# I admire the tenacity of republicans **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 20, 2014, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614 "2014-07-20T18:13:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/221 "2014-07-21T22:56:59Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So is this cursing habit a recent development? Seems new. Sometimes my surprise at nonsense can’t be contained by family-friendly language. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/222 "2014-07-21T23:01:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > It’s not a technicality. It’s the words of the law. The words of the law don’t let the IRS give subsidies to federal exchange customers. That’s an interesting and important area for discussion, which I raised in post #148 which you… ignored. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/223 "2014-07-21T23:07:06Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > It’s not a technicality. It’s the words of the law. The words of the law don’t let the IRS give subsidies to federal exchange customers. The DC Circuit Court found the opposite to be true, and in comprehensively dismissive fashion, too. Therefore, using \*\*Bricker \*\*logic applied to results he _likes_, they’re right. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/224 "2014-07-21T23:08:25Z")
> [@Terr](#): > > Fire protection, police protection and education are local services, funded by local taxes. So what? That’s (a) not entirely true, and (b) certainly not relevant to whether something is a handout (which is BAD) vs a service (which is GOOD). If there were hospitals all over the US which would treat you for free if you showed ID proving you weren’t an illegal alien, and we had grown up used to that, then that would be a service. Just like we’re used to free education and free national parks and free getting-our-food-inspected-by-the-FDA and many other things that we’ve collectively agreed that one level of government or another should collectively fund and administer. If you don’t think that healthcare should be one of those things, well, that is certainly your right, but simplying saying “it’s a handout, they’re evil, they make us weak” is ridiculous given how many other things that are part of our everyday lives ARE done by the government, and have been for decades or centuries, without any obvious ill effect. Instead, we should, as reasonable individuals, discuss what is is ABOUT education or police services or fire services or what have you that make them good candidates for being-public-services, whether healthcare has any of those characteristics, what problems there are with the current (previous to Obamacare) private health care system, experiences other countries have had with public health care, and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/225 "2014-07-21T23:09:03Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > So your view is that they decided to require reporting of $0 from all the federal exchanges every year just in case they later passed legislation allowing such subsidies? That doesn’t strike you as kind of a bizarre thing to do, since the future legislation could, of course, include that provision? They took the easiest path. They knew they intended for all subsidies to be reportable. Why exclude federal exchanges from that requirement and then have to add them back in – potentially leading to another mess along the lines of this one. Congress passes a bill adding subsidies to the federal exchange, but forgets to make them reportable. And I guess if they did that, you and your crew would be right back in here saying that Congress intended all along to make all subsidies reportable? > [@](#): > > Huh? I don’t see how that true comment is responsive to the argument. What work do you think the defined term “qualified individual” is doing in the statute? A qualified individual is just a person eligible to participate in a plan. Look, this all happened because Congress assumed 42 USC § 18031(b) would, in fact, require "…Each State shall, not later than January 1, 2014, establish an American Health Benefit Exchange (referred to in this title [1] as an “Exchange”) for the State that […] facilitates the purchase of qualified health plans… [/quote] The CBO scored this disaster by assuming that states would ultimately all participate. That’s the reason subsidies were assigned to the state exchanges and not the federal: to incentivize individuals to sign up to state plans. But as we all know, it turns out Congress can’t force the states to establish squat. Thus leading to the mess with federal subsidies. So… are YOU interested in a bet? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/226 "2014-07-21T23:17:54Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > That’s an interesting and important area for discussion, which I raised in post #148 which you… ignored. This appears to be it: > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > (3) More generally, I think there’s an interesting question about what to do when a law is “written poorly”. I think we all agree that there are possible “typos” that are so minor that they should be immediately overlooked… you can get some pretty weird laws by misplacing a comma or reversing “no” to “on”, or putting the decimal point in what is clearly and comically the wrong place. At the same time, legislators certainly shouldn’t be allowed to say “oh, hey, remember that law we passed last week which established a 6% tax? Well, that was a typo, we mean’t 16%, that’s what we really thought we meant, pinky swear”. Agreed. A typesetter’s, or scrivener’s, error can be corrected. > [@](#): > > I think this case is somewhere in between those two examples. Given my general lack of precise legal knowledge, I wouldn’t find it prima facie outrageous either for the courts to decide “the context, and the historical record, makes it clear that this section refers to all exchanges”, or “well, the law says what the law says, we have to follow the text”. However, something that I think ought to carry a LOT of weight is whether the record of the debate on the law indicates that everyone, both for and against, agreed with what the law meant. If there’s a law banning the import of apples (the fruit), and people debate it a lot, and all the debate is about the benefit of that particular fruit, and the law is passed, and later someone noticed that the person