bmags

That's nonsense. You need to realize that people ARE concerned about the deficits. There's a reason the republicans got so much traction with it. But they didn't end the welfare state. They got some discretionary cuts, bfd. There was a hell of a lot done for the progressive cause recently and in this administration. But liberals won't even remember DADT as progress, or DOJ not backing the DOMA, or lily ledbetter, or ACA as soon as they pass. They'll rightfully move on and want more, but suicidally will give up any ground they gave up in exchange for someone who could promise everything and get absolutely nothing.

You should poll their base and see what they identify as, then convince yourself that they are liberal.

QUOTE (iamshack @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 05:52 PM) I think Balta's point is that whether she is attractive or not has nothing to do with it. Even if she was not what most people consider to be an attractive woman, Oney's statements would still be incredibly offensive and inappropriate. thank you

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 04:37 PM) It would legitimize it as a valid viewpoint in healthcare discourse. Republicans always propose far-right ideas that make center-right ideas look centrist or moderate in comparison. When nobody argues for single-payer, then public exchanges get held up as an idea of crazy far-left socialist Marxists. On the flipside, it could have prolonged the health care debate to a length where it couldn't have passed. It took long enough to go from public option to no public option to the point of near fallout, before this bill was finally enacted. My main complaint with the healthcare proceedings is they didn't speed it up that summer.

I mean, we didn't need a rucker park performance to know durant is awesome, but the atmosphere is fun to watch.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 03:24 PM) You really don't think there's anything more that Obama could have done to press a liberal agenda? edit: "Obama sits on sidelines, gets s*** 'compromise' from conservatives" is kinda the story of his presidency. edit2: Obama actually laid out general policy guidelines in the summer of 2009 for HCR, and it notably did not include single-payer. He could have promoted that idea then. Why not? Are democrats incapable of seeing Republicans succeed repeatedly in pulling discourse to their viewpoints? What do you thinks easier "we want to cut gov't and taxes" or "we want to completely undercut an industry with tens of thousands of american jobs and profits with a incredibly powerful lobbying industry and replace it with a government run insurance program"? That's why the republicans are better at pulling the populace to their right. The "pro-tax" lobbies aren't very strong, they dont' really exist. I'm not saying obama has been perfect, I'm saying this narrative that all he needed to do was negotiate harder is ignorant of the structural issues that have arisen with a rigidly aligned republican party. Rather than blaming the actors we need to start blaming the institutions and start looking for changes, and in the meanwhile putting pressure on the actors with proven-effective means of pulling them left. You guys can do your "I'm going to let a republican get into office and then complain about their outRAGEOUS policies", and i'll try to work within the means of the system to put a more fluid system in place while fighting for progress anywhere I can find it and working hard not to let it go.

QUOTE (SoxAce @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 01:38 PM) Well some NBA players have to past the time. 1st time in legendary Rucker Park for Kevin Durant? Drops 66 points. Here's him going off in the 4th. Longer highlights. awesome

Your premise is wrong. Obama let the legislators legislate (as oppose to Clinton in 1993, and this strategy historically has worked well), and the legislators did not have the votes to get that in the "60 vote" world.

our problems are structural: yglesias background on the "Linzian nightmare" pull:

