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Recent Comments
- In The Mailbox: 02.28.23 (Afternoon Edition) : The Other McCain on Hey, longtime pw readers…
- In The Mailbox: 12.23.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll truly IS a sad, embittered psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
- Danger on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
- In The Mailbox: 07.18.22 : The Other McCain on Patrick J. Carroll might be a psychopath
Think I’ll hold off on my saying until I think about it for a bit.
My one initial thought that I’ll offer is that I like how it hinges one set of politicians trying to take power from another set of politicians. Taking seems much more likely than giving.
What jumps out, starkly, from the language of Article V is the spirit of the great compromise, the very thing gone missing in American politics today, it seems to me. This points my mind back to that simplistic question of paradigm I posed a few days ago. Politics: markets or war?
Sorry, “how it hinges on one set”.
Parallel lines of advance are a valid tactic. Keeps the enemy guessing as to where the real threat is coming from.
So I take it that means you are voting war Mikey?
My short answer would be that it’s essentially neither, it’s its own thing. Which is an extremely obvious answer. So obvious I might be a dullard.
But, perhaps, I’d consider this more in terms of the causes and/or effects of people thinking of politics through the lens of either markets or war even though it is no such thing.
Precisely why it seems possible to me, however far-fetched.
Regards,
Ric
Not enough tarring and feathering for my liking, but if amendments such as term limits for critters are going to get through, a constitutional convention may be the only way to do it.
How do we think of politics then bh? Is it both cooperative and noncooperative at the same time, albeit in different repects, so unlike war insofar as cooperative and unlike a market insofar as noncooperative? Or how do you think of it?
I wonder why the constitutional convention idea hasn’t come up before now. Because if anything will put the fear of God into those people, that will.
I suppose the notion I have in mind, sdferr, is that politics (as practiced) are malleable. They can be cooperative, non-cooperative and both at once.
Markets and war are somewhat fixed. One can’t operate a true market with coercion and one can’t wage true war with entreaties rather than force.
“both at once”
Poor phrasing. Don’t mean to state that as an impossibility, I mean to say one part can be cooperative while another part is non-cooperative.
– We already have, and in fact have always had since the signing, an in-place mechanism for a call at anytime by the Union for a Continental Congress.
– Both sides long ago determined such an effort is replete with potential land mines to their respective goals and agenda’s such that its been largely ignored.
– It will always be the case that DC, and government in general, is never going to abet anything that gives the citizenry back its power or provides same with oversight and visibility into the affairs comfortably shrouded in Washington political mist.
I assumed you meant without violating the law of noncontradiction in any case bh.
It seems to me that a relative imbalance of co-oprtv vs nonco-oprtv turns what was politics into civil war in the one direction or utopia unobtainable in the other.
I like Ric’s proposal in that it would be very difficult to get that many states to agree to anything too crazy, and that if you have them agreeing already to a set of amendments coming into the event, the event itself, outside the voting, would be mostly for show and posturing.
The thing is, I am not sure you can get three-fourths of the states to agree to anything.
My proposal for such a convention?
Modify the Commerce Clause (aka “Good and Plenty” clause) and the General Welfare Clause so that the feds can’t use them as an excuse to do whatever the hell they want.
it would be very difficult to get that many states to agree to anything too crazy
Which is the entire justification for democracy and republics and such.
When they do agree to do anything crazy, anything at all, then we’re in trouble.
I’m not clear that any “event” as such, apart from the calling-with-simultaneous-ratification is even necessary (or possible?) cranky-d. For instance, it could additionally be specified that all the agreeing legislatures take their votes simultaneously, if prior agreement to these other extents can be had, making the entire enterprise exquisitely deterministic, raising the unlikelyhood the thing would happen at all, but also raising the unlikelyhood that any untoward or devious devices might be had upon it.
Unfortunately, state legislators want to become federal legislators. It’s essentially the farm system for congress.
Is it in the best interests of potential congresspeople to shit where they plan to eat someday?
sdferr, I have been advocating disestablishing the establishment for quite some time. If there is to be change and reform the current establishment has to be removed. Since there really aren’t national parties in the US (certainly not in the European style with firm control top to bottom) and are actually fifty loosely aligned state parties, the objective is to take control of the party apparatus local party by local party, state party by state party. Control of those parties gives control over who gets nominated for political office, and that effectively controls the national party and its satellites – NRSC and the NRCC. This is what the Tea Partiers must do if they are to have any lasting effect, and this is, I think what Sarah Palin has been doing with the bulk of her endorsements.*
The other approach, as proposed by Ric, is also necessary to reduce the temptation to abuse power. As he says, ‘ants find sugar’ and if the power to do something is gone then there will be no abuse of that power. I prefer doing that than to relying on the better angels of men’s natures – because there may be no such thing.
*Yes, I realize Sarah Palin endorsed establishment member John McCain. I think I have explained why in earlier comments, but I’ll repeat it here. He got her on the national stage. She wouldn’t have the prominence she has without him doing that. She owed him the favor. In addition, a large part of her power is that she is honest, upright and a square dealer, that she is not mean and petty, that she greets curses and attacks with a smile and a laugh and a graciousness that drives her critics bonkers. If she had screwed McCain, if she ever comes across as a backstabber, then she loses a lot of that power and influence. Her enemies understand this at some level – perhaps gut – and have been digging for dirt on her for the past couple of years – anything – to tear down this image, using everything from multiple ethics complaints, to battalions of fact-checkers going over her books, to one yo-yo actually moving in next door. Not to mention Andrew Sullivan trying to prove that she is a bad mother.
