The GOP has already poisoned the well by playing shenanigans with procedure.
The Constitution says one of the Senate's jobs is to prevent the President from making SC picks of which they disapprove. That's a world of difference from a minority of the Senate taking control for a few minutes.
So, again, I’m not sure why you think Dems doing the same thing might make our institutions collapse...
You don't see a problem with a third of the Senate overturning the recently expressed will of the voters? Trump ran, in large part, on who he'd put on the SC.
These Senators would need to run on this vote, and giving a big middle finger to the electorate, in the next election, which is going to be pretty brutal for the Dems anyway. This kind of stunt might hand the GOP a super-majority.
Asking those questions retrospectively to GWB and Obama makes them look pretty bad, and they both still won.
Further a lot of the going-over-a-cliff problems they had were ideological in nature. For ideological reasons, even though it was unpopular, Bush tried to reform SS and Obama did pass Obamacare. Trump probably doesn't have an ideology.
Trump won't privatize Medicare unless there's public support, he might prove better (or worse) at getting support than either GWB or Obama but that's a different issue. In 4 years our clown in chief will have a track record, and if he's shown that he's sane and a great manager, that's probably enough.
Also imagine how much of a blow out the election would have been if Trump hadn't done his top 20 most insane stunts, i.e. if he'd started with the same team he ended with.
Well, that mixed with the economy doing fairly well and Trump being fairly well-liked in the buildup to November 2018. What are the odds of that last part, though?
Probably pretty high. Insane-Trump-the-racist won the election, but he lost 4% of the GOP in the process (from the NYT's polling).
If we assume Trump is actually pretty sane, not a racist, and it was a show; Then after 4 years of not blowing up the world or the economy he'll be still-vulgar-but-the-less-risky-choice. So he'd get that 4% back. He'll also have all the advantages of incumbency.
But it’s not scorched earth. “We think that the last election’s voters should decide who fills the current SC opening and while we admit that the Senate has a roll to play in advice and consent we also believe that they’ve spoken regarding their views. Those in favor? They “ayes” have it!”
They'd be going back two elections, to 2012.
In 2014 the GOP picked up 9 Senate seats by running against letting Obama do his thing.
In 2016 the GOP picked up the Presidency, effectively ruling out a 3rd term for Obama.
Giving a big middle finger to the results of the last 2 election cycles is unlikely to result in good things, and speaks well to the narrative of the Dems being corrupt, smug, elitists who don't listen to the voters. To that you'd add power hungry, not respecting rules, and untrustworthy.
This might play well with their base but claiming 33 Senate votes is "enough" would not play well with the independents for years... that "might" not matter if Trump screws up bad enough, but in a 50/50 country you probably don't want this kind of rep.
Trump is without shame, but he's got Billions of dollars and decades of practice. If his kids can't/don't/won't copy his act then odds are good that no one else can either.
I can think of some PC branches which could use trimming, but the normal things which are illegal or banned are still illegal or banned.
Because you can’t have everything. But sometimes, you can have some of the things you want if you’re willing to let others have some of the things that they want.
Provided they're actually winning to let Islam, the Atheists, and the Church of Satan be up there too I think it's fine.... but I don't think they are willing to share.
To be fair, something Trump is doing is stating that jobs are important, and bringing jobs into the list of things gov policy effects is a non-trivial thing too.
Trump goes "rah, rah, look at the jobs I'm saving".
Obama goes "no pipeline for you, jobs don't matter".
If this is a deliberate, think about jobs thing, then it's probably fine. If it's just a distraction, then it's not.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2006 minorities make up 60% of the prison population with African-Americans at 41 percent of the 2 million prison and jail inmates, Hispanics 19 percent and whites 37 percent. According to a 2006 survey of 45 correctional systems in the United States, the racial breakdown of correctional staffs ranges from 0.4% black (in Utah) to 84.4% black (in Mississippi). The nationwide average of minority correctional staff members is approximately 29%.[1] In some organizations or locations, the large representation of minorities among correctional staffs is a reflection of the regional population pool of employees.
the upper-middle class is disliked more than the rich.
