Letter to the Senatorial Steaming POS's from NJ

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=pantom]
Thing about this bill is, with every passing day the news gets worse, instead of better.
Not only did McCain, Warner, and Graham cave, so too did a bunch of Democrats-Conspicuous by their presence on this roll call are the two useless assholes who represent the Garden State, Democrats Lautenberg and Menendez.
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[/QUOTE]

I’ll also point out that if Lautenberg and Menendez had voted Nay it wouldn;t have done any good. Why are you angry at them, rather than the GoP or the Bill’s Sponsors?

22

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Actually, that was one of the worst. Why? Becuase it included the word “misdemeanor”. As your own cite sez "The ban became increasingly controversial due to the fact that it bans a number of police and soldiers from firearm access in work related duties (in fact, a service member discharged from the military due to a domestic violence conviction is said to have been ‘Lautenberged’ .) " This happened to a friend of mine, a Sgt in a small SoCal PD. His wife accused him of “domestic abuse” after their divorce filing. Everyone agreed it was simply a divorce tactic. The DA, knowing it was a bad case, offered a reduction to a misdemeanor, with no jail time, & 40 hours of comm service. The Sgt’s Union lawyer said he should take it, as going to trial was a risk, as a conviction would mean he’d lose his job. Thus, even though the Sgt maintained his innocence, he “plead out” to save his carrerr. Then comes this asshole Lautenberg and his stupid PC bill- and my friend lost his job anyway. His Ex-wife even swore out a statement saying she was “distraught and made the complaint in error” but still, the conviction was a conviction and he lost his carreer. A good cop- which we need more of- lost his career over fucking Lautenberg .

The good news is that he was able to have his conviction expunged- which took $20,000 and five years. He was able to go back to police work- but he lost his rank and seniority.

Now, if the bill had been better written to either be a non-“ex post facto” bill, or just including felonies, then it would have been fine.
[/QUOTE]

There is that, but we also have to weigh the public interest. So I ask you: is it better that an innocent man gets in trouble or that a criminal gets away? Since we can’t ever get it perfect, someone will always be injured by the laws unless we allow that we will intentionally relax the laws to let some scumbags slip through the cracks.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. shrug

23

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
There is that, but we also have to weigh the public interest. So I ask you: is it better that an innocent man gets in trouble or that a criminal gets away? *
[/QUOTE]

“Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,”: English jurist William Blackstone.

24

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
So, instead of picking candidates who agree with you on important issues or demonstrate the ability to do things you agree with, you blindly check all of the names with (D) after them, whether they’re good candidates or not?
[/QUOTE]

Actually, yes, if already you aren’t going to vote for the R, then that’s a perfectly rational strategy if you actually understand how our Congressional system works.

If you don’t understand how it works, and you think that the point of voting is to scream to the hills that you won’t be tainted by compromise, then hey, knock yourself out.

I mean that litterally. Knock yourself out.

25

[QUOTE=Apos]
Actually, yes, if already you aren’t going to vote for the R, then that’s a perfectly rational strategy if you actually understand how our Congressional system works.

If you don’t understand how it works, and you think that the point of voting is to scream to the hills that you won’t be tainted by compromise, then hey, knock yourself out.

I mean that litterally. Knock yourself out.
[/QUOTE]

I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Unfortunately that’s the way our government works. If there were a third party which combined the best of the conservative ideas (strong defense, fiscially sound) and the best of the liberal ideas (socially liberal, compassion for the down and out) **AND ** that party could get enough seats to do something in Washington I would vote for them in a heartbeat. Instead I hold my nose and vote for the Ds. :sigh:

26

[QUOTE=Apos]
Actually, yes, if already you aren’t going to vote for the R, then that’s a perfectly rational strategy if you actually understand how our Congressional system works.

If you don’t understand how it works, and you think that the point of voting is to scream to the hills that you won’t be tainted by compromise, then hey, knock yourself out.

I mean that litterally. Knock yourself out.
[/QUOTE]
I do understand how it works, and I dislike it. I’m not going to vote for a repugnant candidate simply because he or she has the “correct” party affiliation. Almost every ballot I fill out has a mix of Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and other candidates on it, and a lot of those candidates (if they get elected) end up crossing party lines on the issues that are important to me. The structure and behavior of the major parties disgusts me anyway lately.