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 02:05 PM) Ok, then he never made the case for single-payer or nationalized health care. Instead he want straight to private insurance mandates. Britain made the NHS is WWII, the US's employer provided insurance started in: WWII. Once something becomes structure it's incredibly hard to change. But there were a lot of good thigns in this bill you guys now call trash, things that will flesh out and improve. We put a bunch of "let's see" cost control measures that will go into effect and hopefully be built upon.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Aug 3, 2011 -> 01:49 PM) But he started with universal healthcare and ended up coming back to the middle, "pulling" his position more to the left than what the country wanted, which was no additional government coverage. Honestly I think you're just upset that more people don't think like you. Yeah, you might not have nearly as many "liberal" politicians as you'd like, but I think you're pretty extreme. There's not a single conservative policy you agree with. It's not easy to get voted in with a "let's change everything radically from what it is now!" campaign. This is sort of what I'm getting at. A lot of people switched to "identifying democrat" during the latter bush years, and I think a lot of liberals mistook that as a drift toward liberalism. It really wasn't. The base of the democratic party is not liberals. Being a democrat in rhode island or ohio is a lot different than being a democrat in chicago or california. The good news is that demographics are on the democrats side. The bad news is that in the short term, the largest voting bloc is very, very conservative, and very very good at voting. So that's why I don't think it's a good idea to just throw out any progress that IS made (and there was a lot), push the candidates that are there to the left, vote for the better candidate, push that candidate to the left, etc, all the while paying attention to local politics and zoning so we start building a more dense society...last part's all me, but nonetheless. This stuff is hard. And the past 3 years are no where near the success I was expecting. But progress is a lot harder than standing pat. ANd a lot of liberal policies that have evidence behind them are NOT very intuitive, whereas the GOP can sit there and be like "do you like taxes? No, well OUR party doesn't believe in taxes" and no matter how stupid that is, it's a winning electoral strategy.

You have to understand that the majority of the public is worried about the deficits. When one party is swearing we're bankrupt, it's too counterintuitive to say "well actually 100% debt:gdp ratio is not unheard of for countries" blah blah people won't believe you. So they fought to make the austerity measures out of the short term and to include defense cuts. Given the circumstances, the question becomes whether you wanted that or the country to not pay it's poorest citizens social security because there is a delusional congressional majority and pass off congressional responsibility to a super committee. This is what you see in republics like the united states when a party starts behaving like republicans. One reason our country worked so well was because the ideological alignment was out of whack due to racism. that doesn't exist and it favors the party with more rigid discipline.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 09:13 PM) Wait a second I'm not arguing against running liberals in primaries. I'm arguing against voting to bad Democrat candidates just because they're not Republicans. You could primary that bad candidate to the left. But the left doesn't do that enough. They just have them get voted out of office, let the republican get in office and vote in bad legislation, and then a democratic candidate will then position themselves as moderate, and if they win the liberals will celebrate, then sit on the sidelines and watch and bemoan the centrist candidate because they didn't vote for liberal causes, then let a republican take over.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 09:09 PM) "she said she would have voted to repeal DADT, but darn it, she just missed it" Obama campaigned on all sorts of stuff he immediately backed away from as his opening move. edit: What Balta said. So, you have a great example of a completely conservative democrat in a state that only votes for democrats because of historical reasons, where everyone is worried that she won't vote for the derivative language in the bill because she's so pro-corporate, gets primaried by a slightly to the left candidate who paints her as pro-banks, and she then doesn't support that language because she wants it to be STRONGER...and primarying her didn't work because? Yeah, you're right, she's not russ feingold. But in a world with realities, you could look at what does work, and replicate it, or you could look at what doesn't work, and just assert really adamently that it should work. We know that latter doesn't work. But it's the only gameplan in the liberal handbook.

"she all of the sudden became the world's biggest derivative regulation backer"

