I am sure we are all grateful for friend Bricker’s valiant and ceaseless efforts on behalf of precise semantic distinctions.
But I don’t see any principled reason to label one side but not the other as engaging in “hostage taking,” insofar as both Obama and the GOP have it in their power to end the shutdown by agreeing to the other side’s demands, and this is all being done in accordance with process. Now, many would say that this is drawing a false equivalence. But why is it false, exactly?
A good expression of the notion that this draws a false equivalence is this speech by Lincoln cited by James Fallows:
But a highwayman has no legal claim to my property, so clearly HE’S the one who would be culpable for my death if I refused his demands and he killed me, even though I had it in my power to stop him; whereas, on the other hand, the House GOP clearly has a legal right to hold up the functioning of the government if that’s what they, in their twisted worldview, desire. (Unless the argument is that in so doing they’re literally destroying the country, which seems a bit much to me.) So I just don’t see how the claim of false equivalence holds water.
sigh
“The Republicans are not negotiating!”
“Yes, they are; you may not like the circumstances, but it’s obviously negotiating.”
“Oh, who cares about semantics?”
Do you actually have any interest, even a tiny bit, in that whole “fighting ignorance” thing? I’m amazed at how confident and secure you are in the middle of announcing you don’t care about it.
By your definition, Obama is negotiating, because he communicated his position to the Republicans.
False equivalence. Keeping a law that has been duly passed in accordance with process is not simply “Obama’s demand”. It’s the law. Crippling or killing that law, outside the process and with only minority support among We the People, is the GOP’s demand. They also control only one half of one branch of the government, and that only with minority support, so they cannot honestly be said to be of equal standing. Does that help clarify things for you?
There’s a bit more to it than legal rights, isn’t there? There’s moral rights, and there’s a helluva lot of responsibility issues involved too. Try addressing those and see where you get.
The problem is that it does not incent the Democrats to bargain. The choices the Republicans have offered seem to be either:
- We shut down the government and do lots of damage to the national economy while we (the Republicans) take a larger share of the blame.
Or:
- You agree to defund or delay a law that we (the Republicans) will continue to try to dismantle every step of the way and if we succeed you (the Democrats) will take a huge hit to your credibility.
That’s it. Nothing else. They are not offering to have a long term (3 year) raise to the debt ceiling. No offer to not to do this same thing again in 2 or 12 months. No offers to raise some tax revenue or an offer to institute universal background checks for firearm purchases. No offers to stop filibustering President Obama’s judicial appointments. Nothing. There is arguably no reason for the Democrats to negotiate yet Republicans seem to be apoplectic that the President won’t negotiate. It’s pretty dumb and not well thought out. That is my whole point.
If the shutdown was blamed on President Obama or the Senate Democrats, it might be a good negotiation tactic because they would have something to bargain with: the continued electoral of the Democratic Party. As it is, they are hurting themselves more than the Democrats in this regard so the only thing they are negotiating with is damage to the country and potentially the full faith and credit of our financial agreements if they refuse to raise the debt ceiling. While I agree with you that this is a legal and valid negotiation tactic, it does smell of hostage taking or extortion because they have no stance except “we will burn down the village unless we get our way”. If you have a better descriptor for this tactic that is not so pejorative yet still captures the irrationality of their strategy, I am happy to use it.
U.S. House Republicans weigh debt limit hike without add-ons
Can you talk your Tea Party friends into primarying all the Republicans that vote for this? Please???
Just to add, since you’re somehow finding the issue to be based in property law of all things: The United States government, and its proper functioning, is indeed the “property” of We the People. Many of Us the People are in fact losing some value in that property through the Republicans’ actions.
The problem is that the chip the Republicans are offering, letting the government function, is not (or at least, should not be) purely a Democratic desire. I’m sure Republicans want the government open, too; parts of it, anyway.
