Republicans considering ideological purity test for candidates - WTF?!!

[Piggy]

We can argue about whether reducing our dependency on social help/handouts is a bad thing or not. Perhaps it is - perhaps our society has been incorrigibly altered. But it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to me to run with intelligent small-government proposals, instead of going "moderate" (read: deficit spending). We've had plenty of examples of that in the past decade.

There is a time for deficit spending. Wartime, for example. And during periods of extreme financial crisis which threaten the very fundamentals of economic operation.

This notion that deficit spending is an inherent evil above all others is rather bizarre.

In response to the recent financial freeze, Congressional Republicans churned out an alternate proposal which consisted entirely of tax cuts! It was totally insane.

That's what adherence to ideology will get you.

I'm not saying that the response we got wasn't flawed. It certainly was, and is. But at least it fended off a global meltdown, which the Republican proposal would not have.

That's the problem with ideological purity in a nutshell. You get one tool to fix all problems. And that never works.

Look, to be viable again, we have to engage with the real world, plain and simple, and that includes dealing with a wide variety of constituencies and making pragmatic compromises.

If we don't do that, we're dead.

 

[Piggy]

To give you an idea of how I believe Republican principles can work in practice, I'll give some examples:

1: Small, nonintrusive government. We get government out of people's sexual preferences wrt gay marriage (by legalizing it or getting out of marriage altogether) and submit to the rights of private American citizens in regards to wiretapping by making sure we do it legally.

I agree with you on those points.

Leave marriage to the churches, temples, and mosques, and allow civil unions for pretty much any pair of consenting adults who wants one.

No more BS wiretaps, and no more lying about it. FISA already allowed retroactive warrants, so all the smoke and mirrors about responsiveness was just a bunch of baloney.

However, we still need sufficient apparatus to actually govern this huge nation and not get steamrolled internationally.

2: Fiscal conservatism. We stop signing costly boondoggles like Medicare Part D and the bailouts into law. We let capitalism take its course, e.g. allowing firms to fail. We actually move to balance the budget.

The first part of that proposal is, I have to say, nothing but fantasy.

The "invisible hand" theory has long been debunked. There is no magic in benign-neglect capitalism. It leads to boom-and-bust cycles, economy-wrecking bubbles, and rampant corruption.

As for the bailouts, we learned our lesson with Lehman. Allowing those big firms to fail would be like throwing mutineers off a ship while they're shackled by the leg to the rest of the crew. Satisfying for a split second, but quickly resulting in the loss of the ship.

Were the bailouts distasteful? Absolutely. Were they bungled? In many ways, yes. But that said, there's no doubt that some form of financial infusion was 100% necessary.

And if we don't pick up the reins, and instead allow things to go back the way they were, with shadow markets and lax oversight -- or, worse, if we deregulate even further -- there is no doubt we'll soon come right back to where we were. Only this time, we won't be able to swing the bailout, and we'll all sink.

Balanced budget? I'm all for it, as soon as it can be responsibly done.

3: Strong national defense. We avoid overexerting the U.S. Army by modeling it for a conventional war it wasn't meant to fight; we recognize changes on the ground and respond to them when appropriate (the surge was too long in coming); and we actually PLAN RESPONSIBLY for war.

Yeah, I'm agreed there. And I think most in Washington are on board with that. I believe the Bush administration was an abberation on that count.

Because Bush was so weak when it came to anything military, his cabinet was key.

Unfortunately, with a few notable exception, his advisors consisted primarily of the extremists left over from his father's administration -- men like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz, who had outlandish ideas that quite rightly had been blocked by cooler heads under Bush Sr., but who in Jr's administration were given free rein to implement these half-baked notions, with the results we have seen.

If you want a horrific example of why pragmatism is better than ideological purity, you have to look no further than the Iraq war.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't believe the US Constitution inevitably leads to a 2 party system. That's what we have, though, and it's hard to shake once you have it. But I don't see that there's anything in the Constitution that would naturally prohibit a mutli-party system with de-facto coalition governments.

Sure, but you have to come up with some way to prevent the problem of splitting the vote. So how do you remove the split the vote issue in the American electorial system?

