I'm rather hoping that classic liberals end up in one and the progressives end up in another, and we can run around debating _how_ to accomplish basically the same goals, and whether or not, for example, we should 'play favorites' to redress past wrong, or instead come up some other way to help people. And whether restricting people's ability to do drugs helps society, and even if it does, should we do it? Aka, a 'freedom' party vs a 'making society work' party, with both sides having to compromise to some exist, and both of them having basically the same goals. That would be an interesting and useful discussion.
Instead of this idiotic discussion we're apparently having about the delusional idea that cutting taxes increases revenue, and the delusional idea we should decrease spending during a recession, and the delusional idea that voter impersonation is an issue, and all the other delusional ideas that the Republicans keep coming up with.
Well, yes, the demographics problem is sorta on top of the crazy problem. And, yes, it's actually the demographics that will kill them.(Or, rather, _have_ killed them.) The crazy problem is just why they are unable to solve the demographics problem.
In fact, they almost _did_ solve part of the demographics problem, with Bush's rather reasonable immigration reform...and the first major success of the crazies was to destroy that.
The crazy problem happened _right_ as Republican party was ready to pivot on immigration, expanding their tent _just_ wide enough to keep a majority. So it is the reason they fell down...but it's sorta just random, that was the first thing they got caught up on.
If we look into an alternate universe where the internet was ten years later, we'd see a universe where the Republicans were still in charge, and the crazies were just now taking over in blogs...and in ten years the Republicans would lose because crazies held them steady on the LGBT issue while the rest of the country moved on.
And an internet (And fox news) ten years earlier than our universe, the 1992 blogs would be full of crazy about flag burning and how Clinton was secretly a Soviet spy or whatever. (The Soviet union's breakup obviously being some sort of liberal trick.)
So, basically, whatever issue destroys a party taken over by crazy is whatever issue comes up next that the crazies think crazy things about. Currently, that appears to be racial minorities. Admitted, the Republicans would have had a hard time pivoting on that _anyway_, but probably could have managed it.
What's also seriously helped is the Republicans continuing to demonstrate that both parties _aren't_ the same by having all sorts of crazy local people and laws.
Indeed. And the fact is, it's hard to see anything the right did wrong, except not predict the future.
The plan was obvious...keep stirring up the crazies with the newly invented cable news and talk radio, and keep gutting and criticize the mainstream media so the media doesn't report on this. Appear moderate to the public, appear far right to the base, and govern as basically moderate plus low taxes, ignoring the deficit, which was just something to yell around the Democrats about.
This actually seems like a perfect plan. It got them into power in 1994, and while it didn't get rid of Clinton in 1996, it did manage to get frickin George Bush in office in 2000.
And they managed to move the Overton window to the right, where suddenly we've all realized we need welfare reformed framed how the right says it. So the left moved away from their crazies (And plenty of sane leftish people), and into, functionally, a center-right party _barely_ to the left of the Republicans, which were also center-right.
But Al Gore had his revenge: The internet.
Suddenly, the crazy had a platform, and, worse, could _compare notes_. And realized that the Republicans were actually standing pretty close to the center, except for a few things like hurting unions (Which helped them politically) and lower taxes on the rich (Which also help them politically in donations). None of the Republican actually _cared_ about the lunatic issues that the far-right had been feed for two decades. Yes, that was somewhat obvious to everyone, but the far right had a lot of, to be blunt, fucking morons, and more importantly they were able to talk to each other and gin up the outrage.
Fox news then said 'Holy shit, right wing outrage, That's ratings gold!' (Insert video of a controlled detonation to take down a building.)
At this point, the right had two ways to jump. One option was to the left (On top of the Democrats) and disavowed their crazies, likes the Democrats did. Except the Democrats did that slowly, with the help of the media, the right had no time at all and the media had picked the other side. So they jumped rightward, a jump which half of them didn't manage to pull off and got replaced anyway.
That was _really_ the wrong choice. Well, perhaps the right choice for any individual's political career, as jumping to the left or even staying in the same place got people primaried out already. But it was _really_ the wrong choice for the party because of one simple fact:
Yes. Almost all hobbies look like wastes of time from the outside to other people. And a boatload of them are more dangerous than drugs.
Drugs sometimes cause a physical dependency, but so what? Skiing sometimes cause broken legs. A lot of hobbies, like computer games, TV watching, etc, sometimes cause people to not get enough exercise. Sports sometimes cause fights and riots. D&D sometimes causes players to think the game is real and go on murderous rampages for 'experience'...wait, that one is made up, nevermind.
It is legal for people to put specialized pieces of cloth in their backpack, hire an airplane, and then _jump out of that airplane_ and use the cloth to maybe land safely. This is entirely _legal_. People _sell_ other people this service, and the government is completely aware of this.
Compared to all that, someone who needs a specific amount of heroin each day to function is _nothing_.
And frankly, within a _functioning_ treatment system, it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to detox someone vs. fixing a broken leg or a heart attack caused by not enough exercise. (We do not have a functioning treatment system.)
This is why, despite being pro-life, I have very little respect for Roe vs. Wade. So, medical privacy allows people to do whatever they want to their body, eh? Okay, I wouldn't have called that 'medical privacy', but I can get behind that as a principle in a free society...a person's body is completely under their own control and any alterations they wish are allowed. In fact, I like that principle!
Oh, wait, it only applies to abortion (and contraceptives) for some completely nonsensical reason.
In fact, when you look at contraceptives, it's even goofier: There is a _constitutional right_ to put certain chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and reduce your fertility, but it is _illegal_ to put certain other chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and make you feel better? What?
Now, yes, a right to abortion and contraceptives is somewhat more _important_ than a right to recreational drugs, but I'm having trouble seeing how it is more 'medical privacyish'. It's like having a constitutional right to free speech allowing you to wear a 'Fuck the government' shirt but it being illegal to wear a Brewer's shirt. Huh?
Heh, I made my comment above, with nearly the same analogy, before I read yours.
