You should focus on what people are trying to say, even if they bungle up a few words. @fedman1 is trying to say you were right, there’s no need to jump on him because what he wrote isn’t clear – English may not be his first language.
Ahh, use my ESP skills! Hadn’t thought of that…
They said what they meant to say in comprehensible English and you started being a jerk to them for no reason.
No ESP skills needed, just basic communication skills.
They replied to you calling out their mistake with “my bad” so I think a charitable reading of their response, interpreted in that light, is in order. YMMV.
Modhat: To all, please return to the original debate and don’t continue the argument about a poster being a jerk or english being bad.
What are you talking about? The Democrats compromise all the time. The ACA started as a compromise proposal and was compromised even more. Merrick Garland was specifically chosen because multiple Republicans named him as an acceptable compromise nominee. For the entire last Democratic administration the negotiations went something like this:
Rs: We are willing to accept 12, but the Ds are insisting on 50
Ds: Ok, let’s do 12
Rs: 0 and no higher
Ds: How about 10
Rs: 0
Ds: Ok, we are going to pass it without you, but it will 6 so it doesn’t look like we are being unreasonable(protect the blue dogs)
Rs: Socialist Tyrants!
Twice now you have contended that both sides need to compromise more. But most of us on the left are tired of the one way compromises. Unless you think the Dems need to compromise on things like equal rights for women/minorities/LGBTQ. I don’t know how they can compromise any more. Even abortion has been routinely compromised with the Hyde Amendment and late term bans.
That’s what I saw, too.
I don’t think the Republican refusal to compromise is necessarily so much about one particular bill or number (is it 0? 6? 12 or 50?), but rather, that, over the past half century, virtually all social change and political progress has been in the direction of liberalism, rarely the other way around.
Using LGBT as an example: America has gone from gay marriage being unheard-of to being mainstream and accepted now, and transgenderism, etc. all making more and more incremental progress.
To social conservatives who oppose LGBT, “Legislation XYZ to support trans rights; compromise or don’t compromise?” is like being asked, “You are a hundred feet away from the precipice, do you want to step twelve feet closer to the ledge or fifty closer?” They don’t want to step any closer.
Yeah, it’s been entirely too long since we’ve had a good Dark Age. My longship is covered in dust and cobwebs behind my garage. We need to go backwards for a while so me and my mates can sail to Ireland for some good pillaging.
While this is true, that is not the type of compromise I was referring to. The two most glaring example are health care reform and the judiciary.
On health care reform: The original ACA was modeled after a Republican plan proposed in oppisition to Hillary Clinton’s efforts and adopted at the state level under Mitt Romney. The Obama Admin basically heard McConnell’s vow to block everything and responded by offering something closer to past Republican positions than what the left wanted. The Republicans counter proposal was basically that anything proposed by a Democrat was basically evil. The Admin ended up offering further compromises, but did not get any Republican votes.
And Merrick Garland was specifically called out as the type of judge that the Republicans would jhappily confirm, if Obama wasn’t such a norm destroying socialist bent on nominating an activist judge.
What ledge? How do LGBT equal rights impact their lives in a demonstrably negative way?
If you make it look like homosexuals are accepted in society, their children might not be sufficiently afraid and “decide to become” homosexuals.
Eta: clearly this isn’t my view, but I suspect this is at the root of most “MARRIAGE IS BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN” objections.
Also, notice Strassia explicitly said:
So, further compromise on basic human rights by the Democrats is not what we’re talking about. It’s the non-compromise by the Republicans on things that COULD be compromised on, like appointments of centrist judges and a pretty damn moderate health insurance program.
Which is why I said upstairs, let me see some compromise from the Right.
(BTW, the “culture war” issues? It’s has not been legislation that has really driven them. It has been the very motion of the general society’s culture. The law has played catch-up with the society’s acceptance, slowed down precisely by the reactionaries.)
As I recently remarked in this forum, at the very barest minimum, the Right needs to demonstrate that they actually have some kind of practical vision of positive, constructive governance for the benefit of Americans as a whole. Not just faux-populist anti-government ideology to use as a rhetorical smokescreen for their asset stripping of the US economy for their own benefit.
Compromise in government happens when both sides have a genuine program of policy for serving the needs of the people, and both sides have to set aside part of their own plan for the sake of enacting more important shared goals within it. When only one side has a public-service approach to policy, and the other side has abdicated its public-service responsibility in favor of selfish anti-governance obstructionism that they’ve trained their supporters to associate with “freedom”, there’s no way compromise can happen.
One side is being judged on the basis of what it accomplishes for the public good, and the other side’s being judged on the basis of how effectively it can prevent anything being accomplished, and how upset it can make the supporters of the first side. Why would the second side have any incentive to seek compromise in that situation?
If you want to see bipartisan compromise make a comeback, try electing some Republican politicians who actually give a damn about trying to make things better for people. Such as, for instance, figuring out and enacting the specific provisions of an improved version of reliable, affordable and universal healthcare. Not just trying to destroy the imperfect measures we’ve already taken towards that end, while bullshitting us that at some point they’ll get around to replacing it with some unspecified better approach.
Two questions:
- Do you contend that this has been a net gain or net loss for society as a whole?
- Do you ever intend to return to this discussions to continue to engage in the conversation, or is this just some sort of grievance airing exercise for you?
Kinda this.
Conservatives believe in slow, plodding, proven change. Or in the case of some of the social issues, just enough people being on board (You’ve seen great strides in a short time frame for LGTBQ) Primarily because society agrees (who gives a shit what the politicians say or think)
You are always going to have reactionaries, or stringent whatevers. With enough other support, those fringes do not matter BUT you COMPROMISE to garner enough of that “other” support to make your proposals palatable.
Funding is the next step. Let’s say we agree upon the social issue, next we need to decide what to spend on said issue.
Abortion is all about compromise. Progressives (some ) want unfettered access to abortion, at all terms. Conservatives (some) want it to be illegal. Currently we have a workable compromise.
How to respond to consistent bad faith negotiation from one side? Specifically address the health care and SC nominations I have listed above. How can Democrats compromise with a party that acts like that?
I addressed the healthcare one already. You get enough people on your side (51% ain’t gonna cut it) to overwhelm the roadblocks.
I would assume the SC nominations would work the same way.
Messaging is and has always been a problem for the Democrats, primarily because they have been so fractured
You are dodging my question. I am not asking what your position on health care or SC justices is. I am asking how you expect side A to reasonably approach compromise when side B is acting in bad faith.
If you were negotiating with a car dealership and walked in and offered the posted sticker price and the salesperson added 30 percent as a counter offer, would you consider that compromise?
As for your answer to the question I didn’t ask, are saying that one side needs overwhelming support before they get anything from the other side? Republicans should stand their ground and get their way until the Democratic position gets greater than 75% public support? Do you assume that the Republicans are the default in all things?