Anyway, those are my thoughts.
It is going to have to be the local takeover route – #19 is correct. We are going to have to take both parties back at the local/state level. Then we may be able to draw back Federal over-reach.
I agree that no such event is necessary, sdferr, but these are politicians we’re talking about. They would not want to avoid pontificating over such a historic undertaking as a Constitutional Convention.
“…to shit where they plan to eat…”
It isn’t clear that the occupation of a Congressman would be without far-reaching and awesome powers even in the event that it were severely limited in relation to the reach of the Congress today though Mr Callahan. So the question we might pose is, what is this potential Congressman looking to find once he gets to the station? Today they don’t bother to read and understand the Bills they pass.
But reading and understanding Bills wouldn’t of itself bar the legislator from the most weighty considerations of legislating, as for instance in a declaration of war. So a reaction of the sort you suggest would stand us as plentiful cause to reject any higher career for such a one.
Good luck with that. Once a Convention is convened it is beyond all control, as witness the first (and only) one.
I’ve about reached the point where I’m less worried about the risk of doing something radical, than I am about the cerrtainty that results from not.
I do think it’s vital that the people calling the convention, and the delegates to it, be properly schooled in the risks so they know what to focus on, and on the fact that negative consequences from failure to get it right, are not simply a force of nature, but a force of decision — by the people entrusting them with this mission.
The other problem with a convention is that it’s darned near impossible to prevent the moochers and looters from packing it; they don’t have real jobs.
I deleted that extra R, dammit. How’d it get back in there?
And this is precisely the basis for happyfeet’s often [and often profanely] declared distaste for SP. In reality I tend to agree with him, but I’m less vehement about it because I consider that any vector with a component in the direction I want to go is at least not blocking the road.
John McCain lives by a vision of politics that was knocked down by Lyndon Johnson, mortally wounded by Richard Nixon, and had a stake driven through its heart by the Bork hearings. It is a vision in which mutual back-scratching among good friends who happen to disagree on some things is the norm; in which one good turn deserves another, and will be redeemed in good currency. He will return to the Senate and continue operating under those rules, and do immense damage to his constituents and the nation as a whole because his “good friends” are nothing of the sort. They are playing by a different set of rules, and by the new rules he is not a sometime ally, sometime opponent, always friend: he is a patsy. It is Lucy and the Football played with nuclear missiles, and if McCain hasn’t figured that out by the age of 80-something it’s clear he never will.
Palin’s endorsement of McCain was necessary under the rules McCain understands, but from here it looks like Palin is joining McCain in his antedeluvian view of the Senate and its operations. If that’s the case, “Going Rogue” is nothing but another political slogan; Palin isn’t opposing anybody, she’s just looking for entree into the world of the elitist a*holes who have our lives in their hands — and will end up doing McCain-levels of damage to the Republic, by the same methods and under the same reasoning.
Regards,
Ric
So did anyone notice that politics was reduced to an unending prisoner’s dilemma above? I don’t know whether we managed to do this intentionally or not but it does seem as though this is what came about.
Now so far as we know today, the recommended best outcome for both sides in a p.d. is always cooperate, so long as both sides do cooperate. Once one side defects though, for whatever reason, be it in error (mistaking the other player’s cooperation for defection, say) or in an attempt to strike to advantage, tit for tat takes the stage to perform her strategic magic.
However, accepting the hypothetical that politics is nothing but an unending prisoner’s dilemma (a dubious thing still, I think), what would we then say of the behavior of the current Parties, other than that they conduct themselves to the best of their abilities just as we would expect them to do under this assumption? So we might think that bitching and moaning about their behavior is at bottom nothing more than quibbling about their tactical decisions, rather than an upbraiding on principle.
sdferr, content-free games such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma are useful as bases for analysis, but assuming that they are the only such basis is the error called “sophomorism”. Much the same is true of most Libertarian principles.
Regards,
Ric
Who assumed as much, or were you simply concerned that one such would come along?
No, that is the conventional understanding, but right or wrongly, she sees him as a man of honor, she attributes the backstabbing that she received to his aides, namely Schmidt and Wallace. Parker had one
detail right in the litany that she laid out against her, McCain saw her as a kindred spirit reformer,
part of the reason she had burned so many bridges in Alaska, with the State party represented by the Murkowski and Stevens clans and the party chieftain Ruedrich. She has whenever possible with Haley, with
Handel, with Paul and West, supported those who are insurgent against the system
Tempting state legislators with expanded power as a way to sell federalism is a useful argument as far as it works, and so it should be employed, but it is by no means a magic fix or complete answer.
Some will buy it. And those are the ones who we ought sell it to.
But many will not, it’s a waste of time to try and shove all your eggs into just that basket.
A lot of those state guys have serious asperations toward becoming federal guys.
And among the rest? I was reading about Indiana demanding that all people (even senior citizens) provide ID to purchase booze.
They quoted some clerk as saying he’s OK with the law because even though it’s ridiculous to card an 87 year old grandpa, it “takes the guesswork out”.
IE: He does not have to think. Period. He is reduced to a highly functional eggplant, which this particular goober – on account of being notsogood with the thinking – finds to be his natural comfortable state.
It reminded me of Atlas Shrugged. Just do what the manual says. Independant thought is discouraged.
There’s gonna be a lot of State level dipshits that rather like the setup where they get funneled cash and handouts from the Federal level and don’t have to do anything at all but shutup and smile pretty.