But, in this case, it's more like, when people bring up the racial and idiotic disparity in crack vs. cocaine sentencing, it's someone claiming the solution is to 'legalize all drugs'. I.e, we're not talking about a 'bad' law, we're talking about a _discriminatory_ law. That they refuse to fix.
It's clearly completely nonsense. And, as I pointed out, extortion: 'We admit that unjust things are being done to you under the color of law, but instead of fixing the law to where it is just (Which is our responsibly as members of society who ultimately make laws), we will continue to allow society to harm you until you change your position on the laws about that topic in general to get the political outcome we want.'
That...is not ethical. At all. People who think a law is unjustly applied have a duty to make it just as quickly as possible, regardless of whether they like the law as a whole.(1) They cannot stand there pretending to be moral entities while stating they will only consider removing the law completely.
1) Why the hell I, a progressive, am having to point this out to so many supposed 'libertarians', is beyond me. I actually get a little flexible in how 'just' a law is, and am willing to slightly harm people for a better outcome in general. Libertarians are supposed to be the people demanding an absolute line on anything close to civil rights, and often, even on things that really aren't.
I’m not willing to damn gay couples to exclusion in the interim that I wait to get everything I want all at once.
Indeed, such a position seems profoundly unethical. Just imagine it applied other ways:
'Yes, the police are racially biased against blacks WRT drug laws, but instead of agreeing that we need to figure out how to stop that, I think instead I'll demand nothing change until drugs are legalized.'
'Yes, it's bad that the police are harassing people who walk around with perfectly legal firearms, but the place we need to focus is on on making all weapons, including automatic weapons, legal so they can't harass anyone ever again.'
Somehow the people making the argument 'We should just get rid of marriage' tend to be the people who _aren't_ affected by the current actual problem. And, I must point out, gay people what to get married usually _have no problem with marriage_. Saying 'We agree that society is unjustly harming you, and we will allow that to continue until you agree with our position about marriage.' is a little, uh, extortiony.
Sometimes I have this fantasy: 'Yes, the fact that people annoyed at your idiotic stance knocked down your door and burst into your house is wrong, and the fact that they are currently beating you with tire irons is horrible. So I will not rest until I have mandated that tire irons are properly regulated...oh come on, you're not even looking at me while I'm talking to you. And stop moaning like that, and asking for help...I _am_ helping you! Surely you see that. What do you mean you don't have an moral objection to tire irons, you just want them to stop hitting you with them? No, I don't know how we'd change tires without them, why are you asking all these stupid questions...don't you _want_ them to stop hitting you? For the good of everyone, we must get rid of tire irons...oh, great, now he's gone to sleep, the lazy bastard.'
They are the _state's_ electors. If the _state_ needs an extra week or so to get them together, the state can take an extra week. As long as the certified vote is mailed to the right people and state what the numbers are, it's a damn valid election. (Incidentally, I dislike this fact generally, I think the Federal government should be running elections for Federal offices...but that fact is true whether or not I like it at any given moment.)
And the constitution does not actually say what could happen, so I'm confused as to what people think _would_ happen if a state picked a different day. Congress has no authority that I can see to reject cast votes. In fact, trying to do _that_ would cause a constitutional crisis:
'...which lists [the electors] shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted...'
Nothing in there about 'Unless they voted on the wrong date'. If it is signed and certified by proper state authorities and gotten to Congress in time, Congress _shall_ count it, period.
Now, I guess the Federal government could make voting on a different day a crime, or make electors casting electoral votes from the result of a wrong-date vote a crime...but they haven't done that, and they can't do it retroactively. And it wouldn't affect the election anyway. (Much like state laws against faithless electors...an argument can be made that states can, indeed, make that a crime...but it won't change the actual vote they actually cast.)
That said, the easiest solution would be for Congress to hurry back to DC and postpone the entire election by a week.
Wow, half the people here have rather...astonishing predictions. You guys know we elect presidents based on the electoral college, right? So everyone looking at national polls is being a bit silly.
As is everyone looking at Ohio...Romney _must_ win Ohio, but Obama does not actually need it. Obama's basically starting at 241, Romney at 191, so Romney has to win a hell of a lot swing states. And, statistically, he's about to _lose_ most of those swing states. In fact, it appears that he is likely to lose Ohio!
My prediction: Obama wins NH, PA, WI, MI, and NV, for a total 0f 263. Romney wins NC and FL.
This leaves CO, OH, and VA on the table...and Romney has to win _all_ of them.
He will not. He probably _lose_ all of them, and thus Obama will get 303 EVs at the lower bounds. But let's be conservative here, and let Romney win either VA or CO somehow, so the total is 288. Obama still wins.
So my official prediction: 288-303 EV for Obama. Assuming I haven't screwed up in the math somewhere.
And I don't think it's completely impossible Romney will lose Florida. It was already close, and then Romney went around being an idiot towards hurricanes and disaster relief, and Obama went around being competent.
Unrelated to that, I also predict that Ohio will manage to fuck up the election again and go into overtime, this time due to voter ID. But Obama will still win it.
Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, we don't want to actually attach congressional districts to the presidential election, as congressional districts are just something states made up anyway. Valid point.
I think I'm back at 'Why the heck is the state is charge of how it elects people to national office?'. I'm sorry, states have demonstrated they are _completely irresponsible_ WRT voting and voting rights. Especially recently.
There are states that are _deliberately_ screwing up the election in specific ways so that 'their party' wins. Look at Ohio, which had a horrible election process in 2004, fixed it for 2008 and, to their horror voted for Obama, so is now attempting to break it back.
Oh, and let's not get into electronic voting weirdness. Or gerrymandering.Or voter ID to fight the imaginary crime of voter impersonation.
And it's not just that. Why the hell do states get representation for their _prison population_? Or people with stripped voting rights? Or people here illegally.
The sheer level of dishonesty and manipulation going on at the local level for national elections...no. Just no. The entire situation is competely fucked up.
As states are indeed in charge of themselves, they can continue to be irresponsible towards their own internal elections. But Representatives and Senators and electors are supposed to be via actual vote of actual people, and at this point we have _decades_ of records demonstrating that states simply cannot be trusted with that.
