@georgeob1,
georgeob1 wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
In a situation in which the other party is in the majority - and enough so that they don't even NEED your votes to pass bills, like we saw this last cycle - the minorty party has a GREAT ability to influence the legislation by compromising with the majority.
This is an interesting and novel - if somewhat astounding - proposition , but I am not aware of any examples of truth in it. On the contrary in the situation you described, the minority would have no leverage at all over the majority "that didn't even NEED their votes". Moreover, by supporting the illusion that they, impotently, participated in the process they would lose whatever moral authority they had in subsequently attempting to undo it.
Is this serious? You can look at nothing more than the Democrats compromising and influencing various War spending bills in the House from 2002-2006 to see examples of this.
I can see why you say this, though - Republicans run not on getting things done, or the concept of working together, but instead on ideological purity and level of hewing to the party line. I think it's a sad viewpoint and one of the major reasons that our political system is so dysfunctional. You certainly don't see this refusal to compromise out of the opposite party.
You are pre-judging the ability to affect the debate by calling Republican influence 'impotent.' It certainly is nothing of the sort. The Financial Regulation bill is a great example of this; a few Republicans were willing to compromise and garnered key concessions from the Democrats in order to pass the bill in the Senate.
In short, I believe that you are greatly exaggerating the negative effects of compromise and ignoring the historical record while doing so. But I can understand why; your party continually runs on a platform of appealing to the most extreme members of their base. They run on not compromising. If they turn around and then compromise, they endanger their jobs.
Quote:More to the point, I don't think that even the most practical, seasoned or cynical poilitician could find any room for compromise on the core compulsory elements of Cap & Trade and even the Senate health care bill.
I think this is totally wrong, and part of the reason I say that is that several Republicans DID find room for compromise on these bills - or at least, that's what they constantly said in committee, working for months to water down and weaken the bill in exchange for promises of votes, only to callously decry the entire thing at the end - after the Dems had given in on much of what the Republicans asked for.
I would also point out that the HCR bill was chock-full of Republican ideas. Even the dreaded 'mandate' was a
Conservative idea. The Heritage foundation was pushing the mandate for a whole decade in the late nineties and early 00's. To say that there is no room for compromise is foolish; there is ALWAYS room for compromise.
Quote:We are dealing with divergent world views here. Try an imagine the perspective of one who sees the Democrats eager to impose a centrally managed top down authoritarian social system akin to the one that is at the same time unravelling before our eyes in Europe.
This is a little bit of exaggeration on your part.
Quote:Cycloptichorn wrote:The assholish-ness of Republicans doesn't stem from their attitudes or policy positions, but instead from their tactics (and their penchant for personal attacks on the President ...
Are you suggesting that Democrats behaved any differently during the eight years of G.W. Bush's presidency?
[/quote]
Not only am I
suggesting that, I am directly asserting it - and can back it up with actual proof, that the Democrats not only compromised
all the time with the Republican majority, they didn't resort to tricks or dirty tactics to block legislation. There really is no equivalence here, and an examination of what actually took place - and not just your or my opinion about what happened - quickly reveals this.
Cycloptichorn