That’s why I think the comparison to hostage taking is valid. Imagine the cliché scene of a bank robber, surrounded by police, using a teller as a human shield and holding a gun to her head. He probably doesn’t want to kill the teller, but he’ll threaten to do it in order to get what he really wants (the money). He’s counting on the fact that the police want to keep the teller alive more than he does. And he’s certainly hoping that their desire to keep the teller alive is greater than their desire to apprehend him and save the bank’s money.
I said earlier that the Senate (Democrats) could have passed a CR with their own legislative wishlist attached. “Pass an assault weapons ban, or we’ll shut down the government!” That would have put them in an equivalent bargaining position with the Republicans. But they didn’t.
It is with heavy steps and a heavier heart that I surrender. My humiliation is abject and bottomless, I should never have dared to contend with someone who’s capacity for relentlessly precise semantic parsing is the stuff of legend. Alas, I am undone!
I will go now to the river, to perform the ancient Albanian ritual of self-abasement, accompanied by a chorus of bitter virgins, intoning dirges of woe and humiliation.
Bricker would you say the Republicans are negotiating in good faith? They want long term changes to existing laws for a 6 week continuing resolution. They want changes to laws that they failed to defeat by the vote, in exchange for simply allowing the government to function.
There is absolutely nothing that will prevent them from asking for further changes and more concessions on Dec 15 when this CR runs out.
Absolutely. Did I ever suggest otherwise?
Well, if we’re now down to what the tactic smells like, then I agree with you. To quote Baby Herman, “The whole thing stinks like yesterday’s diapers!”
I’m not supporting the tactic – I’m just asking that it be described correctly. The SDMB seems to react poorly to this, seemingly feeling that if something is bad, any descriptions of it, be they accurate or not, are allowed; any objections to accuracy constitute a defense of the predicate issue.
It is neither hostage taking nor extortion. The only arrow in the GOP quiver is the passage of the budget – they cannot repeal Obamacare outright without two-thirds of both legislative houses. Since they don’t have that, they are using the control they do have to demand its undoing, or at least its delay. I don’t understand why we are seemingly incapable of describing it like that.
If that’s all settled then, perhaps we can move on to less significant issues, like the fate of the Republic?
Sure, I think it’s in good faith, if by that phrase you mean they really want what they’re asking for. If you mean something else by “in good faith,” then you’ll need to describe it in more detail.
I guess not.
What you are describing is hostage-taking and extortion.
I may not be the person to ask about “normal”.
… and nowhere in it is there any recognition of the fact that the debate over ACA was already held, the GOP had ample chance to persuade us of their position on it, they had to resort to a campaign of lies, they still lost, the bill was passed by a majority of democratically-elected representatives and a democratically-elected President, it was even found constitutional by SCOTUS despite their efforts to kill it that way, and the law was affirmed by an election based largely on it.
So what they’re doing isn’t negotiation at all. That’s been done and it’s over. They lost. They can keep trying to make the case in future elections if they like, but they’re going to lose then, too.
This is not negotiation, it’s refusal to understand and accept the basic validity of electoral democracy itself.
The thing is, I think extortion is a kind of negotiation. The distinction I draw is between extortionism and negotiation in good faith.
A good-faith negotiator says, “See this thing I have and that I like having? I’ll give it up. In exchange, that thing you have and that you like having? I want you to give it up.”
The negotiation occurs around the issue of exactly how much each person gives up.
That’s not how this works. In this case, Republicans are saying, “See this thing that we both can destroy but that EVERYONE WANTS? I’ll decline to destroy it. In exchange, that thing you have and that like having? I want you to give it up.”
It’s a fundamentally different dynamic from a good-faith negotiation. Do you agree?
For one thing, as others have pointed out, the only thing stopping Democrats from doing the same thing (threatening to destroy the thing that everyone wants) is something akin to decency. I hesitate to use that term to describe politicians, but I’m not sure what else works.
For another thing, when you say Republicans have nothing else in their quiver, you’re clearly incorrect. Think of all the things that Republicans have and like having: low tax rates, strict responses to immigration, etc. All of those are arrows in their quiver. Do you agree?