In fact, the current setup has filled most positions with just these sort of empty suit placeholders.
The idea that they might have to actually govern their state will probably terrify the piss out of them, as even they realize they have no idea WTF they are doing.
Palin’s endorsement of McCain was necessary under the rules McCain understands, but from here it looks like Palin is joining McCain in his antedeluvian view of the Senate and its operations.
Look at the whole of her record and build such a case, comparing her ‘establishment bonafides’ fairly to all the things she’s done to spite them, and explain why one measures heavier than the other. Then I will be very interested in giving it due consideration.
But Palin has backed very many politicians against terrible incumbants, as well as some few terrible incumbants.
That she backed McCain is ‘anecdote’. Not even plural.
You cannot demand 100% perfection from anyone on anything or you will never be satisfied with anyone besides yourself.
I maintain that it’s going to come down to a lot of civil disobedience (if we’re lucky), or civil disorder (if we’re not). Sooner or later, the productive will refuse to hand over any more of their hard-earned wealth to the looter class; if we’re lucky, we’ll see people burning their 1040s in the street like people burned draft cards in the bad old days. If we’re successful in building our own political structures in a few functional states, we may see this behavior replicated at the state level. I’d love to see Texas refuse to hand over their federal gas taxes, saying “We’ll take care of our own damn highways, and whaddya gonna do about it?” That’s the civil disobedience part.
The flipside is what happens when the looter class finds their gravy train drying up. For as much as I respect and like my neighbors, I find it all too easily imaginable that our political critters may turn their goons on us, and turn our neighbors against one another. Further, I’ve seen civilization break down in far too many cities in the past 50 years, and so I worry about what happens when a mayor declares that he can’t pay the police and fire budgets any more.
I think Ric’s proposal is worth pursuing, but I remain committed to the effort of retaking our local political machines and reprogramming them. The current system is unsustainable, but I’d like to think we still have a chance at walking back from the edge of the abyss without everything collapsing around us. Unfortunately, that margin grows thinner with each passing month, and I don’t know if we can put enough grownups in charge before it’s too late.
So I’ll continue to push for change close to home, and I’ll continue to plan and prepare for bugging out if it all goes to Hell.
…what, you thought your driveway was private property or something?
I think we need to agree on what those amendments should be.
Personally, I would like to see the 16th, 17th, and 23rd Amendments repealed. The repeal of the 17th would also include language denying Congress any authority to set the date for election of Senators; state legislatures would be allowed to set that date as they provide by law, to be any time during the final year of a Senator’s term.
The 23rd would be replaced by language that states that a citizen of the United States who is not physically resident in any specific state (therefore including not only DC, but VI, PR, GU, and expats around the world) may choose a State in which his citizenship would repose for the purposes of taxation and representation.
I would also consider repeal of the 22nd as part of what I call the Grover Cleveland Amendment, prohibiting anyone holding the office of President, Representative, or Senator, prior to the final year of the term thereof, from being eligible to hold that same office’s consecutive term. (This allows, for instance, a Veep who is already running for POTUS to not suddenly be rendered ineligible if there is a death/resignation/impeachment.) I think that making members of Congress “come up for air” after their term would take away the whole seniority/incumbency complex.
These changes would go a long way toward reversing the centralization of power.
[…] I Callahan, elsewhere, notes a rock in the road: Unfortunately, state legislators want to become federal legislators. […]
we have a pro gov’t party dem/rhino; we need an anti gov’t party
The problem with the bugging out is ammo weighs a lot, I don’t have a truck, and I’m insecure about how much I’ll need. Plus, how much warning will there be for a total collapse?
I ask because I think at best we’re in for some hard days ahead, and the perpetually entitled are close to a majority, which means they will not be on our side.
…and in fact I did say that I wasn’t nearly as vehement about it, on the “better some progress even if most of the movement is sideways” principle. Perhaps I was too oblique, but you do yourself no favors by getting as hysterical as the dissers are.
Regards,
Ric
It’s over man.
People refuse to believe it’s over, that they can work within the system and restore things.
It’s a false hope.
I’m just waiting. Once those in the Tea Party give up hope of fixing the system, then it’s time to hit the reset button for the US government.
here’s a sketch of it
link
html fail on my last: The Ninth Circuit is up to its old tricks again. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy in your driveway, so the police are free to sneak in and plant a GPS device on your car.
– In the words of the immortal Yogi Barra, it’s not over til it’s over.
– But it is clear that we’re in the bottom of the ninth with two out and our pitcher is at bat with a 0.510 batting average, and the count is 0 and 2.
– The score is tied 1 to 1, with looters and producers about even. Does the pitcher get a lowly single driving in our runner on third for a walkoff win, or do we go into the tenth and fall apart by giving up a run to the looters. Time will tell, but if the wheels come off it will start in the inner cities and spread with riots, fires, and widespread looting. There’s not nearly enough National Guard troops to contain an all out civil uprising. In rural area’s people stand a better chance of surviving, but isolation is a two edged sword leaving you vulnerable to wandering bands.
– If that happens, god help us all, so lets hope our pitcher produces, and lets hope all this doom and gloom is just a period of depressed thinking and unnecessary pessimism.
– My personal situation is rock bottom for the near future, but the only thing to do is work hard against, plan for the worst, and hope for the best. The alternative is unthinkable.
That she backed McCain is ‘anecdote’. Not even plural.
