Really, I'd like to know where you got this MSNBC stuff.
Am I wrong? Didn't I link Rick Santinelli's famous Tea Party-starting rant the other week? lemme see if I can find it again.
Sorry, I guess I was wrong - it was CNBC, not MSNBC.
By the way, at least the tea party folks cleaned up after themselves.
No, that's largely a myth. Tea Party rallies have required hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-supported cleanups. The OWS protesters, on the other hand, actually are cleaning up after themselves:
quote:Occupy Wall Street Protesters Clean Zuccotti Park In Preparation For Evacuation
On Thursday evening, a couple dozen Occupy Wall Street protesters in Zuccotti Park grabbed brooms and buckets and set about sweeping up the site. For the last two days, they had begun to work harder than usual to keep the park clean and attractive, putting their brooms to work, filling up buckets of water at nearby restaurants and even, according to one protester, planting flowers.
Protesters say they are cleaning the park so that the city doesn't have to do so.
As a result of this action the city canceled plans to clean the park, saving city taxpayers thousands. But, don't let that stop you from continuing to misrepresent this:
as somehow portraying an enormous mess with filthy hippies shitting all over, or whatever. Of course, now that OWS occupiers have been revealed to be more Galliant than Goofus, the new conservative line is that cleaning up after yourself is no big deal:
quote:I'm not sure that cleaning up after yourself is really that big a deal (most people already do that) or why you thought it needed to be pointed out.
Sorry, Coyote, you're a few hours behind on the dismissive conservative talking points. The new line is that it doesn't matter if you clean up after yourself (you might want to go back and re-edit your message to reflect your new marching orders.)
As for the Koch brothers, please provide evidence that they financed all of those people who gathered for peaceful protests.
Koch funding comes primarily through their "Americans for Prosperity" foundation, though they're not quick to actually put their names on these activities:
quote:A few weeks after the Lincoln Center gala, the advocacy wing of the Americans for Prosperity Foundationan organization that David Koch started, in 2004held a different kind of gathering. Over the July 4th weekend, a summit called Texas Defending the American Dream took place in a chilly hotel ballroom in Austin. Though Koch freely promotes his philanthropic ventures, he did not attend the summit, and his name was not in evidence. And on this occasion the audience was roused not by a dance performance but by a series of speakers denouncing President Barack Obama. Peggy Venable, the organizer of the summit, warned that Administration officials have a socialist vision for this country. Five hundred people attended the summit, which served, in part, as a training session for Tea Party activists in Texas.
I hope it helps, but it seems like every time video evidence of police brutality comes out, someone always pops up to say "Oh, but you didn't see what happened right before the video, which I obviously didn't see either but I'm sure that it justifies the officer's brutality, somehow."
It's funny. You'd think that if police are somehow always subject to attacks that occur right before somebody starts videotaping, they'd start taping themselves. I wonder why they aren't? (I don't really wonder. Fucking pigs.)
there is no possible justification whatsoever for shooting an unarmed man in the face with a tear gas canister. Nothing could possibly have happened "just before the video" that would have justified that.
There was no possible justification for Officer Joe Mehserle to shoot a restrained, compliant Oscar Grant square in the back at point-blank range in a summary execution, either, but immediately - even at this forum - people fell all over themselves to justify the officer's conduct and despite the entire incident being captured on dozens of cell phones from dozens of angles, plenty of people asserted that Grant must have "done something" just before any of the cameras started rolling.
Just as, when Tony Bologna of the NYPD wantonly and without provocation pepper-sprayed peaceful protesters, commenters fell all over themselves to explain that they had provoked it - in the seconds immediately before the video, then somehow got over to a seated position just in time for the cameras to start.
Now, in both of those cases, the officers were punished for their unjustified violence, though not severely. (Despite executing a man in cold blood, Mehserle served only two years.) But those reprimands came long after most people had concluded that it was just another example of cops being unfairly blamed for a ruckus they weren't responsible for, due to the ready mob of people willing to say whatever it takes to justify police brutality. They want police to be brutal.
They were armed with anything they could get their hands on including stones and fire extinguishers, etc etc. All kinds of dangerous stuff was being thrown at the officers.
According to who?