 

[ponderingturtle]

Submit platitudes, and you shall receive: You don't want government screwing around in your life women's lives, but screwing around in the lives of others babies is fine with you.

If you really want to debate that fine, but this isn't the thread for yet another abortion debate. OF course it isn't exactly goverment doing anything, rather not banning something.

That's the point. Once they got into office, Republicans forgot about their principles. Their legislative dominance was, from then on, as much of a liability as an asset.

No they never had them to begin with. It was all propaganda.

I concede that there is a possibility that Americans might decide they don't like the basic Republican principles. But the GOP hasn't been pushing basic Republican principles over the past decade, so there's no reason to keep the status quo.

See, that's the problem: those who want to keep the GOP the way it is don't consider that doing so will not really succeed in passing any true Republican solutions. There must be some room for disagreement, of course, but less than there has been in the past. If that leads to a new centrist party springing up, then that's fine with me.

Nice true scottsman fallacy right there. There is no difference between true republicans and actual republicans. You want the democratic party to be the only national party in the US.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Of course not. But you've been talking about needing to amend the Constitution to allow more parties. Right now, numerous parties run presidential candidates such as the Greens. That they don't get many votes does not mean they don't exist.

But look at what happens every time you get three major parties, the two that are the most similar lose. That is why there never have been and never will be three major parties in the US for any length of time. Three parties are unstable, one will disolve and some of its platform will be taken up by at least one of the other parties.

Again, we do NOT have a two party system. We have a multi-party system dominated by the two largest parties.

We have an electorial system that has a two party solution as the stable solution to it.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Cain: This doesn't follow from what I said.



And yet, your original argument still doesn't follow. I'm just putting my words in a context.

And your context is like trying to get people to change water from being wet.

How is a violent revolution even implied?

Only way to attain your goals.

You were talking about unspecified elections. Local level politics is subject to institutional reform; such reforms have to start somewhere and then work their way up.

And then they hit the state level and die there.

Now you're just ********ting. There are varying degrees of ****ed-up-ness. Moreover, there's also a huge chasm between where people are today philosophically -- "my vote for president should count, all votes should count equally" -- and the way institutions actually function. Voting is also, um, sort of important, because it's how we change everything else -- provided you do want to avoid violent revolution.

Sure, but nothing is going to happen.

 

[ponderingturtle]

In response to the recent financial freeze, Congressional Republicans churned out an alternate proposal which consisted entirely of tax cuts! It was totally insane.

You forgot that they also blame it on regulation and so want to reduce regulation. I mean it is clear that everything would be much better now if they didn't have to limit themselves to a mere 35-1 leveraging, but could go 80-1 or more.

 

[drkitten]

I don't believe the US Constitution inevitably leads to a 2 party system. That's what we have, though, and it's hard to shake once you have it. But I don't see that there's anything in the Constitution that would naturally prohibit a mutli-party system with de-facto coalition governments.

The "winner-take-all" system is what does it; that's actually a mathematical theorem (coalitions are unstable in a winner take all system, so the stable equilibrium is a set of two parties). You can find a non-mathematical explanation here if you like.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The "winner-take-all" system is what does it; that's actually a mathematical theorem (coalitions are unstable in a winner take all system, so the stable equilibrium is a set of two parties). You can find a non-mathematical explanation here if you like.

I thought game theory proved it but was not entirely confident in making that assertion.

 

[Piggy]

Sure, but you have to come up with some way to prevent the problem of splitting the vote. So how do you remove the split the vote issue in the American electorial system?

I don't think that's the problem.

It seems to me that either a third party withers on the vine or starts gaining steam.

If it gets any momentum, the other 2 parties simply incorporate the most attractive bits of their platform into their platforms (or one of them does) and draws away enough support so that they become non-viable.

 

[Piggy]

The "winner-take-all" system is what does it; that's actually a mathematical theorem (coalitions are unstable in a winner take all system, so the stable equilibrium is a set of two parties). You can find a non-mathematical explanation here if you like.

Kewl. Hadn't seen that before. Interesting. Thanks.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I don't think that's the problem.

It seems to me that either a third party withers on the vine or starts gaining steam.

