experience – but even if it is, it’s a hypothetical. We have to have a political system which works for people as they are, not as we would like them to be. Direct democracy would work in a world with better-informed, more moral and more thoughtful human beings; but so would many other political systems. In the end, direct democracy, where it has been used, has tended to lead to the imposition of prejudiced and stupid policies promoted by demagoguery and propaganda, and, in some cases, fiscal crisis. (I notice you aren’t seeking to dispute this.) So whatever you think of direct democracy in a hypothetical sci-fi scenario, it would not work well in any society that currently exists.
False. I dislike plenty of governments, and plenty of policies; that doesn’t make them dictatorial. I disagree with many of the policies of the 1945-51 Attlee government in Britain, for instance, but it certainly wasn’t a dictatorship. A government can easily be socialist without being dictatorial.
Rather, I called Morales and Chávez dictators because they have earned the title. They’re populist demagogues, who are busy censoring freedom of speech and nationalising opposition media, overriding constitutional safeguards, eliminating the powers of inconvenient regional and local governments, and expropriating the property of businesses without compensation. The fact that they both have the support of a majority of the population does not prevent them being dictators; the tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.
John Morales,
Yep, I have the same problem. In Britain, I vote for (and have been an activist for) the Conservative Party, yet I vehemently disagree with parts of the party’s stance on criminal justice and human rights, for instance, and I’m not convinced that they’re as committed to civil liberties as they pretend. On civil liberties issues I have a lot of sympathy with the Liberal Democrats; but they’re flaky on economics (their membership encompasses both right-leaning classical liberals and left-leaning social democrats, so they try to avoid committing themselves to a firm policy), and they’re never realistically going to form a government. Basically, I would say that in British politics I vote against Labour, rather than voting for an alternative party.
Aquaria- “For instance, the “lake” or whatever it is that we see in Cabot Cove is the exact same body of water used to film just about all of the movie, “Jaws,”
[pedant]
Actually, the vast majority of “Jaws” was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard. However, some reshooting was done in Hollywood. For example, the night scene where they discover Ben Gardner’s boat was filmed on the Universal lake, and some shooting of the underwater attack of the shark cage was filmed in a large swimming pool.
And the “Ten Commandments” attraction is just that- a tourist attraction. In reality, that scene was filmed against blue screens, and composited with water falling from enormous outdoor dump tanks. The final sequence is an enormous jigsaw puzzle of disparate elements.
[/pedant]
(I read Pharyngula for the science and criticism of the religious, but when the subject is movies, I have a Ph.D. in useless trivia LOL)
Sorry for flooding this thread with posts, but I have to respond briefly to one more point.
That’s entirely false. I’m not at all worried about what direct democracy might do to the interests of the wealthy. The rich and powerful can take care of themselves, generally speaking; they’re often able to manipulate public opinion in their preferred direction, and, in the last resort, they always have the option to leave the country (taking their money with them) if their interests are seriously threatened.
Rather, for the reasons I set out in my reply to you above at #258, I’m worried that direct democracy would allow the prejudiced majority, manipulated by demagogues, to vote to take away civil liberties and minority rights. Prejudice, fear and ignorance are very powerful: as illustrated by Proposition 8, the ban on minarets in Switzerland, and all the other instances of the majority voting to take away the rights of the minority. In many countries, there is huge hostility towards immigrants, refugees, Muslims, gay people and other marginalised minorities. And as I said at #258, your fantasies about an educated and enlightened populace are not relevant to the real world; in the immediate term, we have to develop political systems that work for people as they are, not as we might wish them to be.
Ask, and get the exact opposite, courtesy of the SCOTUS.
on CNN.com: Supreme Court eases restrictions on corporate campaign spending.
Walton says:
The rich and powerful can take care of themselves, generally speaking; they’re often able to manipulate public opinion in their preferred direction
And he’s right about this. Let’s see an example of this at work:
I called Morales and Chávez dictators because they have earned the title. They’re populist demagogues, who are busy censoring freedom of speech and nationalising opposition media, overriding constitutional safeguards, eliminating the powers of inconvenient regional and local governments, and expropriating the property of businesses without compensation. The fact that they both have the support of a majority of the population does not prevent them being dictators; the tyranny of the majority is still tyranny.
This is almost 100% bullshit.
Think what you wish about these governments but they are not censoring anyone nor violating any constitution. Have you ever been to Venezuela? The press is not democratic, I can agree with that, but it’s rabidly anti Chávez. And it’s very undemocratic because its mostly in the hands of a small powerful elite, the same that owns and controlled the country since the FSM knows when. Whatever you think of Chávez, it seems he’s not good business for an important part of this elite, so they have turned their media into the Fox News of antichavism.
All the main TV channels (except the public one) openly supported a coup d’etat against the government in 2002 using the most vicious lies, with journalists boasting on air the day after it about having had the leaders of the coup using their houses as centres for planning it. Etc. etc.
When a popular uprising restored democracy, the State (which, as in almost all countries, owns the frequencies, and just gives temporary licences to private, public or non profit organizations to use them for broadcasting or private communication), directed by the democratically elected government, would have been entitled to finish the licenses of these channels, but in an incredible act of tolerance towards these very powerful people, didn’t.
Years after this, the licence of one of this stations expired, and the government decided not to renew it (and start a public channel in its place). This was the LEAST it could do. It would have been shameful and anti democratic to let these priviledged people keep using one of the few available slots for TV channels (there aren’t many in latin america’s free to air TV – no more than 5 or 6 in any country) to push their coup agenda.
Just imagine someone (say, radical muslim fanatics) kidnap the president and install someone else in its place in the US, with a radically different agenda than him, and US TV channels admit using their studios to plan how to kidnap him and send him to another country to put this new government in place. Then the elected president regains control and the democratic system -very mildly- castigates the coupers like Chávez did. You wouldn’t say it was undemoratic, would you?
This story (as well as countless others, but this one was one of the most circulated), devoid of all this context, was presented as “censorship from Chávez! Nationalizes the TV channels that don’t agree with him! Somedy think of the children!” by the corporate media in the US, UK and elsewhere. And here you are, believing it and repeating it.
As for the Constitution: Venezuelans reformed theirs with huge popular support. They are not violating in ways more significant than any random country in general. Same goes for Bolivians.
As for expropiations? Venezuela has paid or commited to pay lots of money for nationalizations. They owe money from some of the latest ones (an argentine steel company for example) but they have commited to pay for them too in principle.
This is actually something that some leftists criticize Chávez for: they say it’s stupid to put the country in debt or to make it pay a lot of money just to compensate huge corporations.
So, to sum up, you’re wrong here too.
Problems with local governments? In the case of Morales, it’s more like local governments having problems with him and starting violent, mass murdering separatist movements to stop any kind of money from going from the richer regions to the poor ones.
I could go on but I think the point is proven: either you refute this, or you’re not very well informed, just repeating corporate memes.