Seems to me she kind of had to in any case. If she didn’t then her accepting the VP offer from a man she wouldn’t even be willing to campaign for would be seen, rightly, as a shameless act of political opportunism.
Ric, before we turn to the content and hierarchy of needs in Amendments you or others might propose, would you say more about the structure of process you have in mind? Is the gloss I put on your idea in 18 fit to it, for instance? Or is that a bridge too far, suggesting more control than you believe necessary to safeguard proposed Amendments from potential mischief?
Would you want to build committees to oversee the winnowing of Amendment proposals, reporting back to organizations akin to the Tea Parties? Or would you prefer to have ideas brought forth ad hoc to be debated wherever they may arise, here on the nets, on the radio waves or anyplace else debate can be had, either to propagate on the strength of their own merits or not as the case may be?
“….would be seen, rightly, as a shameless act of political opportunism.”
– Have you honestly seen any other motivation on the part of a politician in your lifetime?
– I have to go back to the late 50’s to remember such a phenomena.
– I blame Elvis.
Actually, BBH, if there is an “all out civil uprising”, you will see an actual citizen militia and the National Guard will be part of it.
– Either way it goes I would lay book that we’ve seen the end of the “Progressive” era.
– Come to think of it we may just be witnessing the built in self-healing processes of our Democratic Republic, where these4 sorts of social “therapeutic cleansing” is a painful, but necessary ingredient.
– And that might be a good thing in the long haul. Some of the positives that could arise:
* A complete reformation of our educational system, carefully crafted to preclude nefarious attempts at endorsing destructive political philosophies and sadistion, and insuring a complete educational program.
* Controlled lobbying with hard limits for both terms and political franchises.
* A universal workers bill of rights, eliminating entirely the need for Unions.
* Specific limits and ground rules for governement size and expansionism.
* A return to incentive rewards in both the private and governmental sectors, as well as schools.
* Free cheeseburgers during Tuesday happy hour.
Have you honestly seen any other motivation on the part of a politician in your lifetime?
I see what you are saying here, but from her perspective she is someone who has legit small government, libertarian credentials.
sdferr, well of course I want to simply dictate. My ideas are best, by definition…
No. The Tea Party approach is the best one: Judicious use of the Internet combined with face-to-face meetings. Each time a “leader” arises, shoot him/her as quickly as possible and go on.
What I could wish for is the computer program described in a book called The Moon Goddess and the Sun, which was for all practical purposes a video game for lawmaking. The results weren’t “official” or “binding”, but the game was well enough structured that people who played it soon took the result as the laws.
I don’t think we can do that, but I would really, really like for a debate to start on the subject.
Regards,
Ric
oh look the fag shows up on oreally spew ghey statists bromides
– Yes, she does view it from that perspective. The problem comes down to her having to work within a system that has jettisoned the principles of incentives and rewards.
– The time honored conundrum in the present political world is if you electa wealthy candidate he is generally hoplessly out of touch with the working class. If you elect a cash strapped individual, he or she is vulnerable to selling out.
– The system that cuts the legs out from under the looters is incentive. You reward productive good works, and the system provides the punishment by not rewarding failure. Theres a good reason why everyone in Cleveland wanted to work for Lincohln Electric.
– so the two key words that are fundamental to any reformation is a return to incentive based enterprise in all endeavors, a constant demand for vigilance in long term planning and a commitment to pay strict attention to long term consequences. No more worship at the alter of the “free lunch” and moral relativism.
– The Left will fight both of these idea’s literally to their death., because it leaves no room in society for the looters, who will be left with depending on charities for they’re existance.
– Please excuse all the typo’s and poor alliteration. I’m a bit under the weather today.
Not really true in former-Confederate states where the Federal courts, unconstituionally, get final say.
Claims that Article V applications are being ignored.
Objection: self-referential.
I hope you feel better tomorrow, BBH.
Of course, getting 34 separate states to vote on identical resolutions, let alone simultaneously would be a bit like herding cats.
Maybe a lot more like herding cats than herding cats is.
pipe dream no
maybe some critters being anti gov’t saying shut down gov’t bureaus
you train you sacrifice you push your limits you fall down you get back up and it all comes down to one moment
your moment
Not in all circumstances perhaps Spiny. Sure, prior to achieving a majority consensus that the action is necessary and will be effective, large problems of organization will be encountered. However, if argument can be marshaled to persuade the great majority that they must concert in their own interest, then the thing would not look all that daunting would it? The question then is, what must be done that each of 34 or more state legislatures would see the necessity to so align? What must command their attention? The substance of amendment proposals would here take precedence.
Well, I guess the other point of my proposal is publicity.
What would be really cool would be to have thirty-four or more State Legislatures pass the resolution on the same day, with coverage from bloggers. Be hard to ignore… Probably impossible just due to scheduling of legislative sessions. Bet Texas would find a way to squeeze it in, if the phrasing was right.
And according to the link RTO posted, all 50 States have made at least one Article V request. Those cats might be easier to herd than you think.
Regards,
Ric
Here’s how to avoid having an application ignored:
1) Write up the language requesting an Article V Convention for the purpose of deciding which of the attached amendments shall be proposed for ratification by the several states. Make it clear in this language that the Convention will not have any power to alter the wording of these amendments nor propose any others. Specify the rules under which the Convention will initially operate, the representation to which each State is entitled, that each State will choose its delegation to the Convention by whatever method as that State shall by law decide, and anything else we don’t want Congress to be able to screw up.
2) Get one state legislature to pass it, and for the appropriate authority to certify same.
