In which aspects of the political realm do you think the National Democratic Party (of Germany) approach constitutes the greater good? :rolleyes:
It’s remarkable how many people decide their principles based on their party affiliation, not vice versa. It’s less remarkable how so many of them cannot understand any other approach.
As for the McConnell bill, I’m coming to agree with the expectation that he’ll push it to a vote anyway, knowing it will lose, just to get it off the table. He and his party-first members can then tell the Obama Sux! voters “Hey, we did our best, but those Democrats and those RINO’s, yanno? Gotta vote 'em out and *then *we can repeal and give the Job Creators something.”
I doubt it. As long as he thinks there’s a chance he can get 50 votes sometime later, he’s got no reason to bring it to a vote when he doesn’t. He didn’t have the votes in June, so he’s waiting until July. If he doesn’t have the votes in July, he’ll wait 'til September. Etc. He saw what worked in the House: wait until the intensity of the opposition fades somewhat, then rush it to a vote.
On the flip side, if he never has the votes, why expose his caucus to a vote that’ll make them vulnerable either in a primary (if they vote No) or in a general election (if they vote Yes)?
Except it should be clear to him now, or at least soon, that he’ll *never *have the votes. The longer people have to lThe longer this stays on the table, the longer he looks like a failure and a fool, and so do each of his members. They need a way *off *the hook by the time campaign season starts, which is soon. They need a way to tell the diehards they did their best, and a way to limit the traction of the sanes’ charge pointing out their attempt to take away health care. That will be just a distant memory next year, if it’s done with now.
Hey, it looked like the House bill was dead too, and then it was suddenly, successfully (dammit) resurrected. If the prospect of a bill just gradually fades away during the remainder of the year, it’ll be at least as forgotten as if there’d been an actual vote. And with nothing to hold against anyone.
I say either it passes, or there will not be a vote. There will not be a vote where the Senate bill gets defeated.
Then what do they tell the voters who told them to repeal and replace? You know, their base? They have to have *something *to show, and the “dead body” some pundits are now talking about would be the only option.
Ryan had a much larger margin to work with in the House, and even then it took some threats that would no longer be credible now. A good number of them are likely to lose their seats next year, and now they know it was for nothing.
Another option might be for the GOP powers to reflect that their constituents are all Americans, that they were elected to represent all of the people in their district or state as well as the nation as a whole, that their responsibility is to all of the country and the future, like *leaders *would think and so often have acted … okay, never mind, that’s crazy talk, I know.
“Vote out the RINOs” isn’t really part of McConnell’s playbook though. That’s a tea party line and they are part of the hold outs.
Here’s how they can save face:
1- Work with Democrats to fix the problems with the ACA.
2- Put in a clause that says: “From now on the official name of the Affordable Care Act will be Reagancare”.
3- Bask in the adulation of the Republican base.
That’s the one thing McConnell has said he’d never do. Use any adjective you like for that, but he’s certainly not getting a new chapter in Profiles in Courage.
Based on the way the winning candidate spoke on the campaign trail, I think the base wants the ACA to be replaced with something that more closely resembles universal care, not something that is a pretense for taking it all away.
That’s why the GOP just can’t come out and say “We think if you want health care you need to buy at at market price with your own money, like before ObamaCare”. That’s not what the base wants.
Now I think they should start gradually expanding both Medicaid and Medicare. Let people over 55 buy into Medicare, the insurers could create a new class of supplemental plans. Expand Medicaid eligibility. These moves would get the most expensive patients out of the private insurance pools and bring down the premiums for young people.
The thing about Mitch is that he’s really great at obstructing. Best ever. If you want something obstructed, Mitch is your man. But he sucks at actual legislating. Maybe if he had 75 Republican Senators he could get to 50 votes. But he is stuck with a handful of extremists who have no interest in governing and a handful of moderates who are handicapped by having souls. He isn’t getting to 50 votes to replace the ACA, he should pull his head back in his shell and hibernate.
A leader would find a way to lead, like the leaders of the past or of other countries could usually do. Get 'em all to see that politics is the art of the possible, and that compromise is not surrender but the way things get done.
Unfortunately he doesn’t have it in him. Ryan may know it intellectually but doesn’t have the determination to do it.
Bricker, I want you to watch this video of a mother and her disabled child pleading to Congress not slash Medicaid. It’s absolutely heartbreaking.
