5 ms·

Gridlocked Out

23 points by isb 15y ago

isb 15y ago
For people not following the immigration bill that is being discussed in this article, it eliminates archaic per-country limits on issuance of green cards. It has been incredibly frustrating to see such a common sense "fix" - which is supported by a majority in both parties and the industry - get stuck due to pure politics. I guess the lesson here is that it is the Senate rules that really need to be reformed.
- dfc 15y ago
  It is quite a stretch to take a perceived solution to an alleged problem with one issue and generalize it to apply to all senate activities. What would you change?
dfc 15y ago
Wow, has anyone ever seen coralcdn give a 403 error? http://www.nationaljournal.com.nyud.net/features/restoration-calls/young-innovative-and-gridlocked-out-20120315 http://www.nationaljournal.com.nyud.net/features/restoration... The mobile site is timing out for me.
crusso 15y ago
Congress has no incentives to work better since voters don't hold them accountable for bad governing. That's because voters aren't held directly accountable for casting votes for politicians who govern badly. The whole system seems more likely to collapse than it is to fix itself. The less power these children have, the better. That's why my first principle is "more individual liberty, less government". Liberty has its problems too, but having these know-nothing masterminds control us is just not the answer. I know that my "less government" rant doesn't resolve the immigration issue directly. But maybe if those DC clowns had less to worry about, they could deal with the few issues (like immigration) that the Constitution enumerates as their powers. Certainly if they did less we could monitor their progress more closely.
- dfc 15y ago
  "That's because voters aren't held directly accountable for casting votes for politicians who govern badly." The above seems more like an argument against democarcy than an argument for "smaller government." More over if we found ourselves under your "smaller government" how will that solve the problem that voters are not held accountable for "votes for politicians who govern badly"?
  - crusso 15y ago
    It's an argument against allowing democracy to engulf too many aspects of our lives, especially when it comes to the "one size fits all" democracy of the Federal government. Why should voters in Wisconsin get a say in what chemical substances I put into my body where I live? They shouldn't. It's unnecessary and just opens our government up to all sorts of abuses of the system. So many things in our lives should be left to us, not decided upon by politicians in DC who were put there by voters in other states who are completely ignorant of our lives and circumstances.
    - uiri 15y ago
      The problem is: Where do you draw the line? How do you determine what should be left to us as individuals and what should be decided via the force of majority-rules democracy? Potentially everything could be left to the free market so there is no line to draw which wouldn't be to some extent, arbitrary. We could argue that the majority can decide what the limits of the government could be, but that would be government deciding its own limits. Not the best idea if you want a small government.
      - crusso 15y ago
        The US Constitution had some great lines drawn and it required much more than just majority rule whims to change it. Unfortunately, it's been butchered by politicians and the courts and that butchering has effectively become law through practice and precedent. The US Constitution had a good run, but it's fairly ineffective now. If you're just asking a philosophical question about where to draw the line -- Libertarians have put a great deal of thought into this matter. The non-aggression principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle) may not work in absolute terms, but it would be nice to move toward it to battle the continual feature creep of the federal government. Societies, governments, and businesses have life cycles. America had a great start with the idea of Liberty being central to everything (except the ironic scourge of slavery). That notion of Liberty attracted people all over the world who helped turn the US into the super power that it was. Over time, though, the success and ends that Liberty created became more powerful than the core message of Liberty itself. Now here we are. The Takers have infected our society to such a degree that all of our societal "safety nets" are headed for near-inevitable bankruptcy. Unless people wake up pretty soon and realize that we have to act responsibly, we're pretty much doomed to suffer a great amount of financial upheaval in the next 25 years. With the new season of Dancing With the Stars underway, though, I doubt anyone will have time to worry much about Liberty.
astrofinch 15y ago
"We want those brains in our country" This seems like an awfully nationalist perspective. (Can we start using nationalist as a derogatory term like racist or sexist?) If the United States really has the best universities, I have a hard time imagining a better use for them than spraying highly educated people all over the world. Of course, startups are a somewhat different issue...
- dfc 15y ago
  Why would we start making up new definitions for words. How about jingoism?
jefe78 15y ago
I have to wonder; what makes a lot of these people qualified to do this sort of thing? I'm not saying it isn't a noble goal, but do they have any experience in behavioral pharmacology or classroom education? And yet they're dictating what should and shouldn't be scored? I cringed a little when I read they would be ranking various criteria, such as 'teamwork'. And after all the articles on introverts on here, lately.
- jefe78 15y ago
  Psychology

