I see the point you’re trying to make. And if the way debt ceiling raises always worked was that every time it came up there was a whole bunch of partisan bickering, and laying out positions, and refusing to compromise, and brinksmanship, and so forth; then in that case, if there were two sides both of which dug in their heels and refused to go closer to the center, then those two parties would presumably be morally equivalent.
But that’s not the way it’s ever worked before. Every previous debt ceiling raising has been basically routine. Sure there’s been some posturing, but basically, when it needed to be raised, it was raised… GOP prez, Dem prez, GOP congress, Dem congress, all combinations, it was raised.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, the Republicans are refusing to do what has always been routine before. So once that’s happened, if haggling starts and we end in a situation where both sides have dug in their heels, there is no equivalency at all, and the Republicans are the ones to blame for the current situation.
You mean, this time. After the country has spent itself back to the stone age, and is starting to make Greece’s austerity look good?
The Tea Party feels, and certainly many in the GOP (and independents) that the country is on the brink of disaster. They feel that if they don’t make a stand then it will be beyond the tipping point and past our PNR.
Sort of like the climate change gang - if we don’t do something soon, irrevocable actions will take place and a chain reaction of biblical proportions etc etc etc. So we need take drastic steps now.
Sure, and if there was some procedural vote that took place every year or so which was the “ok, continue to make it legal to import gas from overseas” bill, which, if it was not passed, the very next day gas would sextuple in price, and the economy came crashing down; and if that vote had been passed routinely for years; and if suddenly the pro-environment crowd refused to pass that bill unless a law was passed making various changes in our environmental policy (ones that these people honestly and deeply believed were in the best interest of the US); then you might have a meaningful comparison. But no such thing has ever happened.
Basically, I have three basic responses to you:
(1) I don’t believe that the Tea Party types really truly honestly believe what they claim they believe, or at least it’s anywhere near that important to them, because it’s way too convenient the timing of how their belief suddenly became this overwhelmingly important issue the moment Obama was elected
(2) If they do have that belief, then they’re idiots. (“deficits are the worst thing ever” = somewhat understandable. “raising taxes would be the worst thing ever” = somewhat understandable. Both of them together + you can’t touch my social security or medicare or the defense budget you damn traitor = insane.)
(3) And even if they do honestly hold those beliefs, what they’re doing is causing untold damage to the political process and to the US as a whole, and is at best foolish, at worst borderline criminal.
They feel something drastic has to be done, to wake Americans up before we’re in too deep (which they think is imminent). They haven’t seen dick from the Dems, who had Congress for how many years? Or from this president, other than to write more checks that the kids have to cash (Obamacare being the worst, but there are other programs). They also feel that the old bulls of the GOP caved way too easily, because they wanted to be well liked by the mostly-left Washington media.
JT, by the way, you nailed it w/your point about Jesse, Barney et al threatening the ‘no’ vote - you can’t criticize the tea party and not criticize them too. Looks like the Dems were evenly divided on the bill - half of them wanted the country to default I guess. :dubious:
You care to state how long the Democrats have had a super majority in Congress, since at least for the past 2 years, that’s what has been required to pass anything?
And can you lay off the false equivalency thing? It’s really tiring.
I honestly don’t feel like you’ve addressed my points at all. Yes, the Tea Party certainly claims that they believe in a balanced budget and not raising taxes. But here’s my chain of reasoning once again. Tell me where you disagree:
(1) Defaulting on our debt would be an economic catastrophe, perhaps worldwide. (Many people from all sides of the aisle seem to agree with that).
(2) Because of this, raising the debt ceiling has been routine for years
(3) Until this time
(4) Now, I’m not saying that it’s NEVER ethical to say “here’s something I want done for the country, and I’m going to dig in my heels and refuse to do this routine but important thing until my demands are met”
(5) For instance, if I thought that to not do what I wanted done would present an even more grave and immediate danger to the country than doing the routine-but-important-thing
(6) So one of two things must be true: either (a) the Tea Party and the Republicans are just being insane whiney suicidal douchebags who want to get their way and are willing to hold the country hostage to do it, or (b) the Tea Party believes that having the level of debt and taxation that we currently have for even another month would be such a massive and imminent and unavoidable catastrophe that the risk of default is worth it in order to take the principled stand that they are taking
(7) So let’s be charitable and assume it’s (b). Can you point out what it is that makes this debt extension, and this spending, and this level of taxation, an absolute imminent frightening very-existence-of-the-US-threatening catastrophe, whereas previous massive increases of the national debt have been met with general apathy?
(8) For me, Occam’s razor tells me that while there may be some basic honesty in the TP position, the timing and severity of it is largely due to a combination of cynical manipulation by politics-playing Republicans and general baseless hatred of Obama. Sure, there might be some number of people who just had never thought about it before, but suddenly became aware of the issue, and then honestly and in a principled fashion adopted the position that they hold; and some others for whom certain levels of debt are bad, and certain are worse, and certain are totally unaccpetable; and it just happens that the crossover from worse-to-unacceptable just happened to occur during the Obama administration. But I find that pretty damn unlikely.
