🏳️🌈🖖🏽
The GOP-led House is in disarray and focused on all the wrong things. They couldn’t even get a bill to fund the Pentagon through a procedural vote because five of their far-right members revolted. And now Speaker McCarthy has pulled the continuing resolution to fund the government, one that was hammered out by the different factions this weekend, from any consideration because it also doesn’t have the votes.
Instead of doing their job and passing a budget—one they already agreed to earlier this year—they are preceding with an impeachment inquiry into President Biden because the Orange Guy insists he shouldn’t be the only impeached candidate up on stage. The hearing will now happen just two days before the government shuts down because they don’t have a budget in place.
This is the GOP in a nutshell, folks. Paralysis, political theatrics, and chaos.
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I have no love for the GOP my friend, but you are criticizing them for doing the one thing the democrats arent doing and should.... Vote their conscious rather than just agreeing with the group.
We **want** politicians who are there to vote whats right, not what their party tells them to vote.
That depends on what they think is right. If someone is voting for terrible things, I'm not going to admire them for it because it's what their conscience tells them. I care somewhat more about what the politicians are voting for, than about whether they are showing an Independent Spirit by doing it. I'm fine with pols following the party line, if that line is actually good.
If a small group of Republicans is willing to harm the nation as a whole if they don't get to gut education, social services, food safety, etc, that is decidedly not what I "**want**" in any sense.
> That depends on what they think is right. If someone is voting for terrible things, I'm not going to admire them for it because it's what their conscience tells them. I care somewhat more about what the politicians are voting for, than about whether they are showing an Independent Spirit by doing it. I'm fine with pols following the party line, if that line is actually good.
If you think independently and make good decisions, and that just happens to be in agreement with the party line, fine I have no problem with that.
But when its clear you are following the party line for sake of following the party line, espcially considering how poor a job the party is doing, then yea we have a problem. The problem is, I cant rely on you to make the right choice should the party become corrupted, so its not a good safeguard.
The democrats sadly have shown a pattern of voting the party line for the sake of voting the party line, group think has become very central to both parties, though moreso to the left it seems (based on george's post)
Thinking independently and making good decisions are not necessarily correlated! People can independently come to extremely bad conclusions.
I'm just saying that the quality of the decisions is far more important than whether they are arrived at independently.
Certainly if the group is going in a bad direction, then independence is good. But it's good because it increases the odds of getting to a good place, not because of some inherent virtue.
We have a very concrete example here, where a few "independent" Republicans are holding the government hostage because they want to gut important programs.
This may be "independent thinking" in some sense, but there's nothing good about it. They have diverged from the (bad) party line, in an EVEN WORSE direction.
Actually its proof of the opposite.
So you are saying there is a good bill being proposed with good programs and the reason it was held up is because the republicans were split 44 (in favor) - 5 (against) and that is the fault of those 5 free thinkers. Meanwhile the democrats all 48 voted against the bill because they all stick together and tow the party line and see it as a GOP proposed bill.
So why are you blaming the 5 free thinkers in the GOP for stopping the bill rather than the 48 democrats who arent free thinkers?
Sorry the logic isnt following.
What? No. There are bipartisan spending bills that have passed the Senate with like 90+ votes. The GOP, which controls the House, has not introduced those bills, or anything else reasonable, despite there having been an agreement basically to do exactly that the other week. The only thing the extreme right has allowed to progress through committee has been junk including new abortion and trans care restrictions and like that.
The Democrats in the House can't just vote for a bill that hasn't even been introduced; that is not how it works At All.
I think your mental model of how the government actually works is a little oversimplified? We can both agree that it SHOULD be simpler and more sensible, but it's not.
Now if you're mostly just saying "would that we had people as willing to cause trouble for good as these extreme Republicans are to cause trouble for evil", I agree with the sentiment! :)
I just don't think willingness to cause trouble for what you believe is a virtue in itself; it depends what you believe in.
@georgetakei
> What? No. There are bipartisan spending bills that have passed the Senate with like 90+ votes.
