Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Very slim majorities. Yes. What's your point?
Holy sh
it... I had
no idea that they changed the rules during 2003 and 2005 so that "very slim" majorities were no longer ruling majorities. Here I was thinking that 50%+1 was still a controlling role back then.
It's like you've never heard of a filibuster. But I know you have. Which leads me to assume you're just full of sh
it.
Um... And that's beyond the political aspect of things. A slim majority means that you can't afford to do anything that may cost you even a seat or two in the next election. Surely you understand that susceptibility to loss of those chair positions might just influence which things a party makes a priority and which issues they'll let drop if there's opposition.
It's like you have no understanding of how a minority party can hold up the majority party's agenda. But again, I know you know this because you've been complaining about it for the last 5 years. So I guess we're back to you being full of sh
it.
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Sure. Again, what's your point? Remember when the Dems held majorities in both chambers of Congress but not the presidency? Didn't get what they wanted, did they?
And... you... thought... a... Democrat was in the White House in 2003 and 2005?
No. Why do you think that? I'm sure there's some contorted logic you're applying here, but I don't see it. Perhaps if the contorted process brings you to a confusing and nonsensical result, you should see if there's another much more straightforward explanation which makes complete sense? Like maybe that I'm making a point about how political parties don't always get to do everything they want to do just because they hold a majority in Congress. Sometime the reason is because they don't hold a sufficient majority to overcome opposition and have to compromise. Other times it's because they don't hold the white house and can't overcome opposition from a veto (even threatened).
You choose the oddest moments to get tunnel vision on a topic Joph.
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I just always find it amusing how...
That's ok. I find it amusing that you have no concept of how our government works and will cry about Barney Frank because apparently a "very slim majority" was a whole different animal in 2003 and 2005 and you seem to think we had a Democrat in the Executive office
Huh? The GOP had a slim majority in congress in 2005 Joph (if we're talking specifically about the Barney Frank incident, but they weren't much better off in 2003 either). You do recall that they lost control of both houses in 2006, right? You don't think that perhaps in 2005 they knew that they were on the edge of losing control and therefore weren't willing to push against any strong opposition?
Why do you suppose that so much of the legislation passed between 2001 and 2006 was bi-partisan? It was because the GOP never had the numbers to push anything truly partisan through. You love to insist therefore that they are equally responsible for the things they compromised on, as the party that insisted on those things as part of a compromise. But that makes no damn sense at all. If that was true, and you can make out the housing investigation failure as some kind of exception, then we should expect to see a whole bunch of legislation which passed on partisan lines over that time period. But we don't.
So where does that leave us? IMO, we should judge based on what a party wants, and recognize that it isn't always going to be able to get what it wants. But placing equal blame on the party that wants the thing that you don't like and the party that failed to fight hard enough to prevent it from happening is just plain silly. It's silly regardless of the specific issue. What's funny though is that you find it silly *only* when someone's trying to place equal blame on your party in those situations. You freely participate in the same silliness when it's the other party though.
So like I said. You appear to be inconsistent with your position on this sort of thing. But it's not really inconsistency. You are consistently pro-liberal and pro-Democrat no matter how irrational. That's perfectly ok, of course, except that you then pretend that this isn't the case and project it onto everyone else. To show you the contrast, I *don't* blame Obama for signing this bill. Now partially, it's because I don't think the bill is that big of a deal. But, if 5 years from now, it turns out that some provision that Obama (and the Dems) opposed but allowed to remain as part of a compromise ends out biting us in the ***, you will *never* hear me insist that Obama is equally responsible. I don't think it'll happen, but if it is, I will apply the same consistent reasoning I've applied all along.
You, on the other hand...
Edited, Dec 16th 2011 7:04pm by gbaji