3) Take the entire above document including the certification of the first state and submit it to another state legislature, which will then certify the entire thing was passed.
4) Repeat with two certifications pre-attached.
…
When the thirty-fourth state passes it, their certifying authority then transmits the entire document, including the certifications of the other thirty-three states, to Congress, so that the document then recorded in the official record will show that it has all 34. Ideally, we’d want these certifying authorities to come en masse to Capitol Hill and hand-deliver the application to the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, then appear for a press conference on the steps of the Capitol to state that under the terms of Article V of the Constitution, Congress must call for the Convention as provided by their joint application.
Then all we need is for one member to introduce a bill calling for a constitutional convention as applied for (attaching the entire application to the bill) and anyone who votes against it is violating his oath of office. Every one of them must be confronted at every possible opportunity by citizen journalists asking why they violated their oath of office by not doing what the Constitution requires them to do.
“Jihad Watch is continuing to experience a sharp rise in readership, as you can see from the graph above. ”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/08/jihad-watch-hotter-than-hot-air.html
– To curtail any meddling by Congress the Convention can be held under the agis of the 9th and 10th amendments as de rigor to the entire proceedings in terms of format, debate, and any legislation/amendments arising from same.
– That effectively shuts down Washingtons voice in the matter.
– In fact it would be nice to see a placard over the front doors that greeted all state representatives and official attendee’s that reminded everyone:
– “As you enter this Chamber remember you are not in Washington now Dorothy”.
#28 Ric Locke:
I cordially disagree. In the rules of human interactions, which is what politics is, was, and will be you must return favors. No politician is perfect, and with what I wrote in my assessment I think I have clearly laid out what was being done. No march through the institution can be done as a blitzkrieg everywhere, and to get the influence to work on other fronts, some fronts have to be sacrificed. Endorsing McCain was the price – I think – that Mrs. Palin had to pay to keep her credibility as an honest advocate. If she repaid him with a backstab she would lose a large part of what makes her attractive and credible politically. It isn’t enough to be an ‘It Girl’; in politics – as anywhere – you cannot get far or last long as a backstabber if you are the insurgent against the establishment.
VTY, Mikey NTH
I say prove it. Form an actual party, complete with a comprehensible platform, and you’ll be more credible than the jackasses we have to deal with now. I would support it.
– Its a state initiative cynn, not a party initativem which needs to be pushed forward by the general electorate through their state representatives.
– That, among other reasons, is why the Left fears the Tea party so much. It is not so much a a party as a common “voice of the people” movement, which will serve the purpose quite nicely with no other platform than calling for the Convention.
I think we need to agree on what those amendments should be.
Personally, I would like to see the 16th, 17th, and 23rd Amendments repealed.
The 10th ammendment, repeated a second time, with a ‘no really. No, srsly.’
Form an actual party
I’d prefer that the parties be abolished. Individuals run, and various groups like NRA and SEIU and whomever can pick and choose whom they’ll get behind.
Perhaps I was too oblique, but you do yourself no favors by getting as hysterical as the dissers are.
Did that come off hysterical?
I’m just saying – Palin might not be all she’s cracked up to be. Or she might be. But this or that and that and this don’t really mean anything in a vacuum.
I’m not a fan of McCain myself. But sometimes you do have to prove you can ‘play nice’ (at least some of the time) in order to get in a position where you can get something done. WHAT she wants done, I don’t entirely know. But you can’t come off as too radical, demanding too much too fast, can’t fight with everybody at once.
Besides that, no one can really read her head. Perhaps her personal relationship with McCain has her thinking that he really is a good conservative/republican senator, in which case she is wrong, but hardly alone – the geezer got the nomination last time.
Or perhaps she’s putting (what she sees as) pure motivation and integrity and love of country ahead of policy differences.
Or perhaps she is just like him, or Kathleen Parker back when people thought Kathleen Parker was conservative, and too many people are projecting too much onto her based on her accent.
Basically it means nothing. With as little to go on as what she has actually done, it’s difficult to draw concrete conlusions.
I would avoid reading too much into her either way.
But… too late. Too many already do.
All you can really do is hope she either isn’t squishy and is the real deal, OR, that if she does turn out squishy, all those people who put so much hope in her don’t become so dispirited when they find out that they quit fighting.
But she’s not even in politics anymore anyway. And I honestly don’t think she’ll go back in.
She HAS turned out to be a hell of a king-maker. And on net, I like who she’s making kings. Not all of them but a lot.
Guys like McCain would have kept their seat without her. Guys like Miller? Maybe wouldn’t have got it (if he gets it).
Lucky for you, the Supremes have animated the zombies of the right-wing corporates of doom. So any boutique fringie you want appears to be OK.
Have you honestly seen any other motivation on the part of a politician in your lifetime?
Yes… To be fair. It is quite rare but it happens.
I don’t think you can really call half the stuff Ryan or Demint do political opportunism because a lot of it isn’t nearly as much opportunity as the reverse.
Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever seen ONE incumbent successfully primary’d out of power in my life, let alone like 5 in one year.
I really didn’t think that was possible. After Toomey (pt 1), Leiberman, Chaffee, etc. (even Scozzafava). I use to say the only way to get rid of them was to vote the other party in the general, and then vote the other party again next time. When people advocated “don’t sit out the general, kick them out in the primary” I said that was red herring and insane. It’s never worked and never will.
This year it seems to be working gangbusters. I was wrong and I’m shocked.
Hopefully things are changing.