By voting a straight party line, I feel that you’re perpetuating a broken system and contributing to a government that’s just not working right. If we can either keep the parties right on the balanced edge or throw in enough third-party candidates to prevent a majority, it’s those swing votes that will run things, and the individual candidates will really matter again.

27

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
How is the bill “pro-torture”?
[/QUOTE]
For one thing, the bill forbids the use of evidence obtained through interrogation techniques like waterboarding (which I would regard as a form of torture) ONLY if the evidence was obtained after December 30, 2005. Any evidence obtained using these sorts of techniques before that date can be admitted as evidence. Personally, I view this as a whitewashing of the sad and disgraceful history of the use of these immoral interrogation techniques. Calling the bill “pro-torture” isn’t too much of a stretch in my book.

28

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
I do understand how it works, and I dislike it.
[/quote]

I feel the same way about cancer. Whenever the vote for whether there should be cancer or not comes up, I’ll be sure to vote against it.

That’s nice that you have all these complex emotions and stuff. But meanwhile, let me ask you something: what do you want to see from Congress? Is not voting for one of the only two party candidates really in the race helping advance that cause, or not?

We don’t live in such a system and you are welcome to try and change it and more power to you. But until you suceed, we live in a system where if you don’t want a crazy pro-torture bill to make it to the floor, you had better vote for a D even if you think they’d vote for it. Just who they caucus with alone will prevent that bill from ever getting past square one.

If you can’t vote for that D, however, then the only logical conclusion is that you don’t really care what bills get introduced and passed after all, and it’s all posturing.

29

[QUOTE=Ravenman]
For one thing, the bill forbids the use of evidence obtained through interrogation techniques like waterboarding (which I would regard as a form of torture) ONLY if the evidence was obtained after December 30, 2005. Any evidence obtained using these sorts of techniques before that date can be admitted as evidence. Personally, I view this as a whitewashing of the sad and disgraceful history of the use of these immoral interrogation techniques. Calling the bill “pro-torture” isn’t too much of a stretch in my book.
[/QUOTE]

It bans torture, and it bans evidence got from certain extreme “interrogation techniques” after they became illegal. And it allows such evidence from prior questioning only: " Statements obtained before the enactment of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005. Statements obtained before December 30, 2005, in which the degree of coercion is in question, would only be admitted if the military judge finds that: 1) the totality of the circumstances renders it reliable and possessing sufficient probative value; and 2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement of evidence. " You know, it’d help if dudes actually read what they were bitching about.

So, it’s not “pro-torture”.

30

[QUOTE=DrDeth]
Statements obtained before December 30, 2005, in which the degree of coercion is in question, would only be admitted if the military judge finds that: 1) the totality of the circumstances renders it reliable and possessing sufficient probative value; and 2) the interests of justice would best be served by admission of the statement of evidence. " You know, it’d help if dudes actually read what they were bitching about.
[/QUOTE]
Ah. I see your point: the 4th, 8th, and 14th amendments need not apply before 12/30/05 if a military judge says that the evidence has probative value. That makes perfect sense! If anything, the government should make more laws that create loopholes in the Constitution! Good idea, DrDeth! Let’s allow judges to set aside important constitutional protections based on the date that the violations of those rights may have occured! If it happened far enough in the past, we should just say its okay, anyway. It’s not worth washing our hands of those shameful episodes of prisoner abuse.

You’ve really changed my mind. Thank goodness I didn’t read the bill, as you stupidly charge, because now I understand that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY that someone can object to the substance of it. I thank the stars above that you were able to explain it all to me, DrDeth.

I especially appreciate that you carefully choose your words ubsaying that that the bill “allows such evidence from prior questioning…” You are to be commended for using the word “questioning” instead of the more accurate terms like “waterboarding,” “inhumane treatment,” “morally repugnant humiliation,” “infliction of hypothermia,” and other such “questioning techniques.” It’s so much easer to explain these disturbing policies when we dodge the real issues through the use of euphamisms!