The officers?
I know that a recent report explains that Oakland police didn't actually use flash-bangs, that was actually "firecrackers ignited by protesters." Risible, to say the least. (No firecrackers, spent or otherwise, were recovered at the scene, though the casings of tear gas canisters and flash-bang grenades were.) But on what basis should we believe anonymous, self-serving police reports? You act like it's not the most commonplace thing in the world for police to react to peaceful, left-wing demonstrations with violence. Happens every time. Armed hooligans at a Tea Party protest? Funny, police can't be found.
You are free to bet most anything but history shows that no true democracy has ever worked in any group larger than tribal size.
For that matter, no presidential democracy has ever succeeded for longer than 40 years, with one exception. Parlimentary systems appear to be stable form of democratic republics. (I think we're largely seeing the end of the American political system as a workable means of governance. I don't think America is doomed but we're going to have to radically revamp the Constitution to survive as a nation.)
I'm not however convinced that a parliamentary system is the Answer.
I'm not only convinced that we should have a parliamentary system, but that we should separate the roles of Head of State and Head of Government, which under our system are wrapped up in the same person (the President.)
It's actually a very effective tool for comity in a legislative body for people of the minority party to say "fucking Christ I hate the guy in charge, but by God we both love our Queen." I think having them be the same person gives slightly too large an incentive to the minority party to be seditious.
You don't think reforms to the chambers and systems themselves would be better?
No, I think having the same number of Senators from each state is a mistake - it's an enormous status quo bias, it gives far too much power to sparsely-populated rural states, and it winds up focusing about 70% of the Federal government's time on rural communities inhabited only by less than 20% of Americans.
54% of Americans are represented by the same 20 Senators; a different set of 20 Senators represent as few as 3% of Americans. But that apportionment of the Senate is right there in the Constitution.
I think we should get rid of states, too. We should actually unite the States of America, dissolve all state boundaries. If local issues are, well, an issue then municipalities can address them, with municipalities receiving funding from the federal government. I live in Lincoln. There's little reason to believe that there's something the same about the issues that affect both me and my friend who lives out in Kearney that isn't also the same as the issues that affect my parents up in Morris, Minnesota. So there's no reason I can conceive of that there should be a government that represents me and my friend but not also my parents or anybody else in the United States.
If it matters to me here in Lincoln, and it matters to rural Nebraskans too, then it probably matters to rural Minnesotans and Iowans and Virginians and Californians, too. Get rid of states, they have no purpose. Government is either of highly local concern or so distant to our concerns that it may as well be in Washington, where at least they can get the Federal Reserve to print some money.
That makes sense, but in practice we've often see the Senate behaving more statesman-like and pushing far more reasonable legislation than does the rabble in the House.
Uh, no, in practice I think we've seen the exact opposite - we've seen the House push forward on the agenda ratified by the American people, and we've seen the Senate refuse to do anything but business as usual. The notion that the Senate represents the "comity of statesmanship" is risibly incorrect in an age when Obama can't staff major government offices because individual Senators can hold the nomination process hostage to special interests. What's "statesman-like" about that?
Everybody complains that Obama couldn't deliver the public option - complains, in fact, that he was never for it in the first place - but they forget that not only did the House pass Obama's public option health care bill, but that they did it in the space of about six weeks. They passed a trillion-dollar stimulus. They passed a carbon tax.
The Senate is where legislation - even legislation overwhelmingly supported by the American people - goes to die. If you think the purpose of a legislature is to not legislate, then I suppose the Senate looks pretty good to you. But we're faced with real problems, have been for years, and in every case the Senate is the number one obstacle to solving them, because in the Senate, one guy from Montana has the same political influence and representation as 2,000 residents of major US cities.
The purpose of the Senate was to assure that the less populated states and areas also got represented.
They're already represented by the House. Why should people who live a minority, government-subsidized lifestyle be afforded such disproportionate overrepresentation?
What's the merit in representing land areas? Your justification makes no sense.
Perhaps it makes no sense to you but it makes sense to those who live in the less populated areas.
Oh, I'm sure it's in your interest but what about what's fair? Why should you be so overrepresented, jar? You complain frequently about the "tyranny of the majority" but isn't tyranny of an elite minority even worse?