Sure. Upper-middle is people you know, and maybe have some idea of what they do, and it doesn't seem all that hard, especially compared to what you do.
The truly rich? We're getting into god territory there. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. The pair that founded Google. Some others. To join that group all you have to do is create a new technology or three, and as a side effect also create tens of thousands of jobs.
There you're dealing with people who are doing things you can't do, even in theory, and don't think you could ever do.
Well, it sounds worse, but at least we’re using *our own* information to track them down (Usually by tracking cell communications and watching satellite images), as opposed to Gitmo, where we just paid bounties for people who other people *asserted* were terrorists.
Living people go to Gitmo and are often released, drone strikes kill that person plus everyone around them. And I don't share your trust that "our own" information isn't actually just paying for tips.
But I’m not fine with the CIA use of drones in killing people who are not declared soldiers.
That's rewarding activities which should be punished. Soldiers who aren't wearing uniforms or obeying the laws of war don't magically become civilians and the police don't magically gain the ability to control the battlefield they're on.
If we know there are terrorists in a certain house in Yemen, then Yemen needs to go get them.
Mostly we use drones where the local government doesn't actually control "its land". Us putting boots on the ground there would also raise sovereignty issues.
We don’t need to deal with them in *our* legal system. If we capture ISIS members, for the duration of the war, *we* should treat them like captured soldiers from a country that didn’t sign Geneva. (Some protections, but without a lot of fancy stuff.)
This takes us back to guantanamo bay or something like it.
ISIS soldiers did not commit crimes against the US.
ISIS is committing genocide, various other crimes against humanity, and is a thinly disguised/mutated/renamed/reincarnation of the 911 Al-Qaeda attackers. One of ISIS's previous names was "Al Qaeda in Iraq".
there’s already a nearly-fatal Catch-22 under Geneva for soldiers who *do not have a country*. Namely, they’ve got nowhere to go at the end of hostilities
I thought you were opposed to holding people forever without charge? Hostilities may not end this century.
They are an enemy soldier, in which case, Geneva,
Sure, but this brings us back to Geneva giving rights to soldiers who follow the rules, however these groups aren't following the rules. All the other categories you mention assume police control of the scene, which is simply nonsense in terms of a battlefield.
…regardless of whether his friends kill you *and everyone else with your skin color in the county*
First of all, *Yes*.
2nd of all, if you're not going to defend your life because some terror group might get upset, why stop there? They might burn down your town if you get all "uppity" and get a job, or out think one of them, or for nothing connected to you at all (false allegations of rape for example). The modern equiv would be eliminating women's rights because that's what is really angering ISIS.
3rd of all, the only reason that threat is on the table is because gun control (i.e. the KKK) was successful. With more guns around every group of 10 members of the KKK (or rioters) need to worry about which of them does the dying so that the others can do the killing.
In a world of imperfect choices, shooting the murderous scumbag who is trying to kill me is the least imperfect.
They *did* do the same for liberal groups! You just didn’t *hear* about it because Congress decided to hold hearing repeatedly demanding the IRS talk about the *conservative* groups they investigated.
The WSJ did a time line on this and they didn't start doing liberal groups until the conservatives started making a fuss. Further wiki says the depth, degree, and intrusiveness was worse for the conservatives.
It’s a goddamn Star Chamber, and one that *keeps not finding anything*.
I'm going to quote the USA today here: "For a scandal that is frequently derided as 'fake,' it is amazing how often real evidence disappears. The disappearing act is so frequent, it is reasonable to wonder whether it is really a systematic attempt to destroy evidence of abuse of power."
And note that the back-up explanation (i.e. mismanagement and total incompetence) is hardly better. The people in charge of regulating speech have so poor an understanding of the rules that they can look like they're "accidentally" coming down on the administration's side and "accidently" suppressing its enemies.
