Sedition

[kristina]

Just saw this ...

TheMightyMidget

March 2010: "We can't believe you just passed healthcare."
April 2010: "We are going to overturn healthcare."
Sept 2010: "We are going to repeal healthcare."
Jan 2011: "We are going to destroy healthcare."
Feb 2012: "We are going to elect a candidate who will immediately revoke healthcare."
June 2012: "We will go to the Supreme Court, and they will overturn healthcare."
Aug 2012: "The American people will never re-elect you, because they don't want healthcare."
Oct 2012: "We can't wait to win the election and explode healthcare."
Nov 2012: "We can't believe you just got re-elected and that we can't repeal healthcare."
Feb 2013: " We're still going to vote to obliterate healthcare."
June 2013: "We can't believe the Supreme Court just upheld healthcare."
July 2013: "We're going to vote like 40 more times to erase healthcare."
Sept 2013: "We are going to leverage a government shutdown into defunding,
destroying, obliterating, overturning, repealing, dismantling, erasing
and ripping apart healthcare."
Oct 2013: "WHY AREN'T YOU NEGOTIATING?"

GOP messaging on how well this has gone for them is beginning to sound more and more like Hirohito in 1945. "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage."

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... ategy.html

[Jarlaxle]

We've had some serious discussions about this topic, but "sedition"? "treason"?

This thread belongs in "Laffs"...

More like "insane spaz-outs" because I have every reason to believe it was at least intended to be serious. If so, it's on the level of a Mediator or David Ben-Ariel thread!

[Guinevere]

I still haven't had time to do the research, but I think sedition it not so far from the mark. I don't think treason is even close though. So yes, it was intended to be serious - but then again LJ's "pithy" comment is symptomatic of the disease engulfing his entire party.

[Lord Jim]

but then again LJ's "pithy" comment is symptomatic of the disease engulfing his entire party.

And I believe that the use of terms like "treason" and "sedition" are symptomatic of the disease engulfing both ends of the political divide...

Those are precisely the sorts of terms some on my side have used to refer to your lot...

I think the record will show that I have been fairly unsparing in my criticism of those in my party who have played a central role in this, (I have just recently at various times referred to them as "nuthousers" "kamikazees" "kookaboos" and "radical randians"...and those are their good points...)

But simply regurgitating Debbie Pinocchio-Shultz talking points, nattering on about "standing up to terrorists" etc., doesn't add anything useful to the debate either...

I will repeat what I said...

There has been a lot of useful and thoughtful commentary on all sides of this discussion here, (I'd like to think that I added to that with another thread I recently started)

But this thread is a joke...a- joke...the whole premise is a cyber clown car...

(It just invites the knuckle dragging mouth breathers on your side of the aisle, like rubato, to rear up on their hind legs and beat their chests and throw their feces...as he has quite predictably done...)

Talk about "sedition" and "treason" when you're talking about lawfully elected officials engaged in completely lawful behavior, (no matter how stupid or foolish that behavior maybe...and I'm perfectly prepared to stipulate that it's both) is utter rubbish...

It puts the "hype" in "hyperbole"...

It's the kind of thing Rush Limbaugh engages in...

It's completely unworthy as a serious starting point for serious minded people interested in a serious discussion...

And that's the way I'm going to treat it...

ETA:

In reviewing this thread, the person I find myself most in agreement with is Big RR...

How often does that happen?

[Guinevere]

First of all, stop sweeping treason into the discussion. I only asked about sedition, and I agree treason is ridiculous. You are being hyperbolic now.

Second, duly elected officials can commit sedition, its not unheard of or unprecedented.

Third, we don't know that these actions are actually lawful. And if they are not lawful, anyone doing it should be stopped, regardless of party affiliation. Because otherwise, you and I know what could be coming down the road again.

Finally, I'm not "simply regurgitating" anyone's talking points. I read the statute and thought the question was interesting, from an intellectual (not necessarily political) perspective and worth discussing. I also wanted to hear from the others. Obviously, I should have taken the time to complete my own analysis before posting, and not posted during a week when I'm in arbitration and have less time to poke around researching something not related to my case.

[Big RR]

Guin--while I disagree with you on sedition, I do think you third point makes a lot of sense. I personally think the actions are lawful, but if they are not they should be stopped and we should take steps to prevent it from happening again.

And even if they are lawful, we the people should take steps to prevent them from happening again.

[rubato]

In what deluded universe is making ransom demands not terrorism?

Deliberately hurting the country, or making threats to do so, is terrorism. And Obama and the Democrats are right not to negotiate with terrorists.

The Republican Party meltdown is their own doing. Blaming the press is stupid.



Yrs,
Rubato

[Joe Guy]

Deliberately hurting the country, or making threats to do so, is terrorism.

Terrorism requires the use of violence.

The republicans haven't employed a suicide bomber... yet.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Deliberately hurting the country, or making threats to do so, is terrorism.

So anytime any congress person (or group of congress persons) opposes what's going on and uses whatever means at their disposal (in this case the purse strings) to stop what they see is wrong, it's an act of terrorism? Or is it only terrorism because they oppose your way of thinking?

