I agree, and I said as much in my previous post when I said education was good for society.
I don’t think it’s a matter of changing the name from "taxes " to “investment in infrastructure.”. Conservatives are not against taxes. I doubt you’ll fin any that don’t recognize the need to fund government for the services we can get from it.
Personally, I don’t begrudge taxes. I begrudge taxes the government takes to serve itself rather than society. I begrudge waste. I begrudge getting poor value for those dollars. That’s all.
Well, now that sounds like a pretty cogent, sharp insight. Trouble I have with it, is that I don’t know what it means. Is that one of those “big government” dogma, from the conservative catechism, a philosophical position about the nature of “government”?
Because as a practical criticism, rather than a philosophical aphorism, it doesn’t parse well. Well, actually, it doesn’t parse at all.
I mean, over here on the progressive side, we never thought government served society to begin with. We think it ought to, will of the people, all that good stuff. But we think it mostly has served the interests of the rich and powerful, and our interests if we scare the bejabbers out of 'em.
So, is that what you mean, then? You begrudge a society that protects the privileged at the expense of the many? Nah, I’m thinking that can’t be it.
Yeah, I’m sorry to have provided the distraction. Scylla, would you mind ignoring what I said and returning to your efforts to defend the proposition that liberals hate gays? I think there were a number of really good questions others had for you that seem to be unresolved yet.
As for why those liberal groups weren’t trying to win, or trying very hard at least:
I’ll repeat: because they didn’t. It seems a pretty basic constitutional question to me; How is it possibly constitutional to disqualify able bodied citizens from serving in the military because of their sexual preference? There’s all kind of precedent gong back 40 years and more that this type of discrimination is not ok. You got racial and sexual integration mandated. What is different about sexual preference? You would have thought there would have been some liberal judge somewhere that would have given them a win.
Likely you’ll say the political climate wasn’t yet right. Yup. So they just did enough to show they were working on it, but not enough to actually get a win which would have caused a backlash… Until the climate changed and it becomes politically expedient. Then the LCR’s jumped the gun and won an injunction… Dammit! At exactly the wrong time… Dammit! So the Democrats unwon it.
As for your second question. It’s vanity voting. Most of the time everybody knows exactly how these votes ate going to go before they happen. A lot of the voting is actually posturing. If a vote is safe or a foregone conclusion, people will vote simply so they can say they voted for or against something.
The bill was doomed from the start. It wasn’t going to pass. The main goal didn’t actually seem to be to pass it, but to pose for a position.
In this case the Democrats are like that guy trying to get into a fight but his friends are holding him back. The only reason he feels comfortable looking for a fight is because his friends are holding him back. If his friends let him go, he doesn’t fight. He runs.
The Tepublcans were holding back the dems, but when the lCR won, did the Dems fight or run?
So, no actual evidence, just “didn’t win = didn’t try”.
You do realize how preposterous that sounds, don’t you?
Don’t you?
It took almost a hundred years to get a court to order an end of racial segregation. It was almost 20 years to get Bowers v. Hardwick overruled. Do you think Court cases are like athletic contests in movies, where the underdog who tries harder against great talent will win every time? Is it that fantasy world you live in that not winning means didn’t try hard enough.
Like I said, ocean of stupid.
Did you even read about the Witt case? The one the court in the LCR case relied on to find DADT violated the constitution? The one the ACLU had filed and took to the 9th circuit, well before any ruling in the LCR case? And, again, you have no evidence whatsoever that LCR did a tiny thing different (other than have a different judge at a different time) than any of the other groups that would actually change the result to their favor. (Not to take anything away from the LCR for doing a great job winning). But that lack of evidence won’t stop you.
It passed the House. OVER REPUBLICAN OBJECTION AND VOTES. And it would have passed the Senate, but the REPUBLICANS filibustered and the Democrats couldn’t get to 60 votes to bypass it.
They wanted to win. Hell, they won in the House, they won in the White House. It’s the Senate REPUBLICANS that are stopping them from winning in the Senate and getting it repealed.
Yet, despite all those facts, despite you complete lack of any evidence, despite your inane and unsupported conclusions about the legal system, you still think the Republicans are better on homosexual issues.
You can handsets at it and call it names, but it is evidence. For fifteen years they didn’t win, they got nowhere trying to repeal a law that they themselves put in place.
When the LCR won an injunction, Obama overturned it, because he didn’t like the way it was won???
That’s like taking back the winning field goal because you want to go for the touchdown. Outside of political expediency before an election, it makes no sense.
What now seems to be a likely course of events?
Hmmmm.
How about the current bill gets tied up (because of Republicans, no doubt.). The democrats lose big in a couple of days, and then the chances of such a bill passing are nil.
Obama gets to say he gave it his best shot, but it didn’t happen. He gets to blame Rebublicans. There are no gays in the military, and the gay vote stays safely ensconced with the Dems.
No, the fact they lost is evidence that they lost. Not that they didn’t try. You have zero evidence that they didn’t try. You don’t even have to be a lawyer to know your idea that not winning a court case = not trying is completely without a basis in logic or reality.
And, for the 4th time, I think Obama’s decision to appeal was the wrong thing to do. Because I think the repeal of DADT will be more difficult after the midterm elections (thanks to Republicans), for political expediency, I’d rather they get their ass in gear to comply with the order.
Let me try your logic on this. The repeal of DADT passed the House. That means that the Republicans who voted against it, actually wanted DADT to be repealed because they didn’t try hard enough to stop it.
Not very convincing logic, is it.
While I agree, the Democrats don’t do enough for homosexuals, you’re absolutely wrong that the Republicans are any better. The Republicans are the ones who stopped the repeal of DADT, not the Democrats.
My pointid that the Republicans are better in the sense that they are open in their animosity towards Gays whereas the democrats are false in their friendship.
Look, what I really believe is that there is no difference at all between republicans and Democrats other than who they are trying to appeal to and prey upon. Serously, Obama is George bush.
How about, if the Packers get to 9 wins this year, that means I was right and you were wrong. Or if it snows in Des Moines before December 21st, that means you were right.
The Republicans are still fighting it’s passage. The Democrats can’t pass over the filibuster. I would love it if Reid would quit fucking around with it, but I highly doubt that, after this election, the Republicans will suddenly wake up and start working for the repeal of DADT, DOMA, the passage of gay marriage, or any of the other myriad issues important to equal rights for homosexuals.
And again, would he want to win this? It’ll piss off his religious supporters, and once he’s won, the next step is fighting for gay marriage. He does not want to fight that fight. He already came out against it. Winning this, the democratic stance is against gay marriage, just like the Republcans. There is nothing to distinguish or hold gay voters to the democratic party.
Fighting DADT without wnning it gets Dems credit for gay rights, doesn’t go too far in pissing off religious types, and postpones the whole marriage debacle which will be a sticky wicket indeed.
There is no incentive for them to win, and every incentive not to. People always follow ter incentives.