23 points by isb 15y ago

isb 15y ago

For people not following the immigration bill that is being discussed in this article, it eliminates archaic per-country limits on issuance of green cards. It has been incredibly frustrating to see such a common sense "fix" - which is supported by a majority in both parties and the industry - get stuck due to pure politics. I guess the lesson here is that it is the Senate rules that really need to be reformed.

dfc 15y ago
It is quite a stretch to take a perceived solution to an alleged problem with one issue and generalize it to apply to all senate activities. What would you change?

dfc 15y ago

Wow, has anyone ever seen coralcdn give a 403 error? http://www.nationaljournal.com.nyud.net/features/restoration-calls/young-innovative-and-gridlocked-out-20120315 http://www.nationaljournal.com.nyud.net/features/restoration... The mobile site is timing out for me.

crusso 15y ago

Congress has no incentives to work better since voters don't hold them accountable for bad governing. That's because voters aren't held directly accountable for casting votes for politicians who govern badly. The whole system seems more likely to collapse than it is to fix itself. The less power these children have, the better. That's why my first principle is "more individual liberty, less government". Liberty has its problems too, but having these know-nothing masterminds control us is just not the answer. I know that my "less government" rant doesn't resolve the immigration issue directly. But maybe if those DC clowns had less to worry about, they could deal with the few issues (like immigration) that the Constitution enumerates as their powers. Certainly if they did less we could monitor their progress more closely.

dfc 15y ago
"That's because voters aren't held directly accountable for casting votes for politicians who govern badly." The above seems more like an argument against democarcy than an argument for "smaller government." More over if we found ourselves under your "smaller government" how will that solve the problem that voters are not held accountable for "votes for politicians who govern badly"?
- crusso 15y ago
  It's an argument against allowing democracy to engulf too many aspects of our lives, especially when it comes to the "one size fits all" democracy of the Federal government. Why should voters in Wisconsin get a say in what chemical substances I put into my body where I live? They shouldn't. It's unnecessary and just opens our government up to all sorts of abuses of the system. So many things in our lives should be left to us, not decided upon by politicians in DC who were put there by voters in other states who are completely ignorant of our lives and circumstances.
  - uiri 15y ago
    The problem is: Where do you draw the line? How do you determine what should be left to us as individuals and what should be decided via the force of majority-rules democracy? Potentially everything could be left to the free market so there is no line to draw which wouldn't be to some extent, arbitrary. We could argue that the majority can decide what the limits of the government could be, but that would be government deciding its own limits. Not the best idea if you want a small government.
    - crusso 15y ago
      The US Constitution had some great lines drawn and it required much more than just majority rule whims to change it. Unfortunately, it's been butchered by politicians and the courts and that butchering has effectively become law through practice and precedent. The US Constitution had a good run, but it's fairly ineffective now. If you're just asking a philosophical question about where to draw the line -- Libertarians have put a great deal of thought into this matter. The non-aggression principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle) may not work in absolute terms, but it would be nice to move toward it to battle the continual feature creep of the federal government. Societies, governments, and businesses have life cycles. America had a great start with the idea of Liberty being central to everything (except the ironic scourge of slavery). That notion of Liberty attracted people all over the world who helped turn the US into the super power that it was. Over time, though, the success and ends that Liberty created became more powerful than the core message of Liberty itself. Now here we are. The Takers have infected our society to such a degree that all of our societal "safety nets" are headed for near-inevitable bankruptcy. Unless people wake up pretty soon and realize that we have to act responsibly, we're pretty much doomed to suffer a great amount of financial upheaval in the next 25 years. With the new season of Dancing With the Stars underway, though, I doubt anyone will have time to worry much about Liberty.

astrofinch 15y ago

"We want those brains in our country" This seems like an awfully nationalist perspective. (Can we start using nationalist as a derogatory term like racist or sexist?) If the United States really has the best universities, I have a hard time imagining a better use for them than spraying highly educated people all over the world. Of course, startups are a somewhat different issue...

dfc 15y ago
Why would we start making up new definitions for words. How about jingoism?

jefe78 15y ago

I have to wonder; what makes a lot of these people qualified to do this sort of thing? I'm not saying it isn't a noble goal, but do they have any experience in behavioral pharmacology or classroom education? And yet they're dictating what should and shouldn't be scored? I cringed a little when I read they would be ranking various criteria, such as 'teamwork'. And after all the articles on introverts on here, lately.

jefe78 15y ago
Psychology