- Aug 18, 2012
- 20,924
- 17,323
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Married
Some of you have been changing votes. Don't worry! There will be a second poll when we hit 35 days.
Voter fraud!
Upvote
0
Some of you have been changing votes. Don't worry! There will be a second poll when we hit 35 days.
I love twitter but I miss the days of normal, (fairly) truthful, daily press briefings to figure out what is going on with the government.
The repubs have decided to 100% back Trump on the wall and Pelosi says there is no way they will fund the wall. Neither side is willing to budge an inch.
As mechanism to prevent tyranny the power of the purse is not very useful if the government workers still have to implement said tyranny. In our shutdown it is not legal for workers to stop working.It will not pass, and really, it MUST not pass. The ability to shut the government down is literally the only power that the Legislature has to prevent the Executive from imperial rule, or the Executive has from preventing America from devolving into a straight parliamentary system contrary to the very structure of our system.
All the way back in colonial times, a hundred years and more before the Revolution, royal governors were appointed and sent by the King, and yet the colonies were not ruled tyrranously by them (for any extended period of time) because of a very important power that was possessed by the colonial legislatures: the power of the purse. The Royal Governor was the executive, clothed with immense power, to be sure, but HIS OWN PAYCHECK was paid by the colonial legislature. When royal governors became abusive, the colonial assemblies would literally cut them off - refuse to pay them anything: no salary, no stipend, nothing. They could continue to rule South Carolina, or wherever, at their OWN expense, but no public money was forthcoming. In 160 years of colonial rule, this ALWAYS brought the royal governors to heel, right up until the last few years before the Revolution, when the Crown starting funding Governors in some cases, and setting up its own external courts, and essentially providing royal governors and officials a way to rule as they pleased WITHOUT the check of the power of the purse.
Right now, Congress acts as a check on the President, and the President acts as a check on Congress, because neither can rule without the other. Congress has no power to issue orders to ANY executive officer, and the President can't raise a penny on his own.
Congress very nearly gained control over the executive departments after the Civil War - that's what Andrew Johnson was impeached over, and - fortunately for us - Johnson defied the law they enacted, maintained Presidential control over his cabinet, and survived impeachment. Had he been impeached, Congress would have successfully converted the Presidency into an elected version of the British monarchy, with all powers ultimately vested in the Congress.
The actual stakes of the current political fight are quite low and rather stupid. $5 billion is chicken feed within our budget and economy. "The Wall" is almost entirely symbolic. It will very modestly assist Border enforcement, at a small cost. The politicians on both side speak of this thing as though it were the New Deal or an issue of titanic national importance. Standing on it's own, it's a ridiculous triviality.
What it STANDS FOR, on the other hand, is of immense important. The Wall is the symbolic flag on the political battlefield, over which victory and defeat determines who the current dominant force on the political battlefield in America is. That is why you see so many human beings being such liars, exploding to such immense importance such an utterly trivial thing.
The Wall is trivial, but the POWER that is in conflict over the issue is, essentially, everything. to the partisans of both sides. Which is why the issue itself is such a litmus test of the degree of personal integrity in the face of political desire. Ocasio-Cortez is right when she mentions health care versus wealth accumulation as a REAL moral issue of flaming importance. The Wall ain't that, obviously, so when you see human beings hyperventilating over MORALITY when it comes to chump change and a symbol, you are seeing Exhibits A through Z of the degree to which partisan fever corrodes human intellectual integrity into a mass of toxic waste.
But that's where we are. For my part, I am unwilling to damage a constitutional structure that has served us quite well for the past three and a half century. It is IMPERATIVE that either the Executive OR the Legislative authority have the power to paralyze government and shut it down over ANY political matter that is of importance enough that they are willing to use the power of the purse or the power of the veto pen.
