U.S. Politics - Rand Paul is our Savior

[Fez]

Update on the reason we nuked the filibuster, true to form, democrats have done almost nothing after taking the insanely radical action. Apparently they nuked the filibuster because they didn't want to behave differently but thought it would be nice if in the future republicans were able to wage all manner of treacherous evil on the country unchecked.

Yup, we democrats are gleefully handing republicans unlimited power in the future just so we could get a paltry nine judges confirmed. Way to drag your feet, fucktards.

First of all, there was every chance that Republicans would've taken the same action the next time they were in the Senate majority. Secondly, you seriously underestimate the power of those judges, particularly the ones on the DC Circuit Court. And thirdly, you have a very strange definition of 'unlimited power,' considering all the remaining stopping points in the system.

In policy news, the House GOP came with one! I know, I'm shocked as anyone; but Dave Camp managed to complete his tax overhaul proposal, with the full details to be released on Wednesday. Its going to be a nonstarter of course, because it doesn't raise new revenue and it also doesn't cut effective tax rates for anyone; but its still interesting that he went ahead and put something on the table. Its not the way I'd do reform, particularly since I think making reform revenue neutral is a serious mistake, but its an actual, serious proposal:

He'd collapse the seven existing tax brackets down into three (although the proposal pretends that the third one is a 'surtax' and not another bracket): 10%, 25%, and 35%, and eliminate most existing deductions and credits. Those earning under $20,000 would have slightly higher effective taxes for first couple years before seeing their effective rates go back to where they are now (due to the timing of the deductions phasing out), and those earning between $500,000 and $1 million would permanently have slightly higher effective taxes.

So far, so far good; I'm a big fan of tax code simplification. Unfortunately, those percentages should really be shifted around so that the wealthy are facing a much higher tax burden than they are now so that additional revenue is being raised. Also this proposal only reforms earned income, which means that the disparity in tax rates compared to investment income will continue.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Logically, one would think the tea party would be against military spending, given how much it costs while they talk about national debt and how much tax revenue has to go to support it, but I feel a very predictable backlash coming from that sector, who will soon be talking about how Obama wants to weaken the country and let our enemies win or something along those lines.

You're conflating everyone on the right in Congress into one entity. On foreign policy that is no longer true at all

[TrackerNeil]

It's original intent was to represent the state legislatures in DC. Now it just concentrates more power in fewer people.

Yes, it was so much better when candidates purchased their Senate seats from state legislators. I mean, really...direct elections are so sordid! All those ballots, and everyone allowed to vote? I should say.

[Inigima]

I seem to be quoting Cracked, and David Wong specifically, a lot these wee hours of the day, but I can't help it, he writes good shit. I know Cracked seems like a weird place to refer people for anything serious. But right-wingers, this is a good article. You should read it.

6 Things Rich People Need To Stop Saying

It's kind of a one-stop, tongue-in-cheek primer on why people feel the way they do about people like Tom Perkins and why it's maybe not appropriate to act like Tom Perkins. Also, it has jokes. Eh? Yes?

[Horza]

I remember that guy from back in 2002 when he ran www.pointlesswasteoftime.com and wrote clueless libertarian defences of George W. Bush's War on Terror.

[Serious Callers Only]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html

[Altherion]

The Senate as constituted today serves no unique purpose. It's just the House with fewer members representing more people.

It's original intent was to represent the state legislatures in DC. Now it just concentrates more power in fewer people.

No, it's purpose was to provide equal representation to the states and it still does that. Wyoming, with a population of half a million people, has exactly the same number of Senators as California (which has a population of nearly forty million).

[The Marquis de Leech]

The Senate, made up of representatives with longer terms and, at least for the US Federal Senate, with staggered elections so rapid change is at least somewhat muted, is designed to be somewhat insulated from the popular mood. Thus rapid shifts occurring in the house may be checked by a senate that experiences change much slower. Consider 2010, where a radical conservative wave dramatically shifted power in the House. The Senate, due to staggered, statewide elections experiences some shift, but remained in Democratic hands. This, and the fact that the President was also a democrat, blocked much that the newly Republican-Teaparty house could actually do.