who was getting the scientific names for the apples messed up and in stead of banning the 5 known varietals of apples, it bans 4 of those 5 plus one varietal of figs… that’s a situation where I think the court should rule that the law is clearly intended to be banning apples, not 4/5s of apples and 1/7th of figs. The problem with that approach is that there was a huge amount of debate, that spanned a large number of legislators. I don’t believe you will find compelling legislative history. Thus the famous “We have to pass the law to find out what’s in it.” > [@](#): > > In any case, I do find the behavior of many Republicans, in context, to be pretty abhorrent, given my absolute certainty that what motivates the vast majority of them is not actual philosophical objection to Obamacare (given that it was a Republican idea to begin with), or a passionate believe in the importance of really precisely worded laws (because most of them, although possibly not you, would be humming precisely the opposite tune if the law with a flaw in its wording was one they supported), but simply a desire to make Obama fail, with very little caring that their actions actually hurt real people. However, fortunately or not, THAT certainty of mine is one that it’s hard to bet about. I certainly would not. I don’t like the ACA, but I remind you that when the initial “is it constitutional” challenge came along, I was immediately and squarely in the camp that it was constitutional. My fidelity is to the proper application of the law, which includes the text, not what we wish we had realized the text should say. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/227 "2014-07-21T23:18:56Z")
There used to be a group of grownups who were entrusted to police just this sort of nitpicking. Sadly, the honest and moderate Republican is a mere legend at this point, primaried out of his own district by extremists who would rather see the country go to hell than uphold the legitimacy of a liberal, black president. In such extraordinary times, extraordinary measures must be taken Yes, we should ignore what the Republicans want and just pencil in whatever god damn correction or revision the Democrats feel like. Once that’s done, and the current crop of extremist Republicans are all voted out or resign, we can do things the right way again. But not before because they are destroying the country quite literally No, I’m not worried about how the GOP can claim the same: they are morons and idiots and extremists and I don’t give a flying fuck what they think. I think of them the same as if the Nazi party came into power. You can cry about how we need to do things the right way and they are just as legitimate as Democrats if they were elected into office, but I’ll be damned I’m going to let Nazi’s gunk up the process due to some blind fealty to some “process”. Unfortunately, we don’t have a large enough majority of people who see that or agree with it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/228 "2014-07-21T23:22:54Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > …And I guess if they did that, you and your crew would be right back in here saying … **Richard Parker** , you are part of our crew? Have you got your tie-die shirt and your Frisbee? In case anyone demands proof? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/229 "2014-07-21T23:25:48Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Sometimes my surprise at nonsense can’t be contained by family-friendly language. There are alternate explanations. I prefer one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/230 "2014-07-21T23:30:43Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > Sadly, the honest and moderate Republican is a mere legend at this point, primaried out of his own district by extremists who would rather see the country go to hell than uphold the legitimacy of a liberal, black president. > > … > > I think of them the same as if the Nazi party came into power. You can cry about how we need to do things the right way and they are just as legitimate as Democrats if they were elected into office, but I’ll be damned I’m going to let Nazi’s gunk up the process due to some blind fealty to some “process”. So Republicans are like racists and Nazis. I can’t even ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/231 "2014-07-21T23:39:04Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > The problem with that approach is that there was a huge amount of debate, that spanned a large number of legislators. I don’t believe you will find compelling legislative history. Thus the famous “We have to pass the law to find out what’s in it.” Speaking purely hypothetically, if we found one or more lengthy passages of debate in which legislators are arguing over subsidies, and are clearly not making any distinction between state-run and federally-run exchanges, would that cause you to lean more towards thinking that the subsidies-for-federal-exchanges should be upheld? What about the idea that is being tossed around that what basically happened is that the initial version of the bill covered only state-run exchanges, so there was lots of language about “state-run exchanges”. Then the idea of federally-run exchanges was added, was hooked into a whole bunch of different places in the bill, was assumed by everyone on both sides to be basically equivalent in all ways to state-run exchanges, but one occurrence of “State-run exchanges” in one key place was basically left out of the equivalent of a big copy-and-replace. Setting aside for a moment the evidence that the bill was written in a hurry, if you believed that basic narrative of what happened, would that influence your opinion on what the proper court finding would be? Should the court even care? ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/232 "2014-07-22T00:06:09Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > They took the easiest path. They knew they intended for all subsidies to be reportable. Why exclude federal exchanges from that requirement and then have to add them back in – potentially leading to another mess along the lines of this one. Congress passes a bill adding subsidies to the federal exchange, but forgets to make them reportable. I humbly submit that in a neutral context you’d see how sophistic that reasoning is. Can you point to a single example of where Congress has ever done that kind of foundation-laying for a future amendment to the law to avoid future erroneous drafting? In the history of the country? