Summations Only

Worse.Say we want to add a new restriction, or a new environmental regulation, or hell, even make child rape illegal. One person can veto. So of course a couple people with incentive to avoid those new laws (say, corporations for whom a regulation may add costs, or a child rapist) just vetoes them.How the fuck does education and "consensus building" address that?

No, I never said that we can't do anything, I said that I believe a consensus system should be the goal.I really doubt that it could be done in fifty years, it took well over a hundred so far just on the smaller issue of equal rights, and we have not achieved that goal yet.

But if, without complete consensus, we can't do anything, then we cannot, in fact, do anything.

That would be true and maybe even relevant if it had anything to do with what I have posted.I have said that I believe the goal should be to work towards a consensus system.I have said that to do that will take decades.I have said to be effective, children must be taught how to use the tools of critical thinking and consensus building.I have said that in itself would take at least two generations.Nothing in any of that says that there are not things that can be done while we build such a system.It really is that simple.

Right, no, we heard you. Are you hearing us? A consensus system can't be the goal because such a system is unworkable.Nobody's complaining about the workup to such a system; it's the end-state of a consensus system that we're telling you doesn't work. It's not a matter of "oh, there'll be some growing pains but then we'll get consensus and it'll all be fine", it's a matter of "the full expression of the system, as you've outlined it, leads to the collapse of democratic society."And you accuse me of misrepresenting people. Really, jar? Why do people even talk to you?

Seriously.If I want to commit a crime, any crime, all I need to do is veto every spending bill that funds the police! If I want to eliminate some environmental or banking regulations, I can veto the budget bills for the EPA or banking oversight organization!No amount of "education" is going to fix that. You need a society so perfect that you wouldn't need laws or government in the first place!

Yes more things come up for a vote in the HofR, but the question is whether the House is a place of compromises that allow legislation to pass. Much of voting that takes place is just political theater that is not intended to accomplish anything. Bills are passed in the House with little to no bipartisan support with the full knowledge that they have no chance of passing in the Senate. Bills are brought to a vote with poison pen provisions that are designed to kill all support by one party on another.For example, in the debt ceiling crisis, the House refuses to pass a bill in time to avert a hit to the US credit rating. Instead of entertaining any kind of compromise bill, and pandering instead to the Tea Party, the House insists on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that Republicans know will never be get out of the Senate. Were compromises on the table? Yes, but apparently embarrassing the President was a lot more important than reaching any meaningful compromise.You claim that I cannot cite any counter examples. Technically you are right as you have so far declined my invitation to cite any examples. So, tell me about the great compromise legislation passed in the House this session. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Well, yes. That's because of the ever-present threat of the Senate and its filibuster. You can't really blame House members for treating their votes as symbolic; it's a rational reaction to the fact that the Senate sits there making House votes nothing but symbolic. I think you need to re-examine your notion that "bipartisan" is synonymous with "compromise", because it is not. Whether a bill garners support from both parties isn't a function of whether or not it represents a compromise. It actually has nothing at all to do with the content of the bill, and everything to do with a party's ability to enforce discipline.Imagine you had two parties in Congress - the "Discipline" party, and the "Undiscipline" party. The Discipline party has, openly in its party bylaws, rules that say that members of the party who vote against the line the party determines on any legislation will be punished - they'll lose desired committee assignments, they'll receive less campaign funding from the national party, they'll be subject to primary challenge. The Undiscipline party has no such rules - it allows its members to vote as their consciences and constituents dictate.Now, imagine comparing two legislative sessions, one where the Discipline party is the majority and one where the Undisipline party is in the majority, and they both put forward the same centrist bill. (It doesn't matter what it's for, just assume that the bill is a perfect 50/50 compromise between the two parties' ideologies.) When the Undiscipline party puts forward legislation, some number of Discipline party representatives are tempermentally in favor of it but the Discipline party enforces vote discipline and the entire party stands shoulder to shoulder against it. When the Discipline party puts forward legislation, some number of Undiscipline legislators are tempermentally in favor of it and are allowed to vote for it because the Undiscipline party simply opts not to put itself in a position to stop them.The result is that bills put forward by the Discipline party look "bipartisan" and bills put forward by the Undiscipline party do not, despite the fact that they're the same bill and it's actually the Discipline party that is the most partisan and least likely to actually compromise with the other side."Bipartisan" means nothing. It's actually a terrible guide to the degree of compromise in Congress, because it's not related to the actual content of bills.