The administrative government is simply not important enough to be allowed an independent existence above the control of "petty" politics. Politics can be petty, but they are also the only way, on great issues, we can keep ourselves free. The people themselves, through their elected politicians, decide what is petty and what isn't. In the current regime, the People have decided that the partisan hatred, Democrat v Republican, is so great that they would rather paralyze and crippled the nation than allow the other side to win ANYTHING. So therefore we have a shut down government, at present, with all of the minor inconveniences that brings.
The ALTERNATIVE is to have a government that can run happily no matter what, and the weaker side at the moment unable to exact any real political price from overreach by the weaker side.
And THAT, left unchecked, is WHY we had an American Revolution, and why every civil war in the history of mankind has broken out.
Look at the partisan posters on this site. You can FEEL the hatred and utter contempt that drip off of them towards the other side. They view the other side as immoral, evil human beings. If given a choice between having to back down to the other side and let the other side rule, perhaps for years, or physically killing them - if they could - many of them would opt to take up arms and kill the other side, because the other side are immoral - the equivalent of Redcoats and Nazis - as far as these partisans are concerned.
Paralysis is better than civil war. Our national experience of 400 years of representative government on these shores has taught us that our system, with its built-in potential for paralysis, ultimately works out as long as it continues to function in all of its frustrating compulsion for compromise among enemies. Both times that our system erupted into civil warfare - the American Revolution and the Civil War - it was because that fundamental balance was upset.
It would be a deadly mistake to remove from our squabbling politicians the ability to shut down the government, paralyze everything, and make everybody miserable over political points. The ALTERNATIVE is that one side can completely overbear and utterly ignore the other, and government function normally.
Do that, and one side will ABSOLUTELY CERTAINLY dominate the other and utterly ignore it, without recourse to politics. Recourse to arms inevitably follows.
And while it would make the bitterest partisans happy if they could simply wipe the evil opposition from the face of the earth, most of the rest of us don't think highly enough of EITHER side of our politics to want either one to win all the marbles.
Which would you rather have: periodic paralysis and divided government, or unlimited and unbridled exercise of power by your least-favorite of the two political parties?
As mechanism to prevent tyranny the power of the purse is not very useful if the government workers still have to implement said tyranny. In our shutdown it is not legal for workers to stop working.
The Beatles Eye Roll GIF - Find & Share on GIPHY
Seems to me that splitting hairs over "should" versus "must" is missing the point: that the Senate is serving as a rubber stamp to an unpopular agenda that doesn't represent a majority of the American people, and they should correct course because we need an open government.
Ringo
the Senate is serving as a rubber stamp
They're looking out for the country by not giving money for a lie that nobody wants and doesn't do the job it's supposed to do.
Ringo
Well, Mitch and Republicans can just as easily say they are "looking out for the country" by requesting money to repair portions of the border wall and/or add more wall. As a result, Mitch should not be expected to conjure up votes to survive a veto of a law not providing funding for the border wall.
Nonsense. The argument made, which I was addressing, was the bizarre notion the Senate was abdicating a constitutional duty and specific provisions of the U.S. Constitution were cited as evidence. However, the provisions cited simply lacked any wording imposing any duty on the Senate to act, specifying how the Senate must act, or should act.
Now, to address your claim.
Not in relation to funding the wall, since A.) The Senate passed legislation without any funding for the wall in December of 2018, and B.) The Senate has not passed any legislation with funding for the border wall.
There's a difference between money to repair portions of the border wall (which the Democrats have expressed an interest in providing) and money for a wall that ~28% of the country actually want (Greg Sargent on Twitter).
Ringo
Your argument rests on the assumption that "good for the country" is based on polling data. The fact 28% of the people "actually want" a wall does not mean no funding for the wall is "good for the country."
In addition, reducing the question of whether there should be some expenditure of some federal money for a specific project, to analyzing polling data and aligning the expenditure of money with the polling data, is not a reasonable approach.
An inherent feature of a representative form of government is the government taxes and spends in a manner in which only a minority of the people are in favor.
If Mitch is keeping the government closed because he won't vote for anything that won't be vetoed, then how is that not a rubber stamp? His job is not to look out for Donny's interests; it's to serve his constituents.