Of course electoral districts are an extra-constitutional artifact themselves.
I don't know what you mean by artifact, but, yes, the states could elect all electors by a majority vote. I guess we're lucky the states have forgotten this.
I actually think this was a major oversight of the constitution. Yes, yes, it's all well and good to let states have any form of _internal_ government as long as it is representative, but I really do think that _exactly_ how national offices are filled should be spelled out in the constitution. (Or, rather, the right of the national government to specify that should be spelled out, and then the government should do that.)
We already specified, and then changed, how we did that for Senators. (Incidentally, I see nothing in the 17th amendment stopping us from having two _Senate_ districts in a state. Interesting idea.)
Actually, looking at state's attempt to deliberately fuck it up, I'd really prefer the US government did the actual voting process and even controlled who could vote in it. (Just for national offices, of course.)
And a great many are partisanly gerrymandered to an extreme degree.
It really doesn't make sense to worry about a gerrymandered district when the 2/3rd of entire nation is functionally in 'gerrymandered-by-accident' states where their vote doesn't matter.
At least if the gerrymandering is _local_, yes, any specific district might be ignored by a candidate, but they can scarcely ignore the entire state, or even an entire section of the country!
But like I said, introducing _another_ election into the gerrymandering equation means they really have to stop using such tight tolerances for gerrymandering, or they risk blowing one of the elections.
I propose that the House-based electoral votes should be _by congressional district_.
This would neuter gerrymandering. Now there are _two_ boundaries to worry about, with different levels of fuzziness and different voting patterns, and it's a hell of a lot harder to sit there and make '10 55%-our-guy districts and one 95%-the-other-guy district'. If you gerrymander to that extent with the presidential election in the balance, a very slight shift in the presidential election might throw them _all_ to the other side, so you can't risk it. You have to make them 60% or 65% districts...which means now the other side has two or three districts instead of one.
The VP election is decided by the _incoming_ Senate, just like the Pres is decided by the incoming House. Which means, of course, that Biden is not part of it, as he has not been elected yet. These seems to be one of those weird paradoxes. The only thing the Senate can ever tie on, without the VP being able to decide it...is the VP selection.
I actually think in a case of electoral college tie actually happening, the Senate would say 'You know, we're just going to wait and pick whatever VP was in the same party as whoever the House picks, because we as a county do not like divided ticket President/VP'. (Of course, if the House misses their window, then it would be a real vote.)
Another odd fact: While the House is time-limited on how long they can take to select the President, the Senate is not. They can actually wait forever, which raises the question of what happens when a presidential inauguration rolls around and there's no one there to take office. I _guess_ the Speaker of the House has to take office.
Although if we've got such a fucked up House they can't manage to pick a President, it's entirely possible that is because they haven't managed to pick a Speaker yet!
And without a President, we've got no cabinet either. Hrmmmm...I really have no idea what is supposed to happen at that point.
We'd apparently be be in a weird position where there is a _race_ to see whoever managed to get their act together (The House in electing a Speaker, the Senate in electing a VP), because their guy to assumes the presidency. (And, ironically, neither of those actually ran for the office. So the actual tied candidates are sitting over to the side, pissed.)
What I would like to see is not a 'popular vote' per se, but a _divided_ vote.
All states should do it exactly like congressional districts....everyone votes for one elector from their district, and two state-wide electors.
This would cut down on the crazy redistricting, simply because the margins are not exactly the same. I.e., if the Republicans run around making each district 55% Republican and 45% Democratic for Representative votes, they really risk blowing a lot of presidential electoral votes. They'd have to _really_ overpower the districts to ensure a presidential win, which now means there's less Republicans to go around for other districts. (Please note I am in no way implying that only Republicans gerrymander.)
Meanwhile, it means that the campaigns would have to pay attention to almost every state(1), simply because there's usually at least _one_ congressional district they think they can win. (And the campaign 'splashes'...yes, your specific district might be decided, but if they come to a district near yours, they're often going to be talking about basically the same issues that people in your district care about.)
Reading this opinion, it appears to first point out the sex discrimination angle. (Which is perfect in this case. If Edith Windsor had been male, she would not have been denied anything. Her sexual orientation is completely irrelevant.)
But then it instead points out that homosexuals should be a suspect class _anyway_, and decided based the decision on that.
I am not sure this will work. I can imagine the Supreme Court coming up with some bullshit reason to not add gay people to suspect classes. I would _like_ it to be added, because it that would screw with all the other anti-gay laws. But even without that, even if the court punts on that, the sexual discrimination issue should win it, and the people making the case were smart enough to argue that also.
So if that logic shows up in court, that the Supremes would basically be _forced_ to say a) yes it obviously is (Seriously, she would have been awarded her spousal deduction if she had been male. It really can't be any clearer sexual discrimination than that.), and thus b) it is under intermediate scrutiny (This is settled law), and c) no one has ever come up with any government interest at all. (They really have not.)
The only tiny wiggle room is (c), and that requires the Supreme Court accepting some completely nonsensical government interest.
I notice, reading the dissents, that they seemed to completely ignore the sexual discrimination aspect, and instead applied 'rational bias'.
Regardless of whether or not sexual orientation is protected as a class, (Which is actually debatable.), any law that _talks about_ gender in any way, and especially ones that _restrict_ people from things based _solely_ on gender, is _already_ under intermediate scrutiny. The court really should already know this.
I don't think 'Super-cool to shoot' is a particularly good reason to allow things. RPGs are also super-cool to shoot. (And speaking of an entirely different sort of RPG, kill sats are also super-cool to shoot, as evidenced by playing Fallout New Vegas.)
And I'm not entirely sure what sort of usefulness they would pose in hunting. Unless animals have gotten much stupider recently, even a suppressed gunshot should startle them.
There's always the possibility that the Grimace is working with Wendistan.