You *also* seem unable to actually explain the useful outcome you think guns would have resulted in.
Shooting the person trying to lynch you seems like a pretty good outcome right there, regardless of whether his friends kill you.
Dude, you realize that *claiming* that the people the IRS targeted were ‘political opponents’ *literally makes what those people did a crime*, right? Those groups *were not supposed to be political groups*.
It is very dangerous to have the government regulating speech. It is doubly dangerous when the gov is selectively enforcing laws on the administration's political enemies.
Yes, this was a stupid way to select groups, but stupid is not the same as criminal.
So the gov can suppress the administration's political enemies without it being criminal?
They're allowed to put conservative groups under a microscope to see if everything is fine when they don't do the same for liberals? And then stand on their 5th AM rights so they can't be investigated? And somehow magically the people who need to be questioned have had their hard disks fail?
If something looks/acts/sounds like a duck, it probably is one.
First, as I’ve said repeatedly, over and over, here, the size of the government has very little to do with how authoritarian the government is.
Only somewhat true. Gov grows until it doesn't work. Then in outrage the people turn to someone who offers emotion.
So when [the rich] begin to hanker after office, and find that they cannot achieve it through their own efforts or on their merits, they begin to seduce and corrupt the people in every possible way, and thus ruin their estates. The result is that through their senseless craving for prominence they stimulate among the masses both an appetite for bribes and the habit of receiving them, and then the rule of democracy is transformed into government by violence and strong-arm methods. By this time the people have become accustomed to feed at the expense of others, and their prospects of winning a livelihood depend upon the property of their neighbors, and as soon as they find a leader who is sufficiently ambitious and daring . . . they introduce a regime based on violence.
-Polybius
By ‘adjusted for situations’, you mean ‘Black people are more likely to be criminals, so the police *should* be shooting more of them’.
The police shooting someone is the last step in society's disparate impact on Blacks, not the first step. The "situation" includes concentrated poverty, the war on drugs, etc, etc.
Interesting... the history goes deeper and is more complex than I'd realized.
It’s a *lot* easier for law enforcement to figure out who is running around in masks than superhero comics make it out to be...
Any realistic description of superheros has them instantly being outed and turned into celebrities. Insane or criminal supers would be killed, not imprisoned, and the rest could find work a lot more profitable (and legal) than 'fighting crime'.
...they need to stop pretending that they can shoot their way out of it...
Ya, if we hit the point where guns become the solution then it's beyond ugly.
This requires strengthening checks and balances in the government, and not cheering when the checks and balances fail *even if* it’s your own side coming out ahead.
Agreed. Which means no ignoring Congress just because they're being a pain.
It requires making, as a hard and fast principle of US law, that the US cannot detain people without charge. *cough*Bush*cough*
It goes beyond Bush. The legal system isn't setup to deal with illegal soldiers, Geneva only addresses it to condemn it. We need alternatives other than treating illegal enemy soldiers as civilians (that would be rewarding behavior which should be punished).
The Obama solution is to kill them before they end up in the Justice system. I'm not sure that's an improvement.
…and it also requires not electing... Donald Trump...
This isn't the first, nor last, time we've gotten someone like him. The people who cheered the imperial presidency and the expansion of government should understand they're building tools for others.
Actually, since many suicides are a spur of the moment thing, and many people that run into troubles to kill themselves then and there tend to not kill themselves after all, yes, not having ready access to a gun will reduce the total number of suicides significantly.
There's an intuitive attractiveness to this line of thought, but I doubt it's long term utility. A country's suicide rates isn't related to its level of gun control. The reality is we're surrounded by things (ropes, cars, knives, plastic bags, harsh chemicals) which can kill us.
There are deep cultural (symbolism) factors here. In our culture, we have the whole gun=death thing. Removing guns or whatever symbol is dominate at the moment might help for a while but some other symbol would rise to replace it.