– It’s not hopey, changey this time. That was for the looters in the last go-around.
– This time its pissed, angry, which means you weren’t necessarily wrong under normal conditions, just that we’re not in Kansas anymore.
….In other news:
– Just when you think he can’t get any crazier, Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator, who’s been dead for years since he took that head first tumble, has come up with his latest idiocy, telling a equally crazy conspiracy writer that “Osama Bin Laden is actually a CIA paid spy”. He says what he read in the Wikileak papers proves it.
– As bad as things may be here in the states we all should wake up each morning and just thank our lucky stars we don’t live in Cuba. Fidel is the Jewel in the crown of shame for the Left, but he’s still moving around like he’s actually alive, so they can’t put his name on any T-shirts yet.
Entropy, Mikey NTH: I don’t disagree with any of that, except that the Democratic Party has demonstrated that it is possible to do politics without quid pro quos; all you have to do is agree to it in carefully technical language, then, when the chit is called in, smile, claim an exception based on previous Jesuitry, and guffaw at the poleaxed expression on the sucker’s face. It’s especially easy to do when the sucker is pre-programmed to want approval as a member of the in-group in the first place. For an example of that principle, we should bronze McCain and set him up in the Capitol Rotunda; it’d be the most use he’s been to anybody I care about since the last time he sat in an airplane pilot’s seat.
Yes, Entropy, you came off a trifle hysterical, which Palin supporters often do. It isn’t an offense — it’s a natural reaction for a defender, given the hysterical accusations she’s suffered — but I, for one, have had multiple experiences, one recently, that suggest to me that the best way to bumfuzzle an opponent is to remain calm, cool, and collected while they rage harder, trying to get you to react.
I like what I’ve seen of Sarah Palin, and I’d like to meet her. She is undoubtedly a competent, capable, and interesting person, but she puts her pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.
Regards,
Ric
#77 cynn: I’ve been chuckling at that attitude for years, and am just about on the point of ceasing to laugh and starting to shoot.
Year in, year out, the great preponderance of support for socialist-oriented politics and parties, most especially the Democrats, has come from big-to-gigantic businesses and the stupendously wealthy. Something close to 80% of John Kerry’s campaign finance came from twenty people, and Obama didn’t do much better.
It isn’t hard to see why. Every penny the Government spends on keeping workers available is a penny they can keep in their pockets; and since they already possess copious quantities of the lifeblood of politics, they are confident that they can avoid being hit with the costs via taxes — and are almost always correct.
Wake up and smell the money, darlin’
Regards,
Ric
The Utne Reader called. It wants its meme back.
One of the reasons for the budding civil war is that people are starting to realize that’s what’s happening, and there’s too many tape recordings, videos, etc. of the Copperheads doing just that. It used to be that the poleaxed look got rearranged before the smoke-filled room doors opened; now the sight of the club landing is on You-Tube live.
Which gets back to the question asked at the start of this comment thread: market or war? Markets only work when everyone involved believes that the other side is, at bottom, playing by the same set of rules, and the rule-breakers are few and punished. When one side starts to realize that the other one has never played by those rules, and in fact hates those rules and believes that those who don’t are suckers who deserve to be fleeced, then market rules no longer apply. At that point, it’s Hobbes’ WARRE, until all sides can agree on the rules again. That’s where we’re headed.
That’s where we’re headed.
– ….And thus was born the term “Proggits”, characterized as being short in stature, character, and honesty.
I finally got what you were getting at, SDN. Maybe I should seek inspiration before coffee more often.
One of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing, to get across to a small child is “that’s not one of your choices”.
Same is true of Progressives. Proggs hate markets with the blazing fury of a thousand suns; markets are “unfair”, and they imagine themselves providing a “more humane” alternative. Much of recent and contemporary history can be understood as trying desperately to explain that “market or war” is not even a binary choice; it’s one or both.
Regards,
Ric
–Declare that no other Amendments will be considered
It would be a can of worms and that phrase above will be the first thing that’s ignored.
We have to take this back the way we lost it, from the precinct level on up.
From every ‘government class’ in every school.
I’m not optimistic because it’s going to be one long, hard slog.
The 9th and 10th were effectively rendered meaningless by the 16th and 17th. See also: Wickard v. Filburn.
I could support this approach.
Burke once pointed up the absurdity of a continent being ruled by an island. Well we’ve exchanged rule by a geographically distant island for rule by a culturally distant swamp. It is time for the continent to make clear it’s position of true authority.
I also agree that the changes must be a fait accompli, but suspect that faced with such a prospect Congress would still try to pry open the entire can of worms.
At which point we will need zombie James Madison backed up by zombie George Washington armed with orbital nukes.
No, we just need for the Legislatures to stick to their guns.
When the Proggs contaminate the whole mess, as usual, the vote for ratification needs to be (membership):zero, which is how a Legislature phrases “f* you and the horse you rode in”.
Regards,
Ric
It is that earnest, aw shucks, quality like Early Jimmy Stewart, that she has pointed out on many an occassion, ‘not to put our trust in politicians, because they will inevitably dissapoint” that she is
a little hesitant now, who wouldn’t be after the onslaught they have been through, but I do believe
if call to serve she would.
Greatest movie pitch ever.
We’ve all heard a leftist say “markets don’t work” haven’t we? It’s a wonder each such leftist isn’t dead, for one reason or another.
Presumably they each must grow their own sustenance, since they certainly would not depend on a market to deliver their daily bread.
