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nit: The previous president could certainly have done this, but chose not to. obscures the reality that the opposition party - and its grassroots supporters was

by pnathan 10y ago

nit: The previous president could certainly have done this, but chose not to. obscures the reality that the opposition party - and its grassroots supporters was ruthless in opposing all that Obama did, often for no apparent reason. For instance, the SCOTUS nominee. It was poor behavior, giving us "legislative debt", as it fostered executive action over legislative action.

alphapapa 10y ago
Couple of issues here: 1. The opposing party's opposing the ruling party is a natural process of government. It's the normal state of things. Your saying that it was "poor behavior" implies that it was an anomaly, that the Republicans did something wrong by not supporting everything Obama wanted to do, and that the minority party is supposed to accede to every demand of the ruling party, which would be absurd. 2. The Democrats only controlled Congress for 2 of Obama's 8 years. You imply that, even when Congress is not controlled by the President's own party, that Congress should accede to his demands. This is absurd. It's not how our government works, it's not how it's ever worked, and it's not how it was intended to work--indeed, exactly the opposite is the case. 3. If your implications were true, you should be criticizing the Democrats for doing exactly the same thing right now with far more vehemence. 4. The ostensibly "grassroots supporters" of the current opposition is actually ruthless. Were there violent riots in the streets of cities across the country when Obama was elected?
- foota 10y ago
  Your comments that this isn't how the government was intended to work are spot on -- the founders did not want a two party system.
  - warlox 10y ago
    Of course, the math says that with the current voting system, any third party that emerges as a major force will always consume one of the existing major parties, leading the nation back to a two party system. I wonder why people always ignore this inconvenient theorem.
    - ericd 10y ago
      Most people don't understand that intuitively, I think.
    - chestervonwinch 10y ago
      To which theorem do you refer ...?
      - warlox 10y ago
        It's called Duverger's Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > the founders did not want a two party system. Well, they said they didn't want a factional system, then they built rules which guaranteed two factions, modelled directly after rules which had done the same elsewhere, and all while organizing themselves into two factions which were visible in nascent form in the first national elections under the Constitution and well solidified by the time Washington was to be replaced as President. So, do you listen to their words, or their actions? The founders were, to all evidence, a lot like politicians of today, publicly cursing the ills of partisanship while deeply engaged in it, mostly as a rhetorical device against the other party.

by pnathan 10y ago

alphapapa 10y ago

Couple of issues here: 1. The opposing party's opposing the ruling party is a natural process of government. It's the normal state of things. Your saying that it was "poor behavior" implies that it was an anomaly, that the Republicans did something wrong by not supporting everything Obama wanted to do, and that the minority party is supposed to accede to every demand of the ruling party, which would be absurd. 2. The Democrats only controlled Congress for 2 of Obama's 8 years. You imply that, even when Congress is not controlled by the President's own party, that Congress should accede to his demands. This is absurd. It's not how our government works, it's not how it's ever worked, and it's not how it was intended to work--indeed, exactly the opposite is the case. 3. If your implications were true, you should be criticizing the Democrats for doing exactly the same thing right now with far more vehemence. 4. The ostensibly "grassroots supporters" of the current opposition is actually ruthless. Were there violent riots in the streets of cities across the country when Obama was elected?

foota 10y ago
Your comments that this isn't how the government was intended to work are spot on -- the founders did not want a two party system.
- warlox 10y ago
  Of course, the math says that with the current voting system, any third party that emerges as a major force will always consume one of the existing major parties, leading the nation back to a two party system. I wonder why people always ignore this inconvenient theorem.
  - ericd 10y ago
    Most people don't understand that intuitively, I think.
  - chestervonwinch 10y ago
    To which theorem do you refer ...?
    - warlox 10y ago
      It's called Duverger's Law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > the founders did not want a two party system. Well, they said they didn't want a factional system, then they built rules which guaranteed two factions, modelled directly after rules which had done the same elsewhere, and all while organizing themselves into two factions which were visible in nascent form in the first national elections under the Constitution and well solidified by the time Washington was to be replaced as President. So, do you listen to their words, or their actions? The founders were, to all evidence, a lot like politicians of today, publicly cursing the ills of partisanship while deeply engaged in it, mostly as a rhetorical device against the other party.