31

[QUOTE=InvisibleWombat]
So, instead of picking candidates who agree with you on important issues or demonstrate the ability to do things you agree with, you blindly check all of the names with (D) after them, whether they’re good candidates or not?
[/QUOTE]

And what makes someone a “good candidate”? Party affiliation is a reasonably useful shorthand for a candidate’s position on a number of political issues. Except for the relatively rare person who actually is trapped between the two major parties in their beliefs (relatively rare, because our choices on the U.S. political scene now are a center-right and a far-right party; it’s hard to imagine that many people fall right into that rather small gap between the two parties), if you vote based upon the issues you will generally find candidates from one party or from the other are closer to your positions on those issues.

Most people don’t vote based upon political issues. They vote based on numerous other criteria, including the desire to brag about how they don’t believe in partisan politics. If you don’t actually vote based on the issues, you’re a moron. If you do vote based upon actual political issues, you will find that there is enough uniformity in both parties that you will almost certainly find that one party or the other represents you better.

Then you almost certainly are not voting in a rational way designed to advance your positions on issues. I’m always amazed at how many people brag about how they don’t vote for candidates from a single party; that’s actually a useful tactic in some respects: anti-government types in general can reduce the effectiveness of the legislature by working to ensure a close split between the parties; people who truly are somewhere halfway between the major parties on most issues might rationally decide that moderates from either side are their best representatives.

But most people don’t fit either of those categories. Most people have a bunch of opinions about the different issues that are part of our political scene - and yet, most people simply don’t vote on that basis. People vote for many reasons - for instance, under the moronic belief that they can tell something about a politician’s personality based upon their TV spots.

Deciding to punish the Democratic party because some of its senators didn’t vote the way you wanted weakens the Democrats and helps ensure that the Republican party gains an even stronger hold on the legislature (I recognize that you didn’t say you plan to do so, but you’re defending someone who did.) That’s pretty much the definition of irrational voting; giving the rather timid Democrats even less influence in the political scene means the Republicans will be able to pursue their agenda even more effectively. If you need to know whether party affiliation matters, look how many Republicans voted ‘nay’ on this bill. One.

If you believe that legislators’ party affiliation doesn’t play the largest role in determining how they vote (even most “moderate” or “liberal” Republicans voted along with their party on this; they tend to do that), then you are simply ignorant about how the legislature operates and you’ve developed a “principled” stance that doesn’t accord with reality.

But hey, you may be fine with that. My opinion is that I should vote in the way that advances my political agenda. I should vote in such a way that my vote makes each of my opinions on actual political issues more likely to be implemented. In this current political climate, that absolutely means a straight party ticket. I know that voting a straight ticket isn’t glamorous or trendy. It’s very popular to say that you aren’t influenced by partisan politics. It’s amazing how many people say that. But if you don’t recognize that the legislature is a partisan body and vote in accordance with that, you’re voting irrationally and you’re almost certainly not
advancing your own political beliefs.

If voting irrationally and, very likely, voting against your own political interests gives you a little thrill because you’re not “partisan”, that’s fine. Don’t expect the rest of us not to laugh at you, though.

Oh, dear. Third party candidates?

Don’t know much about U.S. history or about plurality voting, do you? Go look up Duverger’s Law for starters; then take an American history class and pay careful attention to how many major parties there have been at any given point in history.

What this reveals is exactly what I figured above - you’re voting on the basis of ill-formed “principles” and fantasies about how you think political systems work rather than any actual understanding of it.

Precisely.

One of the things you’ll start to notice if you know people who really follow politics closely, or better yet have expertise in political science - they almost always have a pretty strong party affiliation. If you understand how the system works, it becomes glaringly obvious how irrational InvisibleWombat’s voting strategy is.

Precisely. That’s what “I don’t vote a straight ticket” means, at least in this day and age.