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the one time you think Congress did so, they did so in a law you object to on policy grounds? > [@Bricker](#): > > A qualified individual is just a person eligible to participate in a plan. What plan? > [@Bricker](#): > > Look, this all happened because Congress … So you say. But if we’re going to look to legislative history and intent, you’re dead in the water. The legislative history and intent are clear that the federal exchanges were meant to replicate the state exchanges, including the subsidies. > [@Bricker](#): > > So… are YOU interested in a bet? Sure, at the right odds. If you think the outcome is so obvious, surely you’ll go 2-1, right? > [@elucidator](#): > > **Richard Parker** , you are part of our crew? Have you got your tie-die shirt and your Frisbee? In case anyone demands proof? Will a tie-die disc do?\* - - Frisbee being a faceless corporation, of course. All my flying discs are handmade by American Indians out of hemp. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/233 "2014-07-22T01:29:51Z")
Judging by Democrats’ behavior, it seems they could have saved time just by passing a one-page law: Congress empowers the President to expand health care as he sees fit. Here are some suggestions for taxes and regulations, but in the end, the President has total discretion to implement the system however he likes. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/234 "2014-07-22T01:31:42Z")
Just wait until the President for Life Amendment passes. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/235 "2014-07-22T01:43:29Z")
Heh. But seriously, Obama’s precedents allow a Republican successor a huge amount of latitude in how to implement the law. 2016 is really crucial for Democrats, because if a Republican wins, even if the GOP can’t repeal the law, even if the Democrats won Congress in the same election, with the law still not fully implemented, the new President will have a great deal of power over the law. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/236 "2014-07-22T02:10:52Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > So Republicans are like racists and Nazis. I can’t even Yeah, “Nazi” is certainly not appropriate – except for a few of the Tealiban – but “racist”, well, peruse [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=511831), you are bound to find not a few examples of racist asshattery on the part of the Rs. Reality is, the right-wingers simply lack the ability to understand what racism is. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/237 "2014-07-22T02:59:44Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yep. > > (That poster, by the way, lost. And he has apparently chosen to honor the terms of that bet by not displaying the signature in his posts, even as he claims to have set the required signature and won’t change it for six months. And of course, because he was on the liberal side, there won’t be any condemnation of that tactic). …have you actually asked him why? Because I’m pretty sure that this ATMB thread has a lot to do with it: > **[How do I get my signature to automatically show up?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=727286)** > > I lost a bet here. So for the next six months, my signature will be as shown below. However, it seems that I have to make sure that the “show your signature” box is ticked each time. I thought there was a way to have it always show up but I can’t... He publicly admits he lost the bet. He states he wants to honour the bet. He is informed that the automation he requires is not permissible. I sincerely doubt that he is not purposefully honoring your debt. I suspect that he simply has a bad memory. I wouldn’t condemn him for that if he was a liberal or a conservative. (And of course, from an international perspective, you are all right-wing conservatives to me.) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/238 "2014-07-22T03:38:39Z")
You take that back! ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/239 "2014-07-22T06:06:18Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > …have you actually asked him why? > > Because I’m pretty sure that this ATMB thread has a lot to do with it: > > [How do I get my signature to automatically show up? - About This Message Board - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=727286) > > He publicly admits he lost the bet. He states he wants to honour the bet. He is informed that the automation he requires is not permissible. > > I sincerely doubt that he is not purposefully honoring your debt. I suspect that he simply has a bad memory. I wouldn’t condemn him for that if he was a liberal or a conservative. (And of course, from an international perspective, you are all right-wing conservatives to me.) The fact remains that he did remember for several days to include the .sig manually. Yes, the possibility exists that it’s constantly slipping his mind, and I’d love to give him the benefit of the doubt on that point. In light of that, I have asked the mods if it would be permissible to publicly nudge him with a reminder in those threads in which it does. Still awaiting a response. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2014, 8:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614/240 "2014-07-22T08:03:15Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > The fact remains that he did remember for several days to include the .sig manually. Yes, the possibility exists that it’s constantly slipping his mind, and I’d love to give him the benefit of the doubt on that point. In light of that, I have asked the mods if it would be permissible to publicly nudge him with a reminder in those threads in which it does. > > Still awaiting a response. …its a freaking worthless internet bet, that turned out to be more onerous than initially expected. In the real world people have a life: and if someone forgets to click a button every time they post in a new thread well whoop-de-shit. And the mods would be stupid to get involved: and I have no idea why you would even consider involving them. Bricker: if you are wondering why people will never bet with you again: this is precisely why. Its the sort of thing you expect from schoolkids, not from adults. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-admire-the-tenacity-of-republicans/693614.md?page=13)