The theory is basically, and this is a bit out there, is that they promised him all the remaining milkshakes after the invasion. Wendistan, while after the other natural resources of McDonaldistan, (Especially the beef), has no need for the milkshakes. This is because, instead of milkshakes, they have based their society on an alternate cold-milk formulation called a 'Frosty', and standardize milkshakes are incompatible and expensive to convert. (The use of Frosties have caused human rights criticism in the past, with allegations of anti-vanilla discrimination, but they asserted that was due to technical issues, and claimed to have remedied this in 2006.)
I'm not sure if this theory makes sense, but it's been bouncing around the fast food blogosphere for a bit.
At any rate, I’m looking forward to the opening of several coal-fired power plants here on Long Island and not paying any income tax on the $1.27 in interest my bank paid on our savings account this year. Fanfuckingtastic.
I love the fact that he's proposing that no one has to pay any income tax on their investment income as a counterbalance to removing deductions, and I'm making sure to tell everyone I know about that 'solution'. I get exactly the same sort of response you just gave. ;)
Jesus H. Christ, Romney, do you even _live in the same universe_ as human beings? Human beings do not have investments that are earning taxable interest. If they are very lucky, they have some _tax-deferred_ investments(1), but the vast majority of non-retired people do not have any interest payments they declare on their taxes at all. Especially since _ interest rates are at all time low_, so this is an exceptionally stupid time to pretend people are worried about interest tax.
1) Which they will pay taxes on after they retire, so a) is not important now, and b) they will be paying taxes on when they have almost no other declared income, and hence will pay _almost no taxes_ anyway. And thus cannot possibly make up for removing deductions _now_.
Threaded barrels are not just cosmetic. They are attachment points for things that either are often illegal (suppressor) or make the gun more deadly (extended barrel). As such it appears somewhat reasonable to have laws about that. (And people who want to attach a harmless handgrip are just SOL. But I'm confused to what that is, I don't see why those would need to attach to a threaded barrel...and isn't the end of the barrel a bit far for a handgrip?)
Bayonet mounts and grenade launcher attachment points are sorta the same way, but no one ever illegally attaches grenade launchers and uses them in crime, and no one uses bayonets outside of an actual close-combat war. In real life, if someone was going to close enough to bayonet people, they'd bring a handgun, not a rifle + bayonet.
Of course, it makes no sense to have a law where threaded barrels are allowed if they are the _only_ thing on the weapon. I frankly would rather have a policy that no weapon barrel modifications are allowed, and no gun can have a place to screw those in, and everything else is allowed. (Yes, I know, people will just buy swap out the barrels for one that do have threaded ends, but whatever. At least a trivial inspection can detect those, instead of having to dismantle the gun and carefully check it out to see if it's capable of fully automatic.)
Telescopic and folding stocks are _also_ not just cosmetic, they are slightly useful to get the gun in places it could otherwise not be found...but considering the prevalence of handguns, which are much smaller, a stock that can make a rifle 2/3rd the original length but still much larger than a handgun seems stupid to worry about. (I think people have perhaps been watching too much TV where assassins, even in small auditoriums, bring a rifle in and assemble it. Like it's impossible to shoot someone at 100 feet with a handgun.)
Simpson-Bowles does not have _anything_ in it, because that commission (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) did not actually return. That commission was set up to require a supermajority, and did not get it, and thus, strictly speaking, failed to make any recommendations _at all_. It is not correct to refer to anything as the product of that commission, or by the name of that commission.
Now, there was a draft proposal that the committee can up with that got a _majority_ (But not the required supermajority), and it is entirely reasonable for some of the Congresspeople who supported it in the commission (Or even random others) to make legislation based on it. People are free to take failed results and use them as the basic for legislation if they want, no one has a problem with that.
But that doesn't mean that hypothetical bill is 'Simpson-Bowles'. (Not that such a bill appears even to exist!)
Also, it is somewhat confusing to blame the Dems for not doing anything with this draft proposal. The commission failed to return a recommendations in Dec 2010...and last I checked starting a budgetary bill was the job of the House, and the House has, duh, been controlled by Republicans since 2011. Yes, granted, the Democrats had half of a lame duck session before 2011 they could have done it in, but that is just a little silly, and seems to assume a few proposals can turn into actual legislation a lot faster than it can.
I am not a neoliberal, and am in fact vaguely confused as to what that is, but I have to agree with ' If anything most of what I’ve read suggests that it is the current government regulations imposed on unionization that go a long way towards harming union formation.'
I think labor be much better off if we removed all regulation vaguely connected with unions, and start over.
Why? Because that regulation was in pre-internet, pre-cell phone camera days. It was in the days when the local police could, and would beat strikers. And it was the days without safety regulations, so unions had to give concessions just to get those. And it was in the days where someone couldn't set up a nice website and get the workers behind them on _that_ without the management knowing about it.
Reboot the entire thing, but in _this_ universe? Holy crap. You'd have sympathy strikes, you'd have strikes of 'management', you'd have partial strikes and slowdowns of skilled workers, you'd have unions forcing union shops everywhere. You'd have unions that barred anyone who scabbed from ever working in the field again. You'd have picketers deliberately blocking entrances and getting arrested. (That last would still be illegal, but we've gotten much most sympathetic to that since the turn of the last century.)
I.e., back then, companies did a lot of _illegal_ things to cripple the movement, so that labor laws were accepted as some sort of compromise. Not only can they no longer do that, but _unions_ can do a lot more completely legal stuff...and 'protesting' has become a lot more accepted, especially for stuff that is easy to explain.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “It’s the Party, Stupid, Ctd. : How we deal with the peccadillos is actually pretty important, too”
And we really need another party of some sort.
I'm rather hoping that classic liberals end up in one and the progressives end up in another, and we can run around debating _how_ to accomplish basically the same goals, and whether or not, for example, we should 'play favorites' to redress past wrong, or instead come up some other way to help people. And whether restricting people's ability to do drugs helps society, and even if it does, should we do it? Aka, a 'freedom' party vs a 'making society work' party, with both sides having to compromise to some exist, and both of them having basically the same goals. That would be an interesting and useful discussion.