[Lord Jim]

Or is it only terrorism because they oppose your way of thinking?

If the situation were reversed, and the Dems were engaging in the same tactic to try and achieve some liberal objective, you can betcher boots that our rube wouldn't be talking about "terrorists"...

He'd be calling them heroic patriots, standing up to the evil Republicans...

I wouldn't say that's true of every person on this board who has fallen into the use of grossly hyperbolic language in this discussion, (I suspect that most Dems here wouldn't approve of the Dems engaging in these tactics either) but it is most certainly true of the rubester....

[Rick]

Guin

Not being a legal eagle, my question would be, where is the FORCE?

In yer definition it seems of no little import from what you have highlighted.

Now if it simply said prevent I might agree

[oldr_n_wsr]

I know very little about the laws involved, but how is it that the ACA which was passed and is the law that everyone is saying the Repubs should respect as it is the law, can the dems (and/or) Obama go and grant delays to certain affected parties in that law? (the one year corporate delay for instance). Did a repeal/rewrite of that portion of the ACA go through congress and get approved? And if not how can anyone just pick and choose which portions of any law get implemented and when?

[Crackpot]

Yes some areas of the ACA have been modified through the usual congressional channels. In fact Obama has shown much willingness to modify the law in areas where it is found to be lacking or inflicting an immediate undue hardship. THe problem is instead of fixing it this way the Repubs feel going for the suicidal and harmful all or nothing approach is the best plan.

[rubato]

Except that the Democrats have never held the country hostage. And the Republicans have done so more than once.



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

There is the 'diminished capacity defense':




But to use it you have to admit that they actually are too stupid to be allowed to govern.



yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Paul Krugman: The Dixiecrat Solution

What's the biggest problem we face right now?:

The Dixiecrat Solution, by Paul Krugman, Commentary, NY Times: ... Stocks surged last Friday in the belief that House Republicans were getting ready to back down on their ransom demands over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling. But what Republicans were actually offering, it seems, was the “compromise” Paul Ryan ... laid out...: rolling back some of the “sequester” budget cuts — which both parties dislike; cuts in Medicare, but with no quid pro quo in the form of higher revenue; and only a temporary fix on the debt ceiling, so that we would soon find ourselves in crisis again. ... Yet even this ludicrously unbalanced offer was too much for conservative activists, who lambasted Mr. Ryan for basically leaving health reform intact. ...

Conservative activists are simply not willing to give up on the idea of ruling through extortion, and the Obama administration has decided, wisely, that it will not give in to extortion. So how does this end? How does America become governable again?

One answer might be ... Dixiecrats in reverse.

Here’s the precedent: For a long time, starting as early as 1938, Democrats generally controlled Congress on paper, but actual control often rested with an alliance between Republicans and conservative Southerners who were Democrats in name only. You may not like what this alliance did... But at least America had a functioning government...

And right now we have all the necessary ingredients for a comparable alliance, with roles reversed. Despite denials from Republican leaders, everyone I talk to believes that it would be easy to pass both a continuing resolution, reopening the government, and an increase in the debt ceiling, averting default, if only such measures were brought to the House floor. How? The answer is, they would get support from just about all Democrats plus some Republicans, mainly relatively moderate non-Southerners. As I said, Dixiecrats in reverse.

The problem is that John Boehner ... won’t allow such votes, because he’s afraid of the backlash from his party’s radicals. Which points to a broader conclusion: The biggest problem we ... face right now is not the extremism of Republican radicals, which is a given, but the cowardice of Republican non-extremists (it would be stretching to call them moderates).

The question for the next few days is whether plunging markets and urgent appeals from big business will stiffen the non-extremists’ spines. For as far as I can tell, the reverse-Dixiecrat solution is the only way out of this mess.

http://economistsview.typepad.com/econo ... ution.html

[liberty]

I understand the democrats will not go along the raising the debt ceiling unless the sequester is ended. What are they thinking; are they crazy. Are they traitors? There should be no doubt by anyone for any reason; there will be no default.

[Gob]

Your system is screwed.

[Long Run]

There is the 'diminished capacity defense':

I guess it is a pet peeve to point out that the congressman never said that, so to put it in quotes is wrong. Someone mentioned this, so I looked it up on Snopes and sure enough, the guy said something stupid, but he did not say those words. What he said was stupid enough*, but that was not good enough for some liberal blogger on Time, so he had to mis-summarize what the guy said to make him look even sillier. So, every knee-jerk liberal who wants to believe this stuff simply repeats the misquote and passes it on as accurate (and yes, this happens on both sides of the knee-jerk spectrum).

*if you follow the Snopes trail you can find the transcript. Joe Barton, being from Texas, is very pro-oil and highly skeptical of the prudence of investing government dollars in wind and solar power. The actual gist of what he said is that heat causes wind (he got the science on how this occurs wrong, but heat can definitely be a cause of wind). If we are successful in reducing green house gases with things like wind power, there will be less heat, and as a result, there will be less wind to drive the turbines. Like, I said, it a silly argument, but completely different than the misquoted one.

[Gob]

Consider the source.