Yeah, except for GOP policy causing increases to human misery across the board, GOP dominance would be great.
Well, if you want to limit GOP control of the government, stop imposing your policies on states that don’t want them. Let blue states do their thing and red states do their thing and limit what the federal government does to truly federal concerns. These backlashes that result in GOP control of Congress always happen because you guys go into places like Texas and South Dakota and Wyoming looking for dragons to slay. Evils to remedy.
Like the well-being of Americans?
It’s not the federal governments’ job to ensure “well being”. It’s the states.
Eh. General welfare, then.
Imagine what a shithole for black people and Latinos Texas would be if the federal government had followed your advice. For starters.
If the federal government kept out it there would still be slavery.
Even if slavery had ended, the south would have separate but equal. Without the Feds Lake Erie would be on fire. There would be no interstate. There would be no internet. There would be no FDA assurances. There would be creationism taught in schools. There would be sections of the country that wouldn’t allow abortion, or probably birth control at all. There would be company stores and child labor and untold misery.
So no, we can’t leave everything to the states, because a third of our states are full of ideologues that think being passionate and angry is the same thing as being factually right.
14th amendment: it gives the federal government the power to insure that the civil rights of all Americans are respected.
I do not, however, believe that the federal government should be telling states how to deliver health care. The Supreme Court felt the same way. There are many more issues like it. The original compact we all agreed on was that we’d have a government where California and New YOrk couldn’t tell Nebraska and Utah what to do. Every once in awhile, Nebraska, Utah, and 25 other small rural states have to remind them of that fact by sending Republicans to the Senate where they get an equal say in things. Quit trying to turn those places into Massachusetts and maybe they’ll be less motivated to keep Congress in Republican hands.
Really? You think that, “States can opt out of increased Medicaid” means, “The federal government shouldn’t be telling the states how to deliver health care.” That seems like a fair way to say that, to you?
Really?
The Senate is where that power comes into play. Even if the filibuster were eliminated, it would still be grossly tipped to great power for the tiny states. As it is, something like 20% of the population can utterly stop a law from passing. Even if the other 80% want it. That’s not respecting the small states, that’s asinine.
In any case, this is only another example of what I spoke about above. The GOP refuses the Medicaid expansion and literally increases the amount of suffering and death in their states, for nothing more than placating their nonsense ideology. Being an American shouldn’t entail living in a cesspit 19th century hellhole, which is what the GOP is fighting tooth and nail for.
It’s only asinine if the federal government was only focused on things that were truly interstate, that the states couldn’t do for themselves. Things like border security, defense, interstate commerce, space exploration. Since the federal government purports to do things or interfere in things that states can do very well for themselves, then it was pretty far sighted for the founders to give the small states the power to stop it if they are so inclined.
The GOP represents actual people, and those actual people are fighting to maintain the cesspit and hellish standard of living that they have in places like Wyoming and Utah and Texas. Or perhaps they see California and New York as cesspits and don’t want to become like that.
Again, 20% of the population nixing something the vast, vast majority want, is asinine. You don’t think so, perhaps because you share the opinion of the few.
The Senate’s use of a standing filibuster is the most undemocratic thing going.
There is nothing about UHC that makes Utah like New York. So that’s just silly. Nothing is going to make Texas have New York’s population density or diversity. So pretend that GOP control leads to Utah all you like. It’s more likely to be Mississippi with less civil rights.
Also, how about the first part of the post you’re replying to?
Where you said:
And I said:
Yep. You’re absolutely right! It’s NOT the “well being”, it’s the general welfare.
Emphasis added.
Now, square that (original text no less) with red states get to fuck over their poor citizens while blue states don’t. I fucking double dog dare you.
I don’t care if 100% of people outside Wyoming want something for Wyoming. They don’t live in Wyoming, they don’t have the right to dictate.
If you’re referring to the ability to just have an automatic filibuster going without getting up and speaking, I agree. Filibusters should be able to delay legislation, they should not be able to kill it.
That’s up to each state to decide. Should the federal government be telling Vermont that it can only do health care ACA-style, that single payer is not the national way?
General welfare applies to the entire nation, not individual groups within it. The idea behind the general welfare clause was for the federal government to handle issues of truly national scope.