2010 remains the only election since the direct election of Senators where the House flipped without the Senate (the Senate flipped without the House in 1980, 1986, 2000, and 2002). Given the gerrymandering in the House, there's probably a case that the Senate is now the more flippable chamber generally.

[DanteGabriel]

I seem to be quoting Cracked, and David Wong specifically, a lot these wee hours of the day, but I can't help it, he writes good shit. I know Cracked seems like a weird place to refer people for anything serious. But right-wingers, this is a good article. You should read it.

6 Things Rich People Need To Stop Saying

It's kind of a one-stop, tongue-in-cheek primer on why people feel the way they do about people like Tom Perkins and why it's maybe not appropriate to act like Tom Perkins. Also, it has jokes. Eh? Yes?

I, too, have been somewhat surprised by the substantive and subversive offerings on Cracked. One I found particularly interesting:

6 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About the Founding of America

[awesome possum]

Cracked has a lot of good stuff. It's "comedy" but they actually do their fact-checking and homework.

Oh teanuts running for office, never change. No, wait, I mean change. Please fucking change, it's 2014 already you ignorant, racist twats.

Texas Tea Party Republican Chris Mapp’s bid to unseat Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has garnered attention not for his policy views, but for his use and defense of the anti-Latino slur “wetbacks” during a meeting with one of the state’s biggest newspapers.

The Huffington Post reported that the 53-year-old businessman used the term during an interview earlier this month with the editorial board of the Dallas Morning News, saying that “ranchers should be allowed to shoot on sight anyone illegally crossing the border on to their land.” He also reportedly referred to President Barack Obama as a “socialist son of a b*tch.”

Mapp subsequently defended the remark to the San Antonio Express-News, calling use of the slur “as normal as breathing air in South Texas.” He has faced criticism from not only state Democrats, but Cornyn and other state conservatives.

[SkynJay]

Yet another glorious patriot calling for the right to shoot minorities. The use of Wetback isn't the most offensive thing he said? Good lord.

[TrackerNeil]

I am continually mystified when conservatives or libertarians flog for the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, which is what Commodore is ever so obliquely doing. People who putatively distrust government want to concentrate more power in the hands of government, although for some reason the fact that it is state government that receives the power makes some kind of difference. I don't get it and never have.

[Ser Reptitious]

I am continually mystified when conservatives or libertarians flog for the repeal of the Seventeenth Amendment, which is what Commodore is ever so obliquely doing. People who putatively distrust government want to concentrate more power in the hands of government, although for some reason the fact that it is state government that receives the power makes some kind of difference. I don't get it and never have.

On an ideological level I'm as baffled as you. On a practical level, far more states are Republican-controlled than Democrat-controlled, so I suspect this is simply a round-about way of trying to seize control of the upper chamber. Gerrymandering has helped Republicans (especially of the Tea Party variety) immensely, but state-wide elections for Senate seats still means pandering to the dreaded* middle ground. So much easier to get a Scott Walker-type to select the Senators instead, rather than, say, the good people of Wisconsin.

*especially from a Tea Party perspective

[TrackerNeil]

On an ideological level I'm as baffled as you. On a practical level, far more states are Republican-controlled than Democrat-controlled, so I suspect this is simply a round-about way of trying to seize control of the upper chamber. Gerrymandering has helped Republicans (especially of the Tea Party variety) immensely, but state-wide elections for Senate seats still means pandering to the dreaded* middle ground. So much easier to get a Scott Walker-type to select the Senators instead, rather than, say, the good people of Wisconsin.

This of course raises the question: Do they buy their own line, or is the whole thing just window-dressing for a more cynical motive?

[Ramsay Gimp]

Related to the earlier argument re. discrimination and freedom

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/should-christian-bakers-be-allowed-to-refuse-wedding-cakes-to-gays/284061/

Here's an excerpt from Andrew Sullivan on the topic:

I would never want to coerce any fundamentalist to provide services for my wedding—or anything else for that matter—if it made them in any way uncomfortable. The idea of suing these businesses to force them to provide services they are clearly uncomfortable providing is anathema to me. I think it should be repellent to the gay rights movement as well.