We arent talking about bills, you are talking about this one which supposidly is a great bill and these 5 GOP people are ruining it
> The GOP, which controls the House, has not introduced those bills, or anything else reasonable, despite there having been an agreement basically to do exactly that the other week
Wait so now your saying the bill isnt reasonable? Soooooo... arent you saying that those 5 independent thinking GoP members stopped a **bad** bill from passing... ok so why are you saying independent thought is a bad thing, isnt this an example then of the independent thought of members of the GOP being a good thing since those 5 people just stopped this bad bill from going through?
It makes no sense, you are attacking them at being at a standstill for disagreeing, yet, dont actually want the bill to pass and literally all of the DNC agrees with these 5 GOP members and yet... somehow its a bad thing they dont all agree... man this is making me dizzy.
> The Democrats in the House can’t just vote for a bill that hasn’t even been introduced; that is not how it works At All
What, there was just a procedral vote, in the house, to introduce a bill. That vote was conducted by the house which consists of GOP and Dems.... of course the Dems get to vote when introducing bills... then they vote again when it gets to the sentate to pass it.
> I think your mental model of how the government actually works is a little oversimplified? We can both agree that it SHOULD be simpler and more sensible, but it’s not.
Pretty sure its not, I could tell you step by step the process to get a bill passed. This is the first one where it gets introduced int he house and involves votes from both sides to introduce it.
> Now if you’re mostly just saying “would that we had people as willing to cause trouble for good as these extreme Republicans are to cause trouble for evil”, I agree with the sentiment! :)
I mean that part is fairly valid, doing good and independent thought are obviously both criteria. With the democrats and the republicans doing evil not much else matters. But that doesnt make independent thought any less of a required virtue (along with goodness)
"We arent talking about bills, you are talking about this one which supposidly is a great bill and these 5 GOP people are ruining it"
No, that's what YOU suggested, and I said "What? No.". I hope you're arguing in good faith here! There isn't just a single bill involved, and Congress doesn't actually work the way the little "how a bill becomes law" pamphlets say.
The 5 extreme Republicans are preventing the bipartisan bills that have passed the Senate, and could pass the House, from being introduced in the normal process. If the Democrats tried to introduce them on their own hook, every Republican would vote against them, because it would threaten their control to let them do that. And if Mitch forced them to a vote over the objections of the extremists, there would be a similar revolt.
If you don't understand how that works, I sympathize, but I assure you it's not "the House Democrats refuse to vote for the bipartisan bills that have passed the Senate just because they would have a Republican label on them". Some Democrats have been trying to persuade Mitch to introduce them and let them pass with broad D support, but so far he doesn't have the spine.
Here's an article that goes into some of that:
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/18/mccarthy-democrats-spending-bills-avert-shutdown
And sorry, not "Mitch", I meant "Kevin". I can't reliably spell either last name, but apparently I can't keep the first names straight either. 🤪
(And it's also not just 5 Republicans; that's the number that voted against the procedural thing to advance even their own DoD funding bill. But there are more than that keeping McCarthy from sticking to the bipartisan agreement, threatening to remove him as leader if he proposes anything a Democrat will vote for, etc. The party is a mess. And "independent thinking" isn't helping. :) )
On the subject of "why don't the Democrats just vote for it?" From https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/19/house-republicans-spending-vote/
"That scene was remarkable to veteran lawmakers who have never seen the minority party provide the votes to pass the rule vote, and it greatly irked the far-right wing of the conference, who have since pledged to oust McCarthy if he leans on Democrats again. That perspective has forced Republicans to only pass bills through their narrow-ranks."
That is, the party is so unstable that if McCarthy allows to the floor anything the Democrats will vote for, especially if it wouldn't pass otherwise, he may be replaced by someone who will promise not to do that.
> On the subject of “why don’t the Democrats just vote for it?”
Why do you keep putting quotes around things I never said and dont paraphrase my position in any way accurately?
I said if its a good bill they should vote for it. If they dont then they, as hundreds, are to blame far more so than 5 GOP members. If its a bad bill then those 5 GOP people did the right thing and had a good outcome, yet somehow they are still the bad guy.
> That is, the party is so unstable that if McCarthy allows to the floor anything the Democrats will vote for, especially if it wouldn’t pass otherwise, he may be replaced by someone who will promise not to do that.
Yup, a great example of the harm of group think. Another example that argues against your case.