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Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all the people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives.

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SourceSo, are there none here who actually believe that this could work? When you folks say that you live in a democratic country you do not seem to be referring to the above definition.In reality, representative democracy developed as a compromise to the ideal of democracy. In the past we simply could not gather the opinions of every citizen on every issue. In the future we will be able to do just that. What laudable aspect of representative democracy would we lose by adopting a system of direct democracy?

I can blame the House for using the Senate as cover for a symbolic, time wasting vote, which is what I believe was going on with the balanced budget amendment. The House bill wouldn't have passed in the Senate even if the Senate didn't have a filibuster, and in any event, the House knew that the president would veto it. I can agree with that somewhat.The problem with your hypo is that bills which are 50/50 ideological splits between all House members simply are not the rule. In the house, Bills which are not suitable to the majority of the majority aren't even placed on the agenda. Yes the bills are compromises, but they are compromises within a relatively narrow range of ideas.

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What conservative president has had a lean spending Congress which creates the spending bills?

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Clinton! He decreased the deficit to the point that we actually had a very small surplus that COULD have been used to cut the debt, but Bush increased military spending and cut taxes, and blew that even before 9/11

It was Clinton's Republican Congress that, in spite of Clinton, that eliminated the deficit and spending.

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Gingrich's finest hour as Speaker came in March 1995 when he rallied the entire Republican House caucus behind the idea of eliminating the deficit within seven years.

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We have a balanced budget today that is mostly a result of 1) an exceptionally strong economy that is creating gobs of new tax revenues and 2) a shrinking military budget. Social spending is still soaring and now costs more than $1 trillion.

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Skeptics said it could not be done in seven years. The GOP did it in four.

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Now let us contrast this with the Clinton fiscal record. Recall that it was the Clinton White House that fought Republicans every inch of the way in balancing the budget in 1995. When Republicans proposed their own balanced-budget plan, the White House waged a shameless Mediscare campaign to torpedo the plan -- a campaign that the Washington Post slammed as "pure demagoguery." It was Bill Clinton who, during the big budget fight in 1995, had to submit not one, not two, but five budgets until he begrudgingly matched the GOP's balanced-budget plan. In fact, during the height of the budget wars in the summer of 1995, the Clinton administration admitted that "balancing the budget is not one of our top priorities."

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And lest we forget, it was Bill Clinton and his wife who tried to engineer a federal takeover of the health care system -- a plan that would have sent the government's finances into the stratosphere. Tom Delay was right: for Clinton to take credit for the balanced budget is like Chicago Cubs pitcher Steve Trachsel taking credit for delivering the pitch to Mark McGuire that he hit out of the park for his 62nd home run.

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The Cato Institute? Seriously? That's your authoritative source?Instead of a conservative think tank puff piece, show us some independent figures and budgetary statistics that support your claim of GOP frugality.(Hint: You can't.)Anyway...so you're claiming that Bush blew a surplus created by Republicans on his way to huge deficits?How is that better?

I believe it would work.Since we have the internet votes could be cast from home to say build a road, or a school.The problems i foresee are things none would like to say yes to but have to be said yes to. Like Increase of tax to pay for the new school or road, or a decrease in pensions cause the population got a lot freaking older and the new generation isnt large enough to pay the pensions of the older one.But if one implemented a few safety nets in a constitutional like document even those problems would be overcome. Things like the budget of the country can never go in to a deficit. So the people would have no choice either cut funding to certian things or increase taxses.Whitout such safety nets countries where everyones opinion matters would go in to debt faster then a teen with a credit card.Examples from Greece:
-people with state provided jobs dont get fired ever, a person who got a job provided by the state say tax inspector is guarantied to have a lifetime job, and a pension waiting for him afterwards, when he dies his wife inherits the pension and so do his children.
- people in stapte provided jobs claim up to 16 salleries a year the last 2 are not taxed.In a state where everyons opinion matters things like this would be a sure fire vote yes, but are actually grate ways to throw your taxes out the window.Although i do believe that a "Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all the people have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives." is possible some safety nets have to be installed prior to it taking effect.

You're attacking my source. That's smoke and mirrors. That's blind assertion. What you need to do is to effectively refute the information from the source concerning it's message. What is your response, and your own source supportive, better than Cato, to your response?