Instead of this idiotic discussion we're apparently having about the delusional idea that cutting taxes increases revenue, and the delusional idea we should decrease spending during a recession, and the delusional idea that voter impersonation is an issue, and all the other delusional ideas that the Republicans keep coming up with.
"
Well, yes, the demographics problem is sorta on top of the crazy problem. And, yes, it's actually the demographics that will kill them.(Or, rather, _have_ killed them.) The crazy problem is just why they are unable to solve the demographics problem.
In fact, they almost _did_ solve part of the demographics problem, with Bush's rather reasonable immigration reform...and the first major success of the crazies was to destroy that.
The crazy problem happened _right_ as Republican party was ready to pivot on immigration, expanding their tent _just_ wide enough to keep a majority. So it is the reason they fell down...but it's sorta just random, that was the first thing they got caught up on.
If we look into an alternate universe where the internet was ten years later, we'd see a universe where the Republicans were still in charge, and the crazies were just now taking over in blogs...and in ten years the Republicans would lose because crazies held them steady on the LGBT issue while the rest of the country moved on.
And an internet (And fox news) ten years earlier than our universe, the 1992 blogs would be full of crazy about flag burning and how Clinton was secretly a Soviet spy or whatever. (The Soviet union's breakup obviously being some sort of liberal trick.)
So, basically, whatever issue destroys a party taken over by crazy is whatever issue comes up next that the crazies think crazy things about. Currently, that appears to be racial minorities. Admitted, the Republicans would have had a hard time pivoting on that _anyway_, but probably could have managed it.
What's also seriously helped is the Republicans continuing to demonstrate that both parties _aren't_ the same by having all sorts of crazy local people and laws.
"
Indeed. And the fact is, it's hard to see anything the right did wrong, except not predict the future.
The plan was obvious...keep stirring up the crazies with the newly invented cable news and talk radio, and keep gutting and criticize the mainstream media so the media doesn't report on this. Appear moderate to the public, appear far right to the base, and govern as basically moderate plus low taxes, ignoring the deficit, which was just something to yell around the Democrats about.
This actually seems like a perfect plan. It got them into power in 1994, and while it didn't get rid of Clinton in 1996, it did manage to get frickin George Bush in office in 2000.
And they managed to move the Overton window to the right, where suddenly we've all realized we need welfare reformed framed how the right says it. So the left moved away from their crazies (And plenty of sane leftish people), and into, functionally, a center-right party _barely_ to the left of the Republicans, which were also center-right.
But Al Gore had his revenge: The internet.
Suddenly, the crazy had a platform, and, worse, could _compare notes_. And realized that the Republicans were actually standing pretty close to the center, except for a few things like hurting unions (Which helped them politically) and lower taxes on the rich (Which also help them politically in donations). None of the Republican actually _cared_ about the lunatic issues that the far-right had been feed for two decades. Yes, that was somewhat obvious to everyone, but the far right had a lot of, to be blunt, fucking morons, and more importantly they were able to talk to each other and gin up the outrage.
Fox news then said 'Holy shit, right wing outrage, That's ratings gold!' (Insert video of a controlled detonation to take down a building.)
At this point, the right had two ways to jump. One option was to the left (On top of the Democrats) and disavowed their crazies, likes the Democrats did. Except the Democrats did that slowly, with the help of the media, the right had no time at all and the media had picked the other side. So they jumped rightward, a jump which half of them didn't manage to pull off and got replaced anyway.
That was _really_ the wrong choice. Well, perhaps the right choice for any individual's political career, as jumping to the left or even staying in the same place got people primaried out already. But it was _really_ the wrong choice for the party because of one simple fact:
WE CAN SEE YOU GUYS IN THERE.
On “No, but it would help”
Yes. Almost all hobbies look like wastes of time from the outside to other people. And a boatload of them are more dangerous than drugs.
Drugs sometimes cause a physical dependency, but so what? Skiing sometimes cause broken legs. A lot of hobbies, like computer games, TV watching, etc, sometimes cause people to not get enough exercise. Sports sometimes cause fights and riots. D&D sometimes causes players to think the game is real and go on murderous rampages for 'experience'...wait, that one is made up, nevermind.
It is legal for people to put specialized pieces of cloth in their backpack, hire an airplane, and then _jump out of that airplane_ and use the cloth to maybe land safely. This is entirely _legal_. People _sell_ other people this service, and the government is completely aware of this.
Compared to all that, someone who needs a specific amount of heroin each day to function is _nothing_.
And frankly, within a _functioning_ treatment system, it's a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to detox someone vs. fixing a broken leg or a heart attack caused by not enough exercise. (We do not have a functioning treatment system.)
"
This is why, despite being pro-life, I have very little respect for Roe vs. Wade. So, medical privacy allows people to do whatever they want to their body, eh? Okay, I wouldn't have called that 'medical privacy', but I can get behind that as a principle in a free society...a person's body is completely under their own control and any alterations they wish are allowed. In fact, I like that principle!
Oh, wait, it only applies to abortion (and contraceptives) for some completely nonsensical reason.
In fact, when you look at contraceptives, it's even goofier: There is a _constitutional right_ to put certain chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and reduce your fertility, but it is _illegal_ to put certain other chemicals in your body to temporarily alter your body chemistry and make you feel better? What?
Now, yes, a right to abortion and contraceptives is somewhat more _important_ than a right to recreational drugs, but I'm having trouble seeing how it is more 'medical privacyish'. It's like having a constitutional right to free speech allowing you to wear a 'Fuck the government' shirt but it being illegal to wear a Brewer's shirt. Huh?
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules”
The problem is that Romney basically has to win all the toss-ups, while Obama just needs to win one of them.
On “If you happen to live in Maine (or Washington, Maryland or Minnesota)”
Heh, I made my comment above, with nearly the same analogy, before I read yours.
But, in this case, it's more like, when people bring up the racial and idiotic disparity in crack vs. cocaine sentencing, it's someone claiming the solution is to 'legalize all drugs'. I.e, we're not talking about a 'bad' law, we're talking about a _discriminatory_ law. That they refuse to fix.