I'm thinking of someone who is basically this bad caricature of why-welfare-is-bad. She'd make a good GOP attack ad. The gov has tried to 'fix' or 'help' her multiple times and I think "enable dysfunctional behavior" is probably a better description of what's happened.
What people object to (seems to me) is your advocacy that the solution to the problem of gun violence is more gunz.
"Gun violence" stats are dominated by suicide and the war on drugs, neither of which seems likely to yield to a gun control solution (unless you count changing suicide-by-gun to suicide-by-something-else as a victory).
The underlying "advocacy" which people are arguing for, and I'm objecting to, is that a gun in the hands of a good person is every bit as much of a problem as a gun in the hands of an active shooter.
To be fair, some argued that "guns + alcohol is bad" which is at least passes some sanity test, but all too often I've seen the "more guns=bad" line of thought extended to "people are safer if they're unarmed, even if there is an active shooter (or lynch mob) trying to kill them", and we saw hints of that argument at various times here.
On “The Backup QB Could Try A Hail Mary As The Clock Runs Out”
The Constitution says one of the Senate's jobs is to prevent the President from making SC picks of which they disapprove. That's a world of difference from a minority of the Senate taking control for a few minutes.
You don't see a problem with a third of the Senate overturning the recently expressed will of the voters? Trump ran, in large part, on who he'd put on the SC.
These Senators would need to run on this vote, and giving a big middle finger to the electorate, in the next election, which is going to be pretty brutal for the Dems anyway. This kind of stunt might hand the GOP a super-majority.
"
Asking those questions retrospectively to GWB and Obama makes them look pretty bad, and they both still won.
Further a lot of the going-over-a-cliff problems they had were ideological in nature. For ideological reasons, even though it was unpopular, Bush tried to reform SS and Obama did pass Obamacare. Trump probably doesn't have an ideology.
Trump won't privatize Medicare unless there's public support, he might prove better (or worse) at getting support than either GWB or Obama but that's a different issue. In 4 years our clown in chief will have a track record, and if he's shown that he's sane and a great manager, that's probably enough.
Also imagine how much of a blow out the election would have been if Trump hadn't done his top 20 most insane stunts, i.e. if he'd started with the same team he ended with.
"
Probably pretty high. Insane-Trump-the-racist won the election, but he lost 4% of the GOP in the process (from the NYT's polling).
If we assume Trump is actually pretty sane, not a racist, and it was a show; Then after 4 years of not blowing up the world or the economy he'll be still-vulgar-but-the-less-risky-choice. So he'd get that 4% back. He'll also have all the advantages of incumbency.
"
They'd be going back two elections, to 2012.
In 2014 the GOP picked up 9 Senate seats by running against letting Obama do his thing.
In 2016 the GOP picked up the Presidency, effectively ruling out a 3rd term for Obama.
Giving a big middle finger to the results of the last 2 election cycles is unlikely to result in good things, and speaks well to the narrative of the Dems being corrupt, smug, elitists who don't listen to the voters. To that you'd add power hungry, not respecting rules, and untrustworthy.
This might play well with their base but claiming 33 Senate votes is "enough" would not play well with the independents for years... that "might" not matter if Trump screws up bad enough, but in a 50/50 country you probably don't want this kind of rep.
"
:Shrug: If the Dems get serious about it, then the GOP can vote down Garland a day before they leave.
There, everyone would be happy because Garland got his vote and so forth.
On “Linky Friday #195: Pillars of Sand”
Trump is without shame, but he's got Billions of dollars and decades of practice. If his kids can't/don't/won't copy his act then odds are good that no one else can either.
I can think of some PC branches which could use trimming, but the normal things which are illegal or banned are still illegal or banned.
"
Provided they're actually winning to let Islam, the Atheists, and the Church of Satan be up there too I think it's fine.... but I don't think they are willing to share.
"
4% growth and all these issues go away.
To be fair, something Trump is doing is stating that jobs are important, and bringing jobs into the list of things gov policy effects is a non-trivial thing too.
Trump goes "rah, rah, look at the jobs I'm saving".