If it gets any momentum, the other 2 parties simply incorporate the most attractive bits of their platform into their platforms (or one of them does) and draws away enough support so that they become non-viable.

Or they replace a major party. The point is that there will always be and can only be two major parties in the US for any length of time.

 

[Darth Rotor]

He CHOSE not to exercise those options. He left the party and chose to run on a new ticket.

You and Tricky are right about Lieberman, but Lieberman was also right: in order to win, he had to leave the party. Joe looked out for number one.

 

[Piggy]

You and Tricky are right about Lieberman, but Lieberman was also right: in order to win, he had to leave the party. Joe looked out for number one.

As did Specter. His own party was caucusing against him, so his choice was to retire or switch.

And the Limbaughs of the world cheered.

Good riddance, they said.

That's all fine and well for them, because when the GOP is on the ropes it actually fires up their audience and they get richer. It's happening right now.

 

[Sporanox]

That's who we've wound up in bed with. And now we find that there's no one else to shack up with, so most Republican office-holders dare not risk getting kicked out of that flea-infested bed for fear of being left out in the cold altogether.

I think you're being too melodramatic, both on the supposed stupidity of Palin and her influence, but unfortunately there is no definitive way to prove one side or the other.

Where did you get this idea that the core of conservative governance is a devotion to abandoning the responsibility to govern at all?

You know what a big-government solution is.

 

[Darth Rotor]

As did Specter. His own party was caucusing against him, so his choice was to retire or switch.

And the Limbaughs of the world cheered.

Good riddance, they said.

That's all fine and well for them, because when the GOP is on the ropes it actually fires up their audience and they get richer. It's happening right now.

What's that old adage?

Follow the money.

I confirmed for myself what Limbaugh was up to during Ahnold's run for California Governator: stirring up the pot was the most important thing for Rush, since Clinton was no longer in office for Rush to play his "shafting of America" schtick on.

His business model is so good, Glenn Beck has adopted it.

DR

 

[Sporanox]

The first part of that proposal is, I have to say, nothing but fantasy.

The "invisible hand" theory has long been debunked. There is no magic in benign-neglect capitalism. It leads to boom-and-bust cycles, economy-wrecking bubbles, and rampant corruption.

Nobody believes in totally deregulated capitalism. That's a strawman. At the bare minimum, we restrict monopolies. I was speaking of the tendency to go along with deficit-ballooning government programs, which is not significantly connected to deregulation in this context.

As for the bailouts, I'm not totally convinced they were necessary, partially because there is no way to prove the doomsday scenarios used to scare us into supporting them.

Balanced budget? I'm all for it, as soon as it can be responsibly done.

We will never have a balanced budget if we keep throwing our money away. This is something that most people in Congress can't grasp. I'm not certain they realize the value of a lower deficit, either.

If you want a horrific example of why pragmatism is better than ideological purity, you have to look no further than the Iraq war.

Ideology by itself doesn't cripple the nuts and bolts of an operation. Incompetence does. We saw that with Rumsfeld's vision of the Army (unsuited to occupation) and an institutional inability to respond to changing circumstances.

 

[quadraginta]

<snip>

Ideology by itself doesn't cripple the nuts and bolts of an operation. Incompetence does. We saw that with Rumsfeld's vision of the Army (unsuited to occupation) and an institutional inability to respond to changing circumstances.

Yes it does. That is exactly the problem. Ideology without any regard for reality is crippling.

The past eight years of ideology driven decision making has been disastrous. Please let us have some pragmatism.

 

[Sporanox]

Yes it does. That is exactly the problem. Ideology without any regard for reality is crippling.

The past eight years of ideology driven decision making has been disastrous. Please let us have some pragmatism.

Explain how that happened in Iraq, please? We are probably playing with semantics. I view the "shower us with roses" summation of war strategy and an over-reliance on shady exiles as incompetent methodology. Perhaps that is an extension of ideology. Yet, even though one would be ideologically decided to invade Iraq, there is no reason to remain ignorant of the facts known before the war, or dismiss the widespread looting and chaos as nothing of consequence.

 

[ParrotPirate]

They just keep painting themselves closer to the farthest right corner of the room,don't they?