Since it was an email exchange between sdferr and I that led to him bringing up the “markets or war” idea I’m throwing this out.
Markets, politics and war are means to make decisions and enforce them even or especially onto parties who do not like the decision/choice.
They are distinguished by who sets the choices, who makes the decision, the enforcement of the choice, the seriousness of the stakes, the level of coercion that is allowed for in enforcement, and the permanence of the decision. Coercion increases as stakes increase.
All of these are not really separate but slide into each other as the stakes increase. Those in the markets will try to use the political system to edge out competitors. The political class will slide into coercive use of force to win and in so doing take the thing into the realm of war. In each case the lower level believes they can control and use the next level without doing themselves harm. It is always a false hope. So too the more forceful levels may try to operate on the lower levels but their more coercive nature ruins the good parts of the lesser levels.
Markets
Choices are set by the sellers
Decisions among the choices offered is made by the buyers
Decisions are self-enforcing by mutual agreement among all parties and if this is broken then they can revert to the political level with laws and courts enforcing decisions.
Stakes are financial, up to and including bankruptcy.
Permanence, decisions can be changed at any time.
Politics (in our system)
Choices are set by the Parties or by referendum/initiative
Decisions are made by the voters or by voters representatives which voters choose.
Enforced by mutual agreement to abide by a constitution and the law. If broken can revert to the use of war to settle and enforce a decision. Armed law enforcement being the first step with civil war the last one.
Stakes can be minor moving up to ones, which can be on a personal level, as life changing and destructive as war.
Permanence, decisions generally last for a couple years to many years.
War
Choices are set by each side and are usually mutually exclusive.
Decision between choices is made by the victor.
Enforcement is by armed military force.
Stakes are everything you and your society have or ever will have. Life and liberty of all persons can be at stake.
Decisions are very permanent. Can be Carthage permanent.
The progressive left, through rhetoric, has raised the stakes seen, perceived by their base to war like levels. War or the perceived threat of it by a hated other is the easiest way to gain group solidarity.
Faking it to gain politically is dicey as those you have convinced that their very lives and freedom are at stake will demand, once you have gained the power, that you act to extinguish, vanquish the threat. Doing that, even seriously discussing doing that, makes the fake war real for both sides.
An idiot lefty British guy ranks some issues facing to the current administration, or also know as “How do you solve a problem like Obma.” I have reranked his positions in proper order:
1 (formerly 5). It’s Obama himself. ding ding ding ding ding.
2 (formerly 6). Maybe they didn’t really run such a great campaign and were overrated from the start.
3 (formerly 1). Campaigns are easier than governing. Not to be discounted. Campaigns are hard, but governing is harder. You’re actually responsible for stuff, and that stuff sticks to you more. Takes a while to figure that out. (if they thought this, and I suspect it is true, it is a subset of issues 1 and 2)
4 (formerly 2). They were overwhelmed by events. They didn’t understand quite how bad things were going to be (this is an inane, they ran on how bad things were and how they were going to fix them). Actual conditions, I mean: the economy, Afghanistan, unexpected things like the oil spill.
5 (formerly 6). It’s about personnel. David Plouffe was on the campaign but isn’t in the White House. Rahm Emanuel is, but wasn’t on the campaign. And there are other personnel differences. Maybe these are key. (Duh)
6 (formerly 3). They didn’t expect the partisan onslaught. (Dumbass there is alwyas partisan onslaught [think what Dems and lefties did to Bush, what Pubs and conservatives did to Clinton, etc.], that is a lame excuse.)
I’m afraid if a Constitutional Convention were called we’d have a parliamentary system of government before it was over. The left would see a convention as the Christmas to end all Christmases, an opportunity to accomplish a thousand years worth of “reform” overnight. They would stop at nothing, literally nothing, to co-opt it. And if the left is good at anything, it’s co-opting institutions. They know their political minority is permanent, and that subterfuge is their only hope. For generations they’ve been tricking us to give them a little power here, a little power there, and now years later we find our bedrock social institutions being completely run by leftists who make up a third of the electorate at best.
“War or the perceived threat of it by a hated other is the easiest way to gain group solidarity.”
An “Either we all hang together or we’ll all surely hang separately” sort of proposition, no?
In the usual circumstance, a party will take to war when either it perceives an external existential threat (internal such threats never seem to draw attention, oddly enough) or very easy pickin’s with little cost to accompany the attempt to seize them should failure result.
Which is it with our left-political types today, eh?
Tomasky is an American, formerly with the Village voice, a member of the Journolist, he’s unaccountably stupid, but what else is new
My fear, quite similar to Peter Jackson above, is that the Left would do to a Constitutional Convention what the “New Left” did to the 1968 Democratic Party Convention. They had operatives both inside and outside, covert and overt, with the mission of putting in place obscure reforms in technical language that would make it inevitable that they would completely dominate the Party. Bureaucratic, committee warfare is their forte.
I think the unlimited nature of a convention is a story deliberatly concoted to prevnt people form calling for one. The text of Article V only says that such a convention can “propose Amendments.” Those amendments still have to be ratified in the usual ways. It can make no changes on it’s own. A convention might propose what amounts to a complete rewrite (just like the first Convention)–it still has to get ratified.
– It feel like that scene from Jaws, When the good Dr. Oceanographer, standing in the crows nest, see’s the huge assed shadow pass beneath the boat and yells down:
“….Boys. Oh boys, she’s back for her noon-time feeding….”
Ric’s proposal takes these valid concerns into account. The method he outlines is about as prudent a way to go about starting a convention as I can think of.