Obama goes "no pipeline for you, jobs don't matter".
If this is a deliberate, think about jobs thing, then it's probably fine. If it's just a distraction, then it's not.
On “How White Working Class Culture Shaped American Politics”
This might be helpful.
The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2006 minorities make up 60% of the prison population with African-Americans at 41 percent of the 2 million prison and jail inmates, Hispanics 19 percent and whites 37 percent. According to a 2006 survey of 45 correctional systems in the United States, the racial breakdown of correctional staffs ranges from 0.4% black (in Utah) to 84.4% black (in Mississippi). The nationwide average of minority correctional staff members is approximately 29%.[1] In some organizations or locations, the large representation of minorities among correctional staffs is a reflection of the regional population pool of employees.
http://www.corrections.com/articles/21076-recruiting-minority-employees-in-corrections
On “Linky Friday #195: Pillars of Sand”
Very much Agreed.
On “How White Working Class Culture Shaped American Politics”
If it's not racism then it's something wrong with the Dems, not the voters.
"
Sure. Upper-middle is people you know, and maybe have some idea of what they do, and it doesn't seem all that hard, especially compared to what you do.
The truly rich? We're getting into god territory there. Bill Gates. Steve Jobs. The pair that founded Google. Some others. To join that group all you have to do is create a new technology or three, and as a side effect also create tens of thousands of jobs.
There you're dealing with people who are doing things you can't do, even in theory, and don't think you could ever do.
On “Confession of a Liberal Gun Owner”
Living people go to Gitmo and are often released, drone strikes kill that person plus everyone around them. And I don't share your trust that "our own" information isn't actually just paying for tips.
That's rewarding activities which should be punished. Soldiers who aren't wearing uniforms or obeying the laws of war don't magically become civilians and the police don't magically gain the ability to control the battlefield they're on.
Mostly we use drones where the local government doesn't actually control "its land". Us putting boots on the ground there would also raise sovereignty issues.
This takes us back to guantanamo bay or something like it.
ISIS is committing genocide, various other crimes against humanity, and is a thinly disguised/mutated/renamed/reincarnation of the 911 Al-Qaeda attackers. One of ISIS's previous names was "Al Qaeda in Iraq".
I thought you were opposed to holding people forever without charge? Hostilities may not end this century.
Sure, but this brings us back to Geneva giving rights to soldiers who follow the rules, however these groups aren't following the rules. All the other categories you mention assume police control of the scene, which is simply nonsense in terms of a battlefield.
"
First of all, *Yes*.
2nd of all, if you're not going to defend your life because some terror group might get upset, why stop there? They might burn down your town if you get all "uppity" and get a job, or out think one of them, or for nothing connected to you at all (false allegations of rape for example). The modern equiv would be eliminating women's rights because that's what is really angering ISIS.
3rd of all, the only reason that threat is on the table is because gun control (i.e. the KKK) was successful. With more guns around every group of 10 members of the KKK (or rioters) need to worry about which of them does the dying so that the others can do the killing.
In a world of imperfect choices, shooting the murderous scumbag who is trying to kill me is the least imperfect.
The WSJ did a time line on this and they didn't start doing liberal groups until the conservatives started making a fuss. Further wiki says the depth, degree, and intrusiveness was worse for the conservatives.
I'm going to quote the USA today here: "For a scandal that is frequently derided as 'fake,' it is amazing how often real evidence disappears. The disappearing act is so frequent, it is reasonable to wonder whether it is really a systematic attempt to destroy evidence of abuse of power."
And note that the back-up explanation (i.e. mismanagement and total incompetence) is hardly better. The people in charge of regulating speech have so poor an understanding of the rules that they can look like they're "accidentally" coming down on the administration's side and "accidently" suppressing its enemies.
"
Shooting the person trying to lynch you seems like a pretty good outcome right there, regardless of whether his friends kill you.
It is very dangerous to have the government regulating speech. It is doubly dangerous when the gov is selectively enforcing laws on the administration's political enemies.