It's clearly completely nonsense. And, as I pointed out, extortion: 'We admit that unjust things are being done to you under the color of law, but instead of fixing the law to where it is just (Which is our responsibly as members of society who ultimately make laws), we will continue to allow society to harm you until you change your position on the laws about that topic in general to get the political outcome we want.'
That...is not ethical. At all. People who think a law is unjustly applied have a duty to make it just as quickly as possible, regardless of whether they like the law as a whole.(1) They cannot stand there pretending to be moral entities while stating they will only consider removing the law completely.
1) Why the hell I, a progressive, am having to point this out to so many supposed 'libertarians', is beyond me. I actually get a little flexible in how 'just' a law is, and am willing to slightly harm people for a better outcome in general. Libertarians are supposed to be the people demanding an absolute line on anything close to civil rights, and often, even on things that really aren't.
"
I’m not willing to damn gay couples to exclusion in the interim that I wait to get everything I want all at once.
Indeed, such a position seems profoundly unethical. Just imagine it applied other ways:
'Yes, the police are racially biased against blacks WRT drug laws, but instead of agreeing that we need to figure out how to stop that, I think instead I'll demand nothing change until drugs are legalized.'
'Yes, it's bad that the police are harassing people who walk around with perfectly legal firearms, but the place we need to focus is on on making all weapons, including automatic weapons, legal so they can't harass anyone ever again.'
Somehow the people making the argument 'We should just get rid of marriage' tend to be the people who _aren't_ affected by the current actual problem. And, I must point out, gay people what to get married usually _have no problem with marriage_. Saying 'We agree that society is unjustly harming you, and we will allow that to continue until you agree with our position about marriage.' is a little, uh, extortiony.
Sometimes I have this fantasy: 'Yes, the fact that people annoyed at your idiotic stance knocked down your door and burst into your house is wrong, and the fact that they are currently beating you with tire irons is horrible. So I will not rest until I have mandated that tire irons are properly regulated...oh come on, you're not even looking at me while I'm talking to you. And stop moaning like that, and asking for help...I _am_ helping you! Surely you see that. What do you mean you don't have an moral objection to tire irons, you just want them to stop hitting you with them? No, I don't know how we'd change tires without them, why are you asking all these stupid questions...don't you _want_ them to stop hitting you? For the good of everyone, we must get rid of tire irons...oh, great, now he's gone to sleep, the lazy bastard.'
On “Hurricane Sandy, and Why Sound Risk Management Should Always Trump Populist Banner Waving”
They are the _state's_ electors. If the _state_ needs an extra week or so to get them together, the state can take an extra week. As long as the certified vote is mailed to the right people and state what the numbers are, it's a damn valid election. (Incidentally, I dislike this fact generally, I think the Federal government should be running elections for Federal offices...but that fact is true whether or not I like it at any given moment.)
And the constitution does not actually say what could happen, so I'm confused as to what people think _would_ happen if a state picked a different day. Congress has no authority that I can see to reject cast votes. In fact, trying to do _that_ would cause a constitutional crisis:
'...which lists [the electors] shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted...'
Nothing in there about 'Unless they voted on the wrong date'. If it is signed and certified by proper state authorities and gotten to Congress in time, Congress _shall_ count it, period.
Now, I guess the Federal government could make voting on a different day a crime, or make electors casting electoral votes from the result of a wrong-date vote a crime...but they haven't done that, and they can't do it retroactively. And it wouldn't affect the election anyway. (Much like state laws against faithless electors...an argument can be made that states can, indeed, make that a crime...but it won't change the actual vote they actually cast.)
That said, the easiest solution would be for Congress to hurry back to DC and postpone the entire election by a week.
On “George Lucas Taps Out”
This creates a very weird fact that I'm not entirely sure anyone has considered:
Marvel now has direct access to Star Wars.
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules”
Wow, half the people here have rather...astonishing predictions. You guys know we elect presidents based on the electoral college, right? So everyone looking at national polls is being a bit silly.
As is everyone looking at Ohio...Romney _must_ win Ohio, but Obama does not actually need it. Obama's basically starting at 241, Romney at 191, so Romney has to win a hell of a lot swing states. And, statistically, he's about to _lose_ most of those swing states. In fact, it appears that he is likely to lose Ohio!
My prediction: Obama wins NH, PA, WI, MI, and NV, for a total 0f 263. Romney wins NC and FL.
This leaves CO, OH, and VA on the table...and Romney has to win _all_ of them.
He will not. He probably _lose_ all of them, and thus Obama will get 303 EVs at the lower bounds. But let's be conservative here, and let Romney win either VA or CO somehow, so the total is 288. Obama still wins.
So my official prediction: 288-303 EV for Obama. Assuming I haven't screwed up in the math somewhere.
And I don't think it's completely impossible Romney will lose Florida. It was already close, and then Romney went around being an idiot towards hurricanes and disaster relief, and Obama went around being competent.
Unrelated to that, I also predict that Ohio will manage to fuck up the election again and go into overtime, this time due to voter ID. But Obama will still win it.
On “Electoral College Reversal”
Ah, I see what you mean. Yes, we don't want to actually attach congressional districts to the presidential election, as congressional districts are just something states made up anyway. Valid point.
I think I'm back at 'Why the heck is the state is charge of how it elects people to national office?'. I'm sorry, states have demonstrated they are _completely irresponsible_ WRT voting and voting rights. Especially recently.
There are states that are _deliberately_ screwing up the election in specific ways so that 'their party' wins. Look at Ohio, which had a horrible election process in 2004, fixed it for 2008 and, to their horror voted for Obama, so is now attempting to break it back.
Oh, and let's not get into electronic voting weirdness. Or gerrymandering.Or voter ID to fight the imaginary crime of voter impersonation.
And it's not just that. Why the hell do states get representation for their _prison population_? Or people with stripped voting rights? Or people here illegally.
The sheer level of dishonesty and manipulation going on at the local level for national elections...no. Just no. The entire situation is competely fucked up.