Trouble is, that if the people at the link I posted last night are correct, a Convetion should have been called, several times even. The petitions, it seems, are being ignored.
RTO makes an excellent point. Any changes require ratification by three fourths of the States. This is not an electoral college game.
Re: markets, a summary.
Not quite bumper-sticker material, but we all know I tend to run off at the keyboard.
Regards,
Ric
Madison on a similar question, namely, how to get the first ten.
See also, Saturday, September 15th, 1787 — where we have him:
There’s an interesting contrast presented between this thread and the Glenn Beck one.
George Mason, just prior to Madison in Convention on Sept. 15th:
My father never lost affection for sulfanilamide antibiotics, but he declared flatly that DDT was the pinnacle of achievement of all mankind. In conversation that allowed joking, he would say the full name: di-CHLOR-o-di-PHEE-nyl-tri-CHLOR-o-eh-THANE (a few extra letters inserted to make the pronunciation clear). Of course, he spent most of WWII in jungle clearings on one or another Pacific Island. (Dad wasn’t a combat troop. His job was keeping geeks in line in a communications company.) He and his men didn’t worry about bedbugs. They would have loved bedbugs, and made pets of them and sung them songs. The pests they had to worry about ate bedbugs — and snakes, and soldiers, and the Bakelite® cases of radios. One of his few war reminiscences was of the day on New Britain Island when they got a skid of 25-pound bags of DDT powder. The brigade commander wanted them to go to a USO show (or something like that, I was never clear), and they all refused, instead setting to work spreading magic powder around their encampment. That night, for the first time since they’d waded ashore, they were actually able to sleep.
News of bedbugs in New York and Washington, D.C. makes me chuckle. Banning DDT, which has nil or less biological interaction with warm-blooded creatures (R. Carson was a liar), meant that it had to be replaced with pyrethrins. At the time, pyrethrins were patented and profitable where DDT had long since lapsed into the public domain; if you like irony, the spectacle of people damning DDT and at the same time raging against “corporatist robbery of the people” can’t be beat, because pyrethrins made Dow Chemical a LOT of scratch. Pyrethrins also do have significant effects on higher-order creatures, especially amphibians and reptiles; most insecticides come with bloody-minded warnings about getting the stuff in water because it’s death on fish and crustaceans. That’s also why you have to carefully read the label on hardware-store insecticides and triple the dose if you want dead bugs instead of just filling the house with stink. They don’t want you to have an effective insecticide, because it’s pyrethrin-based and nasty if it gets away.
So: bedbugs. Take all the bedding and clothing out of the house and spread it in the sun; leave it there all day. Meanwhile judiciously apply DDT in a water/soap/diesel-fuel emulsion on the walls and floor of the house, paying close attention to baseboards and cracks. Wash all the clothing and loose bedding in hot water with soap (not detergent); heavy bedding (mattresses, etc.) get thoroughly beaten and an application of DDT powder, or (if you can afford it) go back to the gin to have the padding removed and run through the mill while the “tick” gets laundered. Presto! No bedbugs — nor ticks, fleas, or cockroaches, either. We called it “spring cleaning”, and it was a regular ritual every year when the Sun got hot.
Regards,
Ric
Damn. wrong thread.
Regards,
Ric
Ric, it’s relevant. Bedbugs are like the economy; they have to be identified and mitigated. Too bad personal economies would probably do better by way of bedbugs.
#81 Ric Locke:
Jesus f’in’ Christ on a Crutch! I didn’t say she was anything more than human – I thought I made it perfectly clear that she is human, and was operating as to what humans do in the politics/interactions that we all do because we are humans. As to what the Democrats do that is irrelevant because she isn’t working a Democrat machine – or a Republican one. She is trying to disestablish a machine, like she is doing in Alaska, and that is very different form working Tammany Hall.
As I see it she has that one trump card and that card is that she is honest and decent and will repay that coin with the same, and with betrayal and reverse she will greet it with a smile and a laugh.
Whether she actually is honest and decent I will leave to history to sort out; I think she has read Kipling’s ‘If’ and is putting it to use; and if so, that is a hella lot of dynamite to be bringing to an essentially idealistic people for their use.
VTY, Mikey NTH
Sorry I am late back to this, but I had to go up north to mom and dad’s and pick up a trailer for the Sailfish.
A 1955 Sailfish, which mom bought when she graduated from university, which is mine now (mom’s still kickin’ and all – no fear there); but I needed a way to get it into the lake other than the dolly because my back has been raising some protests when I’ve yanked it back up the ramp. Now some internal-combustion horses can pull it up and out.
Next year, there’s going to be some good sailing going on.
BTW – I won’t be around tomorrow because I got another road trip to do. A gentleman I knew in the Wayne County Republican Party died and visitation is tomorrow, so I got to go.
I may be an asshole, but I’m really not a major one.
I just play one on the intertubes.
The economy has to be “identified and mitigated”???
:facepalm:
the Democratic Party has demonstrated that it is possible to do politics without quid pro quos; all you have to do is agree to it in carefully technical language, then, when the chit is called in, smile, claim an exception based on previous Jesuitry, and guffaw at the poleaxed expression on the sucker’s face.
There’s our game plan people.
Spread the Good Word.
There’s our game plan, people.
Spread the Good Word.
Palin isn’t opposing anybody, she’s just looking for entree into the world of the elitist a*holes who have our lives in their hands
First, enter the house.
So: bedbugs. Take all the bedding and clothing out of the house