So the gov can suppress the administration's political enemies without it being criminal?
They're allowed to put conservative groups under a microscope to see if everything is fine when they don't do the same for liberals? And then stand on their 5th AM rights so they can't be investigated? And somehow magically the people who need to be questioned have had their hard disks fail?
If something looks/acts/sounds like a duck, it probably is one.
Only somewhat true. Gov grows until it doesn't work. Then in outrage the people turn to someone who offers emotion.
So when [the rich] begin to hanker after office, and find that they cannot achieve it through their own efforts or on their merits, they begin to seduce and corrupt the people in every possible way, and thus ruin their estates. The result is that through their senseless craving for prominence they stimulate among the masses both an appetite for bribes and the habit of receiving them, and then the rule of democracy is transformed into government by violence and strong-arm methods. By this time the people have become accustomed to feed at the expense of others, and their prospects of winning a livelihood depend upon the property of their neighbors, and as soon as they find a leader who is sufficiently ambitious and daring . . . they introduce a regime based on violence.
-Polybius
The police shooting someone is the last step in society's disparate impact on Blacks, not the first step. The "situation" includes concentrated poverty, the war on drugs, etc, etc.
"
Interesting... the history goes deeper and is more complex than I'd realized.
Any realistic description of superheros has them instantly being outed and turned into celebrities. Insane or criminal supers would be killed, not imprisoned, and the rest could find work a lot more profitable (and legal) than 'fighting crime'.
"
Ya, if we hit the point where guns become the solution then it's beyond ugly.
Agreed. Which means no ignoring Congress just because they're being a pain.
It goes beyond Bush. The legal system isn't setup to deal with illegal soldiers, Geneva only addresses it to condemn it. We need alternatives other than treating illegal enemy soldiers as civilians (that would be rewarding behavior which should be punished).
The Obama solution is to kill them before they end up in the Justice system. I'm not sure that's an improvement.
This isn't the first, nor last, time we've gotten someone like him. The people who cheered the imperial presidency and the expansion of government should understand they're building tools for others.
"
There's an intuitive attractiveness to this line of thought, but I doubt it's long term utility. A country's suicide rates isn't related to its level of gun control. The reality is we're surrounded by things (ropes, cars, knives, plastic bags, harsh chemicals) which can kill us.
There are deep cultural (symbolism) factors here. In our culture, we have the whole gun=death thing. Removing guns or whatever symbol is dominate at the moment might help for a while but some other symbol would rise to replace it.
On “On Reversing the Tide”
I'd love to see social shaming but thus far haven't. I suspect that has to be in place before these high trust institutions can be put in place.
"
I'm thinking of someone who is basically this bad caricature of why-welfare-is-bad. She'd make a good GOP attack ad. The gov has tried to 'fix' or 'help' her multiple times and I think "enable dysfunctional behavior" is probably a better description of what's happened.
On “Confession of a Liberal Gun Owner”
Thank you.
Ouch. Gov can not only fail, but doesn't really have the duty to succeed.
On “On Reversing the Tide”
What do "high Trust" societies do with/about trust breaking people?
On “Confession of a Liberal Gun Owner”
"Gun violence" stats are dominated by suicide and the war on drugs, neither of which seems likely to yield to a gun control solution (unless you count changing suicide-by-gun to suicide-by-something-else as a victory).
The underlying "advocacy" which people are arguing for, and I'm objecting to, is that a gun in the hands of a good person is every bit as much of a problem as a gun in the hands of an active shooter.
To be fair, some argued that "guns + alcohol is bad" which is at least passes some sanity test, but all too often I've seen the "more guns=bad" line of thought extended to "people are safer if they're unarmed, even if there is an active shooter (or lynch mob) trying to kill them", and we saw hints of that argument at various times here.
"
Any reason not to drink is a good one.
"
20 law abiding people and none of them are a designated driver? Is it legal to drink and drive in Florida?
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.