What strikes me the most about this repeal effort is the asymmetry involved between who is benefited and who is harmed. Rich people like you will get about a 2 percent increase in their income. I doubt your life will change in any real substantive way. On the other side of the equation are the people who will be harmed by this, like the child in the above video. They will be completely fucked.
You want to know what saddens me? I predict that this video will not change your mind, nor the minds of any of the conservatives on this board. 
I watched it, and you were right. I came away appalled: It seemed like the mother and MSNBC were using Mike as a stage prop. And I’d be shocked if he wrote that speech himself. I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow I feel like MSNBC is even less of a ‘news’ organization now than I did before.
So, to review:
ME: The “greater good” always means the Democrats’ plan.
YOU: It’s this sort of bullshit that makes you no longer worth engaging with.
ME: Really? Then is there an area in which it doesn’t?
YOU: No, not really.
See, you seem to have pivoted from offended at my characterization to defending it, without blinking.
So my answer is: the greater good in judicial philosophy arises from judicial application of a consistent analytical framework which rests primary responsibility for legislative change on legislatures, not courts. Republicans appoint judges that acknowledge that framework, while Democrats appoint judges that are comfortable with a view of the judiciary as a partner in helping the law evolve.
I see conservatives making two arguments:
(1) while you can point to scenarios in which taking money from one person and giving to another will help the other person more than it hurts the taxpayer, the system that does that makes everyone worse off overall by creating dependency and economic inefficiency;
(2) regardless of the utilitarian outcomes, the state has no right to do that kind of individual redistribution.
I think both arguments are weak and wrong. But I think trying to overcome them by pointing to individuals who are hurt is somewhat misunderstanding where conservatives are coming from.
The greater good can be an objective assessment. You seem to be getting off on some sort of judicial tangent, when we are talking specifically about legislation, legislatures, and a legislative bill.
The argument that the democrats plan is for the greater good is that it will make people healthier, prevent bankruptcies, improve the economy because of people healthy enough to work, improve the economy through keeping and expanding healthcare jobs, and might even save some lives. (Though to be fair, it is likely to only save as many lives a year as soldiers who died over the course of the vietnam war.)
There can be disagreements as to how much of any of these factor will be changed by any particular govt policy, but the current differences between aca and ahca show that all the factors I have listed will be negatively impacted.
The argument that the republican’s plan is for the greater good is that you and other wealthy people will save a few percent on your taxes. If you could show that your saving of taxes will help the economy, I might take the bate, but we are so far from a supply side solution right now, that giving money to the wealthy means it will just stack up with all the other tens of trillions of dollars of assets that are looking for a place to be invested in the US. The majority of the tax cut that you and other people who are wealthier than average are getting from this will either sit in the bank, or get invested into foreign markets.
Is there nothing to you that is ever objectively good? Is medical progress objectively good to you? You talk quite a bit of “ratcheting” where you are concerned that if someone gets a benefit that improves or even saves their life, they may not want that benefit removed. Do you feel that way about all improvements in people’s lives? Is medical progress just a ratchet, that to you, would make no objective difference if it were ratcheted back down to mercury tinctures and bloodletting? Is electrification just a ratchet, and objectively, going back to pre-electrical days would be neutral to you? Television, radio, telephones? Fire? Did any of those developments contributed to the greater good?
I watched it, and your prediction is correct.
I don’t agree that sad stories should drive public policies. There is good rational reason to distrust policy decisions made on the basis of emotion. (“You told me to put my son on the floor, I did, and he’s gone,”) an incident in which the best possible guidance in a given situation about infant safety in a plane crash is regretted when infant dies.
Vast exaggeration for effect doesn’t impress me. At least try to maintain some sense of proportion.
Trivial to you, maybe. Not so trivial to the people actually affected.
Well certainly, if you sufficiently misconstrue someone else’s words, you can ‘prove’ that they said whatever you wanted them to say - agreed with your point, were an exemplar of it, whatever.
Which demonstrates MY point.
While I won’t argue that Democrats have a consistent framework for appointing judges, the Republicans basically have a set of political litmus tests.
Also, I’d say your characterization of the Republican judges thus appointed is way off base, up to and especially including the conservative legislators on the Roberts court, those still living and the late Antonin Scalia as well.