While I recognize that between the interstate commerce clause and the general welfare clause the federal government’s powers have been expanded tremendously. I’m not going to deny reality. But when you go too far with it for some states’ taste, you’re going to get a reaction. Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, and other Tea Partiers are what you’d call “blowback”.
Under our current interpretation of the Constitution, the federal government can take care of poor citizens anywhere they want. They just can’t make states do it. What they can do is create incentives to get states to give up their sovereignty. That’s how we ended up with Common Core, that is sort of flying under the radar nationally, but which is creating a lot of rage in places where schools have been traditionally community-run. No state HAS to do Common Core, but even many red states foolishly accepted the money and are now reconsidering the wisdom of that choice given the backlash from parents.
The federal government’s involvement in education under the Obama administration has actually been truly radical:
The people of Wyoming deserve to not be second class citizens if they aren’t white. They deserve to have their children not working in dangerous factories. And yes, they have every right to dictate, because refugees from Wyoming, stumbling out stinking and uneducated would cause a drag on other states.
Get on the phone to Mitch McConnell!
Actually they told Vermont that they can try something, so long as it meets the standards. Which is what I’m talking about. No American should work for $2 an hour churning out debt to a company store. That’s the past, and it’s a past we rightly grew out of. By government action.
The GOP are like anti-vaxxers. They see that no one gets the mumps, so they think vaccines are worthless. The GOP sees happy workers, so we don’t need those oppressive labor laws. :rolleyes:
Also, how about the first part of the post you replied to earlier?
Where you said:
And I said:
If a state got that bad, then sure, there’d be an argument for the feds to step in. No state is that bad. Mississippi, our poorest state, enjoys a median income around that of Sweden’s. No state is on the verge of third world status, or even particularly poor first world status.
The problem we actually have is that the federal government is failing to protect Wyoming from an influx of refugees from outside the US who supposedly, the federal government doesn’t even want here. When the feds can do their actual job well, they can tell Wyoming how to do theirs.
I concede there are many issues where federal action has been beneficial. But when the federal government starts doing things that have the states talking about non-cooperation or even nullification, then unless basic civil rights are at stake, the federal government should really demonstrate some humility. Things like COmmon Core, ACA, Real ID, gun control, etc. are issues that have caused a lot of hard feelings in a lot of states and none of it was really necessary. The feds have become arrogant enough to think they know what’s best in all circumstances, even areas where states have been doing a better job than the feds to begin with. Does the federal government have a record of doing education better than the states? Has federal involvement improved educational outcomes? Were states not trying to deliver health care to their citizens? Even many red state like Tennessee and Indiana were experimenting with improvements to their health care systems, and of course what happened in Massachusetts is well documented. There was no urgent need for a federal solution that justified pissing off so many states. Real ID I hope everyone now realizes is stupid. Ditto for federal gun control.
Labor laws are fine if we’ve got major problems and the states aren’t doing anything about it and it’s interstate commerce. But most states now have minimum wage laws. Is there really a need for a federal minimum wage at this point? Not that I really care, because the federal minimum wage doesn’t cause widespread anger. My beef on this subject has more to do with trying to commandeer state governments to do the feds’ bidding, and doing it in such a way that it affects how locals live their lives.
The way ACA was written, it was designed to coerce. States would lose ALL Medicaid funding if they didn’t expand the program.
As opposed to the Democratic Party, which represents…what? Robots? Elves?
Way to pull a Romney, hermano.
I wasn’t drawing a contrast with the Democratic Party, only pointing out that Republicans don’t win Congress because Big Business. They win the same way Democrats do, by getting people to vote for them, or against the Democrats. And that when Democrats start passing laws that affect red states in ways they have no business interfering in(as in when there are no civil rights issues at stake), that really motivates red state voters to boot out their Democrats.
Why do you think Blue Dogs, a pretty important part of the party before 2010, are in danger of extinction?
I, for one, do not miss the Blue Dogs at all. The spent more time helping Republicans on major legislation than Dems. I really learned to hate Joe Lieberman and I was very glad to see him go bye-bye. At least a Republican is an honest enemy. The Blue Dogs were nothing but traitors, only remaining in power because a lot of rural racists were so dumb that it took them 40 years to figure out that the Democrats were no longer the party of racism.
Somehow I doubt Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, Kay Hagan, and Mark Begich are getting fired because Southern old fogies just figured out they aren’t racists.