The goal of an effective plan of government is to make sure that government, when it comes to passing laws and assessments, is inefficient and can only move slowly.
Why? If laws can be easily passed, they can be easily repealed. The only reason you're concerned about it being "too easy" to pass laws is your fear that once passed, they cannot easily be reversed.
But laws are reversed by laws. If a program is destructive or unpopular, a government that reacts swiftly to the will of the people as expressed by elections can end the program. In countries where laws are more easily passed, "bipartisanship by alternation" is the pattern that emerges, not legislative tyranny.
Fundamentally, you're arguing for a government where elections don't matter, where it's just a matter of rearranging the deck chairs. What kind of democracy is that?
I suspect that I can provide a counterexample for every example that you can provide.
How so? The House can't block legislation. There's no House filibuster. They vote up or down on direct votes.
But the short election cycles in the House seem to lead to constant showboating, pandering, and electioneering and little incentive to compromise.
And again, this doesn't comport with the reality. It's the House where compromise happens, where the sausage gets ground, where elections result in a dramatic change in the legislative agenda to conform with the wishes of the American people. It's the Senate that is the home of constant showboating and pandering (see "The Cornhusker Kickback"). It's the Senate where a 52-48 party line vote in favor of a bill is a failure.
If it's really the short election cycles that bother you, we can fix that. But the problems with Congress are strictly the problems with the Senate; strictly with the notion that half of Americans deserve less representation than a select group of 3%. Isn't there kind of a movement about that, right now?
But I seem to recall that the Senate got on board with the health care bill much more quickly than did the House.
Your recollection is in error. This is absolutely not what happened.
Whatever faults the system has now, and I acknowledge that there are faults, these faults were not obvious at the time the Constitution was ratified.
Oh, I agree. But things that make sense in 1790 in an agrarian nation of thirteen states may not make sense for a highly urbanized, technical nation of 50 states.
I'm sorry but you just seem to be making stuff up again as usual.
This seems to be your go-to accusation when you're caught out saying something whose implications you didn't consider. No matter.
No where have I suggested a tyranny of an elite minority so that is simply another irrelevancy.
Nowhere did I suggest that you did. I'm simply asking you to explain:
quote:Perhaps it makes no sense to you but it makes sense to those who live in the less populated areas.
I actually do live in a "less populated area", jar, so that's just another one of your ignorant assumptions about me. And no, it doesn't make any sense to me that the residents of Nebraska or any other less populated state should be overrepresented by perhaps as much as 1800% compared to the residents of cities. Your words, you explain them, since you hate it so much when I try to unpack your cryptic nonsense.
There is no way under the current Constitution to implement a parliamentary system.
Yes, I believe I mentioned that. You might try to read a little closer than you've been doing.
And I do not believe that the general population in the US is capable creating anything better
And, what? You don't believe that it has anything to do with how we enormously overrepresent a small number of Americans statistically least likely to be well-educated; statistically less likely to be employed; statistically lower in incomes than the rest of the country; and statistically more likely to be drug users?
Yes, I know that, jar. I had civics in 8th grade, too. It's just that 8th grade civics isn't where my understanding of American politics begins and ends.
That arrangement was a compromise to assure that neither the populous areas or the less populous areas held absolute say.
It works well.
But it doesn't work well, in that it gives a small minority of rural Americans dramatic overrepresentation in the Senate, with the result that the Senate cannot pass legislation. The interests of rural Americans aren't just protected, they're the only interests the Senate pursues.
It doesn't work well, that's the point, jar. And many of the Founding Fathers had the foresight to predict it.
In the House this means that small portions of the majority party, quite often the extremist, can and do hold up legislation.
And yet far more bills come up for a vote in the House than do in the Senate, so again, I just don't think you have any "counterexamples" to put forward. Certainly you can obstruct in the House, but it takes a consensus of the majority party to do so and therefore in practice is relatively rare; in the Senate, votes can be held up by a single senator and therefore the practice is commonplace.
Certainly Hastert's "Majority of the majority" standard is abominable and should be stricken (while we're reforming Congress.) But its the Senate that results in the most antidemocratic outcomes.
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