32

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
…if you vote based upon the issues you will generally find candidates from one party or from the other are closer to your positions on those issues.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, the concepts of “left” and “right” are far too simplistic to apply to someone who forms their own opinions on issues. Political candidates (especially at local and state level, where my votes have the most effect) frequently break party ranks, especially Representatives, whose job is to represent the people from their home district. Candidates frequently take strong stands on single issues (e.g., Al Gore on environmental issues). If they make it clear that their actions throughout their tenure in office will be strongly influenced by that issue, then I think that issue is worthy of serious consideration–more serious than the party affiliation.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Most people don’t vote based upon political issues. They vote based on numerous other criteria, including the desire to brag about how they don’t believe in partisan politics.
[/QUOTE]
I ain’t “most people” and I ain’t bragging. I simply feel that there are some repugnant people in office in both major parties, and I refuse to vote those people back in just because they belong to a party that doesn’t represent me very well, anyway.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
If you do vote based upon actual political issues, you will find that there is enough uniformity in both parties that you will almost certainly find that one party or the other represents you better.
[/QUOTE]
I disagree. I can easily point out democrats and republicans who share the majority of my concerns and beliefs, and members of both parties who don’t.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Then you almost certainly are not voting in a rational way designed to advance your positions on issues. I’m always amazed at how many people brag about how they don’t vote for candidates from a single party;
[/QUOTE]
No bragging. Just the way I do it. I consider that someone who votes for an individual even if that individual does not represent your views and is likely to vote counter to your wishes is irrational.

Again, back away from the issue a moment and look at it. I agree with the democrats on about half the issues important to me and the republicans on the other half. Voting a straight party line (either party) means voting against half of what I want. Most politicians, especially at state level, have enough individuality and intelligence to break from the party when it suits their sense of duty to their constituents or better aligns with their personal agenda. If I select the politicians who split with their party in my favor on issues that concern me, I am doing far better than the guy who checks all of his party’s boxes without thinking about it.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Deciding to punish the Democratic party because some of its senators didn’t vote the way you wanted weakens the Democrats and helps ensure that the Republican party gains an even stronger hold on the legislature (I recognize that you didn’t say you plan to do so, but you’re defending someone who did.)
[/QUOTE]
I don’t want to punish either party; I simply want to elect politicians who have the brains to think for themselves and determine the best way to serve their constituency instead of blindly following political leaders from another part of the country.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
My opinion is that I should vote in the way that advances my political agenda. I should vote in such a way that my vote makes each of my opinions on actual political issues more likely to be implemented.
[/QUOTE]
I absolutely agree.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
In this current political climate, that absolutely means a straight party ticket.
[/QUOTE]
I absolutely disagree.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
If voting irrationally and, very likely, voting against your own political interests gives you a little thrill because you’re not “partisan”, that’s fine. Don’t expect the rest of us not to laugh at you, though.
[/QUOTE]
No, I would get no thrill from voting irrationally. If I wanted to do that, I’d vote a straight party line. Just out of curiosity, have you ever actually looked at voting records for state-level candidates and compared them to party platforms? I have.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Oh, dear. Third party candidates?

Don’t know much about U.S. history or about plurality voting, do you? Go look up Duverger’s Law for starters; then take an American history class and pay careful attention to how many major parties there have been at any given point in history.
[/QUOTE]
I understand it. I also understand that as long as the two primary parties can continue to foster the “throwing away your vote” meme, they will keep themselves locked in power. There are many third-party candidates in office today, and the more we support them, the more likely it is we can get some of them into Congress. By voting a straight party ticket, I’d be fostering a system that I’m doing my best to fight.

[QUOTE=Excalibre]
If you understand how the system works, it becomes glaringly obvious how irrational InvisibleWombat’s voting strategy is.
[/QUOTE]
You certainly throw around the word “irrational” a lot. Perhaps you agree with the Democrats on 100% of the issues that matter to you. Perhaps it’s even as high as 80%. In that case, you’re probably doing the right thing for yourself by blindly checking party boxes. For those of us who can’t be neatly slotted into the “D” cubbyhole or the “R” cubbyhole, perpetuating the exclusionary two-party system is the definition of irrational.

33

If you were talking about Governor’s race, where there is one executive and not caucus effect, then it might make sense. But in the case of Congress, the power of what party controls it has a HUGE effect that dwarfs the effects of any individuals. Either you think that the country would benefit from having the Democrats run things in Congress or you think it would benefit from having Republicans run them. But you can’t have it both ways and claim to be rational.

Take the torture issue. Let’s say that a D fully supports torture. That’s destestable. But his opponent does as well, and since the balance of Congress is a stake, and since the D’s will in general not even let such bills make it to the floor if they have power, voting for the pro-torture D helps block what you claim to be against, while not voting misses a chance to do so.

In short, by not voting for a D, you are signalling that you don’t really care about torture per se, just that you kept your hands unsoiled by never voting for anyone that supports it. That’s a pretty craven and amoral position in the grand scheme of things.