The truth is: we’re winning this argument. We’ve made the compelling moral case that gay citizens should be treated no differently by their government than straight citizens. And the world has shifted dramatically in our direction. Inevitably, many fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews and many Muslims feel threatened and bewildered by such change and feel that it inchoately affects their religious convictions. I think they’re mistaken—but we’re not talking logic here. We’re talking religious conviction. My view is that in a free and live-and-let-live society, we should give them space.

Obviously he just supports homophobia like me, right?

[Castel]

The problem with this is that it has no normative pull. "I don't want to do something because I want to be considerate of those who are discriminating with public businesses" Good for you. You can see why others aren't interested no? "Winning the argument" is a pretty vague term in a country with 300 million people.You want to rely on people dying out over such a large area?

[Ramsay Gimp]

You want to rely on people dying out over such a large area?

As opposed to forcing them to violate their religious convictions at bayonet point? Yes.

If you support that, you are scarecely better than the fundamentalists who want to wield state power against LGBTs

[DanteGabriel]

Related to the earlier argument re. discrimination and freedom

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/should-christian-bakers-be-allowed-to-refuse-wedding-cakes-to-gays/284061/

Here's an excerpt from Andrew Sullivan on the topic:

Obviously he just supports homophobia like me, right?

I notice you forgot to mention the "Dissents of the Day" on that very topic that he felt were good enough points from his readers to air out:

I don’t want to come across as snarky, but do you think that maybe the fact that you live in one of the largest metropolitan regions in the world and have virtually unlimited alternative options for just about anything you’d want might make it easy for you to come to this opinion? Think about all the gay couples living in small towns, where the next closest florist isn’t interested in driving that far for a delivery. In fact, I believe you brought up a very similar scenario when it came to pharmacists in rural areas deciding they could refuse to dispense birth control to unmarried women on religious grounds.

I don’t think Erick Erickson has a point at all; I think he’s cunningly crafted an argument that appeals to people’s sense of personal freedom, while supporting a law that allows unacceptable discrimination. The strength of one’s feelings do not justify discrimination. Is it okay for a Christian florist to deny service for a Jewish wedding? Can a Muslim taxi driver refuse to pick up a single woman without a male escort? Part of the price of obtaining a business license and doing business in America is the agreement to provide services without discrimination. If your personal feelings are so strong that it is unacceptable to bake a cake for a gay wedding, then don’t bake cakes for a living. That’s the choice.

Erickson would have a point if any of the bills proposed were in states that actually allow gay marriage.

In both Kansas and Arizona, gay marriage is NOT legal. How are we supposed to understand their point that it’s “only about services related to gay marriage” when they’re passing laws to deny service where there is no gay marriage? Come on!

There are more, a lot more, in his full post. The point about rural shops and services that may be the only vendors in their area is one that his been voiced, repeatedly, all over these threads.

Your source material contained the seeds of its own debunking. More than that, any topic that is introduced by "Erick Erickson may have a point" is probably operating from a mortally flawed premise. This is pretty weak sauce even for a half-bright libertarian who never follows ideas to their logical ends.

[Ramsay Gimp]

^He never recanted his original opinion, as far as I know. He shares "dissents of the day" all the time that contradict his views, it doesn't mean he agrees with them.

The point about sole vendors, like a gay couple living in a small, rural Missouri town, is pretty laughable. Why would they be there, trying to order a wedding cake, in the first place? It's an absurd hypothetical for a number of reasons which is why I've pretty much ignored it.

[Edda van Heefmstra Ruston]

^He never recanted his original opinion, as far as I know. He shares "dissents of the day" all the time that contradict his views, it doesn't mean he agrees with them.

The point about sole vendors, like a gay couple living in a small, rural Missouri town, is pretty laughable. Why would they be there, trying to order a wedding cake, in the first place? It's an absurd hypothetical for a number of reasons which is why I've pretty much ignored it.

Because they want a cake for their wedding? Seems obvious on its face, to me.