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 09:00 PM) Especially in the Senate though where it actually mattered...how many of them could win if they were legit liberals? Nelson in Nebraska? Lincoln in Arkansas? Are those seats going to be won by Russ Feingold? Did you miss what happened when Lincoln was primaried? She all of the sudden become the world's biggest derivative regulation backer.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 08:54 PM) The Republicans took one part of one branch of government and forced serious policy changes within 7 months. Largely because Obama was afraid of their big, swinging dick. He immediately adopted their narratives and immediately took legitimate options to get around their obstructionism off the table. He fought for nothing and capitulated to everything while getting nothing in return. Somehow this is liberals' faults. Dumb, whiny liberals who are stupid for expecting Democrat supermajorities in Congress and a Democrat President to make equivalently substantial changes in the two years they controlled government. They did make substantial STRUCTURAL changes. The way our military is run, the way women in the workplace can be treated, the way health insurance and care is run. The republicans got a bunch of one-off cut promises. Not even cuts, promises to cuts, in exchange for not completely ruining our economy. And the republicans can do this because their base is conservative and votes, and is active. The democrats can't do this because their base is moderate, wants compromise, and liberal base just doesn't vote so they pander by being more conservative to get the median voter to their side. Your behavior reinforces this. You could go and organize a primary to get someone more liberal, you won't do that, you just will vote for a third party that will put absolutely no pressure on the democratic party or conservative party.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 08:36 PM) bmags, I used to be the guy saying exactly what you're saying. Now we're at our 2nd budget cut debacle in the past what, 4 months? And whether we like it or not, there'll be another one with another shutdown deadline in September. Yes, the PPACA was good policy, and the Dodd Frank act as written was at least decent policy, and there are other victories (lilly ledbedder, etc.) But how much of that matters if it gets rolled back in the next deal? How much does a health care coverage expansion matter if 12 months later you get rolled to the point that you're taking on significant health care coverage cuts? How much does extending one type of protection gain if simultaneously you're doing things like dramatically slashing student loans? Maybe I'll be back saying what you're saying again once there's a Republican nominee...but this budget debacle really has me down. Liberals brought this on themselves by not doing s*** for the 2010 election. None of this would be happening if there was a good economy. But there's a s***ty economy, and when there's a s***ty economy then people start to want to protect their jobs and start fearing losing their status. Good on dems for not becoming protectionist. It ruined the platform for immigration reform. But liberals do nothing to explain why immigration is a good thing. That's counterintuitive to people, so they just fall back on complaining and b****ing when laws are enacted to tighten it. You guys just think someone going in swinging a big dick can get things done right now. But with a s***ty economy, 100% debt and an opposition party acting like a parliamentary opposition party in a system not set up to deal with that, nothing gets done. But, liberals, who blame environment and structure for everything except politics, just sit and whine and pout when daddy doesn't fix everything.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 08:37 PM) It worked for the Republicans after winning one house of Congress in one election. Eight months later and we've got serious entitlement cuts on the table and a mandated vote on a balanced budget amendment. I've never advocated not voting, though. I've simply advocated against voting for politicians like Obama. That's because they continue to raise hell and their members know they will be primaried if they dont' vote their way. The left never does this. They vote someone in, sit and wait, then when they don't vote like they want, they just don't show up and he loses.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 08:34 PM) No, I'm saying it wouldn't have been all that much different because no one in Washington really represents progressives, liberals or leftists. You know why? Because the democratic base considers themselves moderate. And moderates love compromise. And in a system that favors smaller populations instead of larger more liberal ones you need moderate-conservative dems to make a majority. And they will be needed to vote. So, either fight to change the structure, or put pressure on the moderate candidates by running a candidate to their left (see: lincoln, ark.). It works remarkably well, but also requires work to be done, soooo...better just let the tea party take over.

Congrats. I'll give you a high five if it isn't federally outlawed for being to homosexual and satanist.

Enjoy it at the federal level. And as always, don't put any effort into actually running primaries against candidates to get them to move left, just don't vote. Hand elections to the republicans, because then in 8 years when things go to hell, we can get our act together againa nd get a big majority, and then stop caring and become disillusioned when we don't get everything we want in 1 election. And continue to let everything we care about get axed away in huge chunks because we have principles to only get everything we want and nothing less.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 2, 2011 -> 09:08 PM) Kinda easy to become disaffected when two years of supermajorities and the white house and another 8 months of strong Senate majorities and the white house results in a huge policy shift to the right. Politics is hard work, you don't win it with one election. Democrats got a lot passed during that time they just didn't get everything passed during that time. They'd have gotten a lot more passed during that time if their base decided to still care about what happened after the 2008 election and didn't mail in their responsibilities while the older conservative base wrote letters and raised hell. But, you all seem to think the past 4 years would have been the same with a republican. I just want you to realize all the social reforms that you forget about when you have the majority will come roaring back. And enjoy getting an even more conservative court. And enjoy archaic reproductive right fights coming back. Enjoy all that, seriously.

I admire conservatives a lot more. When conservatives got their asses handed to them they started working harder, running primaries against candidates they didn't like and then are putting together a really nice coalition. Liberals work hard for 1 election then just sit and watch, then cry and whine whent he other side didn't roll over and just become apathetic.

classic liberal handwringing.