The quotation marks are intended as a sort of grouping operator, calling out a summary of, in this case, a salient aspect of the discussion, not a literal repeat of anything anyone said. If that's off-putting, I'll try to stop doing it.
Once again, there is no "it"; there is not one single vote on one single bill involved here. I'm not sure why you aren't getting that.
But let's pretend that there really is just one single vote in question. Consider the possibility that the bill is bad, and the five Republicans voted against it because it WASN'T BAD ENOUGH. That is, I hope obviously, not ultimately a good thing. Perhaps that helps the logic add up? :)
> The quotation marks are intended as a sort of grouping operator, calling out a summary of, in this case, a salient aspect of the discussion, not a literal repeat of anything anyone said. If that’s off-putting, I’ll try to stop doing it.
Might I suggest maybe parenthesis, commas, semicolons or colons. It sounds like semicolons might be better
So instead of
> On the subject of “why don’t the Democrats just vote for it?”
It would look like this
On the subject of: why don’t the Democrats just vote for it?”
> Once again, there is no “it”; there is not one single vote on one single bill involved here.
Yes there is an "it" here... the op says the following:
> They couldn’t even get a bill to fund the Pentagon through a procedural vote because five of their far-right members revolted.
This entire discussion thread is around this **single** vote, for which we are discussing **specific** ways in which certain people voted... that is the "it".. yes it exists, and its right there in the first post, that is what we are discussing.
> I’m not sure why you aren’t getting that.
Ditto, the very first post was quite clear this discussion is about a very specific vote. That isnt to say there arent other votes and bills that have played an effect leading up to this one vote, of course there are... but that doesnt change the fact that we are discussing a very specific vote and event.
> But let’s pretend that there really is just one single vote in question. Consider the possibility that the bill is bad, and the five Republicans voted against it because it WASN’T BAD ENOUGH. That is, I hope obviously, not ultimately a good thing. Perhaps that helps the logic add up? :)
I mean, a bad bill still got stopped, so the vote, and the result of the vote is very much a good thing. The motives may be evil, but the action and the result are still good. Likewise if they had not been independent thinkers then it would have passed, and would have been bad.
So during this vote their independence, no matter how immoral the motivation, resulted in good happening, where if they were not independent people bad would have happened.
Now if your trying to say those 5 PEOPLE arent good (rather than the result of their actions in this case).. then yes I'd agree, their bad people who, happened to make a decision (a vote) that was good.
> Perhaps that helps the logic add up? :)
Not exactly, because you are still saying that as a direct result of their independence good happened on this day.
The only thing you just did was explain how they could do a good thing as a result of their independent mentality even when they are bad people and have bad intent. But it was never in question that these were bad people, so not sure how that fixes the logic in anyway.
That said I get it, your mad at them for doing the right thing for the wrong reasons... I mean so am I. But thats not what we are arguing, whether they were good people or not was never something we disagreed on.
You have very selectively quoted from the OP there. :) It was about more than just that one sentence.
And lol, I guess there is a sense in which their independence "resulted in good happening", but it's an awfully silly sense. And it's not like if that rule had passed the bill would have ultimately passed; this is just political theater and power plays within the GOP, so the defeat of the rule did a very minimal amount of good.
I think it's much more significant that their "independence" was in the direction of evil, even if it did block a slightly bad thing (for not being evil enough). I don't think this is evidence for this particular kind of "independence" being a good thing.
I think we do have a fundamental disagreement there, but I doubt we'll convince each other either way.
> You have very selectively quoted from the OP there. :) It was about more than just that one sentence.
I did, but nothing else in the OP did I disagree with... so then what were you arguing for?
You responded to my comment, not the op. My comment was about that single vote, and a very specific aspect of that vote (independent thought) and nothing else.. everything in my comment was about "it".
Obviously if you wanted to comment on the other stuff you could. But since it was never in question im not sure why you argued with me about it as if it was when im just sitting here not even disagreeing with you on any of that.
> And lol, I guess there is a sense in which their independence “resulted in good happening”, but it’s an awfully silly sense.
Nothing silly about it at all... I mean really just think about it if no one ever dissented, and one party had a majority in both houses, and everyone on both sides followed party lines, what would you have? several years of absolute GOP dictatorship. Anything the GOP proposed would always pass, no exceptions.