As states are indeed in charge of themselves, they can continue to be irresponsible towards their own internal elections. But Representatives and Senators and electors are supposed to be via actual vote of actual people, and at this point we have _decades_ of records demonstrating that states simply cannot be trusted with that.
"
Of course electoral districts are an extra-constitutional artifact themselves.
I don't know what you mean by artifact, but, yes, the states could elect all electors by a majority vote. I guess we're lucky the states have forgotten this.
I actually think this was a major oversight of the constitution. Yes, yes, it's all well and good to let states have any form of _internal_ government as long as it is representative, but I really do think that _exactly_ how national offices are filled should be spelled out in the constitution. (Or, rather, the right of the national government to specify that should be spelled out, and then the government should do that.)
We already specified, and then changed, how we did that for Senators. (Incidentally, I see nothing in the 17th amendment stopping us from having two _Senate_ districts in a state. Interesting idea.)
Actually, looking at state's attempt to deliberately fuck it up, I'd really prefer the US government did the actual voting process and even controlled who could vote in it. (Just for national offices, of course.)
And a great many are partisanly gerrymandered to an extreme degree.
It really doesn't make sense to worry about a gerrymandered district when the 2/3rd of entire nation is functionally in 'gerrymandered-by-accident' states where their vote doesn't matter.
At least if the gerrymandering is _local_, yes, any specific district might be ignored by a candidate, but they can scarcely ignore the entire state, or even an entire section of the country!
But like I said, introducing _another_ election into the gerrymandering equation means they really have to stop using such tight tolerances for gerrymandering, or they risk blowing one of the elections.
"
I propose that the House-based electoral votes should be _by congressional district_.
This would neuter gerrymandering. Now there are _two_ boundaries to worry about, with different levels of fuzziness and different voting patterns, and it's a hell of a lot harder to sit there and make '10 55%-our-guy districts and one 95%-the-other-guy district'. If you gerrymander to that extent with the presidential election in the balance, a very slight shift in the presidential election might throw them _all_ to the other side, so you can't risk it. You have to make them 60% or 65% districts...which means now the other side has two or three districts instead of one.
"
Not as I understand it.
The VP election is decided by the _incoming_ Senate, just like the Pres is decided by the incoming House. Which means, of course, that Biden is not part of it, as he has not been elected yet. These seems to be one of those weird paradoxes. The only thing the Senate can ever tie on, without the VP being able to decide it...is the VP selection.
I actually think in a case of electoral college tie actually happening, the Senate would say 'You know, we're just going to wait and pick whatever VP was in the same party as whoever the House picks, because we as a county do not like divided ticket President/VP'. (Of course, if the House misses their window, then it would be a real vote.)
Another odd fact: While the House is time-limited on how long they can take to select the President, the Senate is not. They can actually wait forever, which raises the question of what happens when a presidential inauguration rolls around and there's no one there to take office. I _guess_ the Speaker of the House has to take office.
Although if we've got such a fucked up House they can't manage to pick a President, it's entirely possible that is because they haven't managed to pick a Speaker yet!
And without a President, we've got no cabinet either. Hrmmmm...I really have no idea what is supposed to happen at that point.
We'd apparently be be in a weird position where there is a _race_ to see whoever managed to get their act together (The House in electing a Speaker, the Senate in electing a VP), because their guy to assumes the presidency. (And, ironically, neither of those actually ran for the office. So the actual tied candidates are sitting over to the side, pissed.)
"
What I would like to see is not a 'popular vote' per se, but a _divided_ vote.
All states should do it exactly like congressional districts....everyone votes for one elector from their district, and two state-wide electors.
This would cut down on the crazy redistricting, simply because the margins are not exactly the same. I.e., if the Republicans run around making each district 55% Republican and 45% Democratic for Representative votes, they really risk blowing a lot of presidential electoral votes. They'd have to _really_ overpower the districts to ensure a presidential win, which now means there's less Republicans to go around for other districts. (Please note I am in no way implying that only Republicans gerrymander.)
Meanwhile, it means that the campaigns would have to pay attention to almost every state(1), simply because there's usually at least _one_ congressional district they think they can win. (And the campaign 'splashes'...yes, your specific district might be decided, but if they come to a district near yours, they're often going to be talking about basically the same issues that people in your district care about.)
1) Alaska is still screwed, however.
On “Intermediate Scrutiny”
Reading this opinion, it appears to first point out the sex discrimination angle. (Which is perfect in this case. If Edith Windsor had been male, she would not have been denied anything. Her sexual orientation is completely irrelevant.)
But then it instead points out that homosexuals should be a suspect class _anyway_, and decided based the decision on that.
I am not sure this will work. I can imagine the Supreme Court coming up with some bullshit reason to not add gay people to suspect classes. I would _like_ it to be added, because it that would screw with all the other anti-gay laws. But even without that, even if the court punts on that, the sexual discrimination issue should win it, and the people making the case were smart enough to argue that also.
So if that logic shows up in court, that the Supremes would basically be _forced_ to say a) yes it obviously is (Seriously, she would have been awarded her spousal deduction if she had been male. It really can't be any clearer sexual discrimination than that.), and thus b) it is under intermediate scrutiny (This is settled law), and c) no one has ever come up with any government interest at all. (They really have not.)
The only tiny wiggle room is (c), and that requires the Supreme Court accepting some completely nonsensical government interest.
I notice, reading the dissents, that they seemed to completely ignore the sexual discrimination aspect, and instead applied 'rational bias'.
Regardless of whether or not sexual orientation is protected as a class, (Which is actually debatable.), any law that _talks about_ gender in any way, and especially ones that _restrict_ people from things based _solely_ on gender, is _already_ under intermediate scrutiny. The court really should already know this.
On “The Candidates on Guns”
I don't think 'Super-cool to shoot' is a particularly good reason to allow things. RPGs are also super-cool to shoot. (And speaking of an entirely different sort of RPG, kill sats are also super-cool to shoot, as evidenced by playing Fallout New Vegas.)
And I'm not entirely sure what sort of usefulness they would pose in hunting. Unless animals have gotten much stupider recently, even a suppressed gunshot should startle them.