Oh, and:
If that’s the position you’re taking, please response to my post #821.
Super majority! Hey, we must have gone to the Marley Academy of Strawmen!
Sure blame it on the other guy. Why should the playbook change at this point. And of course, W vetoed all those spending cuts and budget control measures that the Dems passed; (oh wait, he didn’t.)
PS Good story today about your ChiCom buddies ripping off IKEA.
Max, 823 was in response to your 821. You ask why is this one any different, and I think I’ve explained pretty well the mindset of those who feel it is. I understand if you don’t agree with that, but enough Americans did to give the Dems a complete asskicking last November, in an attempt to get a hold of this spending nonsense. So you’re really surprised that the Tea Partiers feel emboldened?
as for this
stop right there. If you agree with this.. and half the Dems STILL voted against it… then we’re done with the analysis - you cannot blame Tea Partiers and not those Dems, unless you’re a partisan knucklehead (in which case, please stop replying to my posts, I only discuss issues with people with open minds).
The vote is the only thing that matters, not the reasons, not the emotion (sorry lefties).
Edit to add: it’s not a hatred of Obama that’s leading to this timing - it’s a hatred of his policies of expansive government, which is anathema to the Tea Party’s core beliefs. Plus, to hate him would be racist, right? :rolleyes:
The debt ceiling is a switch that prevents worldwide catastrophe. Dems and Repubs for decades walked up and flicked that switch together. Some made a political play of voting against it as a symbol, but never when passing it was in question.
Now one side, the Republicans, are saying I won’t flip that switch unless you give me everything I want. That’s simply the action of a complete and utter douchebag.
The Dems know that the switch needs to get flipped, but they also know that there are a core of Repubs who aren’t batshit-insane. So they deal. Because only a small minority of Republicans, the Tea Partiers, are so stupid, delusional and ill-informed to even consider actually not flipping the switch.
The Tea Party is an organization that just tried, in all honestly, to destroy the world economy. Because their bullshit ideology has brainwashed them to an extent that they simply don’t believe anything bad would happen. Their stupidity is dangerous, and it’s incumbent on every right-leaning person to drive these idiots out of your party now. The early 21st century Republican Party is a coalition made up of ignorant, lunatics bent on the unwitting destruction of the country, and the opportunistic power-mad jerks willing to use them for votes.
Feel free not to respond, I’ll save you the trouble of declaring victory after posting some unrelated tidbit.
Smashy, yet another typo, “Chicom” is actually spelled “China” or the “People’s Republic of China” or the “PRC” or “PRChina.” This would be the second time, following the mispelling of “wonton” earlier.
Thanks for pointing out there’s piracy in China, who knew? Color me surprised. :smack:
BTW, thanks for not answering the question. Majority means dick if it requires a supermajority to pass anything. You care to answer the question?
Like the Senator, I am very concerned about the United States’ preparedness to make war. I worry about our dwindling supply of nuclear ICBM’s since we currently only have enough warheads to kill every human on earth 150 times over. This could plummet to less than 100 or even 50 times over if this legislation’s “auto-spending-cut” clause is triggered!!
Almost as important (and as scary) is the possibility that we could lose our personnel/materiel advantage over the Soviet Union and her satellite countries in any huge, protracted war across all of Europe–involving millions of combat troops, tens of thousands of tanks, billions of tons of bombs, and hundreds of billions of American flags and lapel pins for the homefront.
I could not agree with you less. If someone says “bow to my demands or I will do bad thing X” and you don’t bow to their demands, and they do bad thing X, then you could have (presumably) taken actions to prevent bad thing X. As could he. But do you both bear equal responsibility for thing X happening? That seems crazy to me.
For your analogy to hold, the “climate change gang” would have to be threatening to destroy the Earth’s ozone layer with nukes if they didn’t get their emissions legislation.
Here’s the difference: they (The Tea Party, presumably) are saying, “Bow to my demands, or I will do X” (vote against raising the debt limit). Half of the Democrats said, “No Way, we’re not doing that, so we are going to do X also” (note they are voting against it for different reasons, I assume because it doesn’t raise taxes or it attempts to limit the growth in [del]bribes[/del] entitlement spending and social safety net).
But it does not matter, especially since we’re talking about a compromise bill and not the Tea party’s proposals (including no re-vote during election season, by far the best concession Hopey McChangey got, and it’s a big one… in fact, you could make the argument he sold out his squishy lefty buddies just so he has a chance of getting elected again).
You are saying that if the Tea Party proposal (let’s say Michelle Bachmann’s, as I assume there isn’t just one) were to be voted into law, then that bill would completely destroy the country? Forgetting about the poor old people, pushing grandma off a cliff and the other colorful imagery used by the left… just thinking fiscally here.
If the Tea Party proposal were executed, then the country would go bankrupt? Really?
I’d argue that the tea party proposal is BY FAR the most fiscally responsible of all of them. Balancing your budget is good for your finances, who knew?! But it would obviously involve the biggest pain for SS, Medicare and Medicaid recipients, who might have to make due with less.
Hardly a nuclear bomb though - especially since we’re talking finances here.