Thats the case in the house right now, it has a GOP majority. If no one was an indepent thinking the bill failing would have not been possible at all.
Literally independent thought is the **only** reason this bill got block from passing through the house. If it werent for independent thought your only hope would be a veto from biden... if Trump were in office even then no hope.
> this is just political theater and power plays within the GOP, so the defeat of the rule did a very minimal amount of good.
Glad to hear we agree it did good, however small. QED
> I think it’s much more significant that their “independence” was in the direction of evil, even if it did block a slightly bad thing (for not being evil enough). I don’t think this is evidence for this particular kind of “independence” being a good thing.
This is dishonest wording to push your agenda again...
It wasnt "in the direction of evil" you literally just admitted it did good, not evil, ergo it was the opposite, in the direction of good. Stopping something that is bad, is **not** in the direction of evil.
What i suspect you mean is something more like "I think it is much more significant that they have evil motives than the fact that they did a good deed while carrying out those motives". And while I would agree with you that is true if we were sitting here having a discussion about the overall state of our government. But that isnt what the discussion is about, its about if independent thought is a desirable quality in a good politician. In that regard their personal motives are not at all significant because we arent discussing them as individuals, we are discussing one property they demonstrated once.
> I think we do have a fundamental disagreement there, but I doubt we’ll convince each other either way.
Still kinda sounds to me like we agree and your just arguing something completely unrelated to the one point I am discussing.
There was no indication whatever in your comment that it was entirely about that one sentence in the OP, and not about everything else the OP said. But okay.
Their independence even on that one vote was in the direction of evil, in the sense that they voted against the rule because it did not make enough cuts. The ultimate effect of that attitude is most likely to be negative, even if it had a small positive effect in this one specify case. The larger impact is the more important.
I don't think we agree, in that you think (or you have said things that I interpret to mean) that independent thought is a good thing even in bad people; that a bad person who is an independent thinker is better than a bad person who isn't. I don't believe that, myself.
If the discussion were only about whether independent thought is a good quality in a good person, then we would have no disagreement. But that is not what your comment said. If that's what you intended to say, then fine! :)
> There was no indication whatever in your comment that it was entirely about that one sentence in the OP, and not about everything else the OP said. But okay.
Originally in my first comment i didnt explicitly state that. But my comment only stated that while the GOP was a piece of shit and i in no way give them praise, that this one property, independent thought, is something the Dems could stand to adopt rather than attack.
I made no attempt to address any other aspect of the post, which should have been the hint
That said as you continued to try to push to the other aspects of the post I did many many times try to make it clear what I was discussing.
That said, the fact that you didnt understand that was the point is understandable, miscommunications sometimes happen (even if something is said more than once), and thats ok. Not going to hold it against you. Just glad that that is clarified now.
> Their independence even on that one vote was in the direction of evil, in the sense that they voted against the rule because it did not make enough cuts.
"because it" that is intent, not direction... The "because" for something is your reason, the desired effect. It is not the direction, the actual effect the action is headed in... which we both agreed was positive (blocking the bill)
> The ultimate effect of that attitude is most likely to be negative, even if it had a small positive effect in this one specify case. The larger impact is the more important.
Well "attitude" is intent. I never claimed anything about their intent or if that intent would ultimately lead to good or bad... Again we are talking action, and actual results..
So yea their intent, i agree, likely long term will have largely negative effects.
But their action, which only came about due to their willingness for independent action, was positive, regardless of what effects other things that were not their action (like their intent) might have.
> I don’t think we agree, in that you think (or you have said things that I interpret to mean) that independent thought is a good thing even in bad people; that a bad person who is an independent thinker is better than a bad person who isn’t. I don’t believe that, myself.
No i did not say independent thought in a bad person is a good thing... i choose my words **very** carefully, ever word i pick is very important when i say things like that.
What I said was that independent thought in the context of a group which one elects to be a part of, is a good quality to have. I stated this is because bad people will elect to join groups of other bad people. So independent thought gives the possiblity of change where group think garuntees exclusvely evil behavior.
I also pointed out independent thought in an evil person will result in evil actions regardless of if their in a group or not. So while it has the advantaged of opening up to the possibility of change, it will not produce a better person on its own. However when combined with other good qualities like morality, it will.