I would argue that a government shutdown - especially of this length - requires the Senate to act.
Ringo
If Mitch is keeping the government closed
how is that not a rubber stamp
His job is not to look out for Donny's interests; it's to serve his constituents.
Mitch is not keeping the government closed.
Mitch's conduct, of being an inactive participant on the sidelines and deferring to Trump and Senate Dems to reach a resolution and that he (Mitch) will go along with whatever resolution they reach, is not to "look out for Donny's interests." Especially since, in December, McConnell announced legislation that did not include funding for the border wall and passed. again conduct contrary to "looking out for Donny's interests."
Mitch is not keeping the government closed.
Rather odd, and difficult, for me to make a negative argument when you have not articulated what "rubber stamp" means and why these facts constitute as a "rubber stamp." But nonetheless, I will answer your query.
A "rubber stamp" for Trump would be Mitch, the Republicans, and Senate giving Trump anything he wants in terms of legislation. In other words, Mitch, Republicans, and the Senate do not object to what Trump is asking for but instead acquiesce to his request, give him what he wants when he wants it. Simply, this is not what has transpired, since Mitch announced and the Senate passed legislation in December that included no funding for the border wall. In addition, neither Mitch, the Republicans, nor the Senate have passed legislation with funding for Trump's border wall.
Mitch and Senate Republicans can best and accurately be characterized as proverbially sitting on the sidelines and willing to go along with whatever Trump and Dems negotiate. That simply is not a "rubber stamp."
Mitch's conduct, of being an inactive participant on the sidelines and deferring to Trump and Senate Dems to reach a resolution and that he (Mitch) will go along with whatever resolution they reach, is not to "look out for Donny's interests." Especially since, in December, McConnell announced legislation that did not include funding for the border wall and passed. again conduct contrary to "looking out for Donny's interests."
The government is shut down, and Donny refuses to open it until he gets money for a wall he promised Mexico would fund. His intransigence means that Mitch should force the issue, since the government being closed for this long is (or should be) a national emergency.
There's a reasonable point to make that the people's wishes don't necessarily coincide with "the good of the country", but if the definition of representative government is, as you put it, spend money according to the people's wishes, then Donny is already in violation of that.
Nevertheless, I maintain that the government shutdown is an emergency (a real emergency) that should supersede partisan wishes.
Ringo
he government is shut down, and Donny refuses to open it until he gets money for a wall he promised Mexico would fund. His intransigence means that Mitch should force the issue, since the government being closed for this long is (or should be) a national emergency.
If the "inherent feature of a representative form of government" is that the government should tax and spend in accordance with the people's wishes, and polling suggests that a majority of people don't want the wall, then that would seem to invalidate the first part of your post.
Nevertheless, I maintain that the government shutdown is an emergency (a real emergency) that should supersede partisan wishes.
A national emergency? Tantamount no doubt to the national emergency of Southern States seceding from the Union after Lincoln's election. A national emergency similar to the Japanese surprise bombing of the U.S. Navy Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. This is not to render as de minimis the seriousness and length of the government shutdown. My point is the government shutdown is not a national emergency.
Not at all, since the unequivocal point I made was taxing and spending for some specific project when there is not a majority support is an inherent feature of representative government.
Then the Dems should labor as hastily, attentively, and promptly as you demand of Mitch, to end the government shutdown, even if that means border wall spending.
He is if he isn't taking steps to ensure that it is reopened.
Mitch's conduct is to defer to Donny on all things and reject multiple bills to reopen parts of the government - including the one, as you said, that was a bipartisan bill to fund the government through February. I would call that, at the very least, being a lapdog, and not fulfilling his Constitutional obligations as a coequal branch of the government at worst.
Ringo
and not fulfilling his Constitutional obligations as a coequal branch of the government at worst.
Mitch's conduct is to defer to Donny on all things and reject multiple bills to reopen parts of the government - including the one, as you said, that was a bipartisan bill to fund the government through February