"
...why on earth would we be making those legal? What sort of justification is there for that?
On “EU Gets The Nobel Peace Prize Jukebox And Weekend Open Thread”
The money sounds good until you think of how much it cost the entire EU to fly to Norway to receive the award.
"
There's always the possibility that the Grimace is working with Wendistan.
The theory is basically, and this is a bit out there, is that they promised him all the remaining milkshakes after the invasion. Wendistan, while after the other natural resources of McDonaldistan, (Especially the beef), has no need for the milkshakes. This is because, instead of milkshakes, they have based their society on an alternate cold-milk formulation called a 'Frosty', and standardize milkshakes are incompatible and expensive to convert. (The use of Frosties have caused human rights criticism in the past, with allegations of anti-vanilla discrimination, but they asserted that was due to technical issues, and claimed to have remedied this in 2006.)
I'm not sure if this theory makes sense, but it's been bouncing around the fast food blogosphere for a bit.
On “Two Debates; Two Observations”
At any rate, I’m looking forward to the opening of several coal-fired power plants here on Long Island and not paying any income tax on the $1.27 in interest my bank paid on our savings account this year. Fanfuckingtastic.
I love the fact that he's proposing that no one has to pay any income tax on their investment income as a counterbalance to removing deductions, and I'm making sure to tell everyone I know about that 'solution'. I get exactly the same sort of response you just gave. ;)
Jesus H. Christ, Romney, do you even _live in the same universe_ as human beings? Human beings do not have investments that are earning taxable interest. If they are very lucky, they have some _tax-deferred_ investments(1), but the vast majority of non-retired people do not have any interest payments they declare on their taxes at all. Especially since _ interest rates are at all time low_, so this is an exceptionally stupid time to pretend people are worried about interest tax.
1) Which they will pay taxes on after they retire, so a) is not important now, and b) they will be paying taxes on when they have almost no other declared income, and hence will pay _almost no taxes_ anyway. And thus cannot possibly make up for removing deductions _now_.
On “The Candidates on Guns”
Threaded barrels are not just cosmetic. They are attachment points for things that either are often illegal (suppressor) or make the gun more deadly (extended barrel). As such it appears somewhat reasonable to have laws about that. (And people who want to attach a harmless handgrip are just SOL. But I'm confused to what that is, I don't see why those would need to attach to a threaded barrel...and isn't the end of the barrel a bit far for a handgrip?)
Bayonet mounts and grenade launcher attachment points are sorta the same way, but no one ever illegally attaches grenade launchers and uses them in crime, and no one uses bayonets outside of an actual close-combat war. In real life, if someone was going to close enough to bayonet people, they'd bring a handgun, not a rifle + bayonet.
Of course, it makes no sense to have a law where threaded barrels are allowed if they are the _only_ thing on the weapon. I frankly would rather have a policy that no weapon barrel modifications are allowed, and no gun can have a place to screw those in, and everything else is allowed. (Yes, I know, people will just buy swap out the barrels for one that do have threaded ends, but whatever. At least a trivial inspection can detect those, instead of having to dismantle the gun and carefully check it out to see if it's capable of fully automatic.)
Telescopic and folding stocks are _also_ not just cosmetic, they are slightly useful to get the gun in places it could otherwise not be found...but considering the prevalence of handguns, which are much smaller, a stock that can make a rifle 2/3rd the original length but still much larger than a handgun seems stupid to worry about. (I think people have perhaps been watching too much TV where assassins, even in small auditoriums, bring a rifle in and assemble it. Like it's impossible to shoot someone at 100 feet with a handgun.)
On “Simpson-Bowles Will Not Save Us”
Whoa whoa whoa. Let's be careful here.
Simpson-Bowles does not have _anything_ in it, because that commission (National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform) did not actually return. That commission was set up to require a supermajority, and did not get it, and thus, strictly speaking, failed to make any recommendations _at all_. It is not correct to refer to anything as the product of that commission, or by the name of that commission.
Now, there was a draft proposal that the committee can up with that got a _majority_ (But not the required supermajority), and it is entirely reasonable for some of the Congresspeople who supported it in the commission (Or even random others) to make legislation based on it. People are free to take failed results and use them as the basic for legislation if they want, no one has a problem with that.
But that doesn't mean that hypothetical bill is 'Simpson-Bowles'. (Not that such a bill appears even to exist!)
Also, it is somewhat confusing to blame the Dems for not doing anything with this draft proposal. The commission failed to return a recommendations in Dec 2010...and last I checked starting a budgetary bill was the job of the House, and the House has, duh, been controlled by Republicans since 2011. Yes, granted, the Democrats had half of a lame duck session before 2011 they could have done it in, but that is just a little silly, and seems to assume a few proposals can turn into actual legislation a lot faster than it can.
On “The Failures of Neoliberalism”
I am not a neoliberal, and am in fact vaguely confused as to what that is, but I have to agree with ' If anything most of what I’ve read suggests that it is the current government regulations imposed on unionization that go a long way towards harming union formation.'
I think labor be much better off if we removed all regulation vaguely connected with unions, and start over.
Why? Because that regulation was in pre-internet, pre-cell phone camera days. It was in the days when the local police could, and would beat strikers. And it was the days without safety regulations, so unions had to give concessions just to get those. And it was in the days where someone couldn't set up a nice website and get the workers behind them on _that_ without the management knowing about it.
Reboot the entire thing, but in _this_ universe? Holy crap. You'd have sympathy strikes, you'd have strikes of 'management', you'd have partial strikes and slowdowns of skilled workers, you'd have unions forcing union shops everywhere. You'd have unions that barred anyone who scabbed from ever working in the field again. You'd have picketers deliberately blocking entrances and getting arrested. (That last would still be illegal, but we've gotten much most sympathetic to that since the turn of the last century.)
I.e., back then, companies did a lot of _illegal_ things to cripple the movement, so that labor laws were accepted as some sort of compromise. Not only can they no longer do that, but _unions_ can do a lot more completely legal stuff...and 'protesting' has become a lot more accepted, especially for stuff that is easy to explain.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.