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On September 05 2025 04:19 Billyboy wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2025 13:40 Introvert wrote:On September 04 2025 10:47 Billyboy wrote:
People should use the rule when it comes to democracy, do I think the other side should be able to do this when they are in power, or do I think they should have to follow rule X Y Z. That alone would make US politics so much more sensible instead of this speed run to the bottom. This idea is funny because the saying I've quoted before is still true, "Republicans act like they will never have power and Democrats act like they will never lose it." I remember in younger days Dems didn't pretend to have so much reverence for the Constitution, in ye olden days they were justifying why Obama had to do X Y Z with his "pen and his phone" because Republicans wouldn't work him. Democrats control the actual machinery of the state at the personnel level. it's why "Dear Colleague letters" never got a hyperventilating reaction when Democrat administrations use them. Because all the dems on power agree with them. Your rule is one I've advocated for quite often , but don't pretend this attitude started with Trump. Trump is a reaction, an escalation. Gee, I wonder where he learned things like using the law to go after his opponents? A real mystery. And now we are here, because one side refused to give up their monopoly on the way government works and the other side stopped caring. I have far more contempt for the people who had the power and refused to let democracy take it from them. There is only one thing that will change where we are. A crisis of some sort, when everything hangs in the balance and compromises must be made. More and more I think it has to get worse before it gets better. Congress will have to be where things change, but they won't do it willingly. When did I do this? But also lets not keep with the false equivalence. I'm going to use golf as an analogy because people lose their perspective when we talk about policy. Trump often complained about Obamas golfing how he shouldn't have time and the cost. Now Trump golfs 25x as often, and he does at his own courses and the staff stay at his hotels, so he is massively profiting personally from Tax payer dollars. So well it is technically true that both Obama and Trump golfed during their presidency, the frequency, personal benefits and costs to the american people are not at all equal. The same is true with how Trump is running his presidency, and I guess you like that. But will you like it when president AOC stacks the supreme court and does whatever she damn well pleases completely ignoring what little rules, checks and balances your system apparently has? Because the door is now open. What I'm asking is that all Americans no matter what team you were born on and have supported no matter how stupid or awful they are, start thinking, hmmm do I want the other side to be able to do this? All of you really need to take a stern look at the rules and concentrate on making them actually sensible and fair. If you think the other side can't have their own maniac populist who ignores all the norms and fucks up your democracy and country you are very naïve. Do you really want to bet your democracy on "your" side winning? And when that has happened in countries has that ever worked out well for the people? Left or right?
That sentence was not directed at you explicitly, although you do go on to match it. You are being far too narrow and ignoring how we got here. In progressive land, we have a sudden reverence for constitutional norms or aversion to executive power that they've been living by. But of course this isn't true. First, recall what I said about the actual machinery of the state. Dems are just fine with a powerful coercive government, because most of the time they either control all of it or at least part of it. Who do you think argued for an expansive view of the civil rights laws this administration is now using to go after places like Harvard?
Or my favorite example: DACA. I remember arguing multiple times over the years about DACA with people here who insisted that it was ok and even good! because it was A) the "right thing to do" and B) that since Republicans wouldn't work with Obama on giving them citizenship, that it was ok for him to implement that program. I don't want to hear a single word about the Constitution or abusing norms from people who gave Obama a pass on DACA, who thought Biden trying to wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt with his pen was ok, or the people who cheered when a local NYC prosecutor went after Trump for paperwork that he claimed would change the election when it was impossible for it to have done so. Or when a president exercises the other great power he has: to not enforce the law. Like Biden did with the border for years. Now, Trump comes in to undo the first lawless action and once again everyone lights their hair in fire.
Just like with the Dobbs decision, what most Democrats mean by "Democracy" and "norms" is "we win" and facism is just when they lose. The different agencies of the federal government should have considered what they were doing when they try to impede Republican presidents from lawfully implementing their agendas. The thing is, slippery slopes are...slippery. Trump wins a nailbiter in 2016 and so many people are spun up into hysterics. How was that for the national temperature? Biden is elected by a similarly slim electoral college win and everyone, including Biden himself, thinks he was elected to re-make the world in his image. How did that work out?
I agree with you, we should all abide by the maxim that we should never take more power than we would give our enemies. Problem is, Democrats don't actually believe their enemies should ever be allowed to have power. And thus we are here. If one side wins by the rules but doesn't get to govern within them, then maybe next time they win they'll just ignore them all together? Sorry, I don't take this argument sincerely when it's only applied to Trump, when the same people yelping now spent the last 15 years arguing that the Constitution was a hopelessly flawed document tainted from the beginning by evil and thus should be given as little reference or reverence as possible.
Again, I have far more disdain for the people who thought that the power was theirs by right of being right. But unfortunately, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
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On September 05 2025 11:40 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2025 04:19 Billyboy wrote:On September 04 2025 13:40 Introvert wrote:On September 04 2025 10:47 Billyboy wrote:
People should use the rule when it comes to democracy, do I think the other side should be able to do this when they are in power, or do I think they should have to follow rule X Y Z. That alone would make US politics so much more sensible instead of this speed run to the bottom. This idea is funny because the saying I've quoted before is still true, "Republicans act like they will never have power and Democrats act like they will never lose it." I remember in younger days Dems didn't pretend to have so much reverence for the Constitution, in ye olden days they were justifying why Obama had to do X Y Z with his "pen and his phone" because Republicans wouldn't work him. Democrats control the actual machinery of the state at the personnel level. it's why "Dear Colleague letters" never got a hyperventilating reaction when Democrat administrations use them. Because all the dems on power agree with them. Your rule is one I've advocated for quite often , but don't pretend this attitude started with Trump. Trump is a reaction, an escalation. Gee, I wonder where he learned things like using the law to go after his opponents? A real mystery. And now we are here, because one side refused to give up their monopoly on the way government works and the other side stopped caring. I have far more contempt for the people who had the power and refused to let democracy take it from them. There is only one thing that will change where we are. A crisis of some sort, when everything hangs in the balance and compromises must be made. More and more I think it has to get worse before it gets better. Congress will have to be where things change, but they won't do it willingly. When did I do this? But also lets not keep with the false equivalence. I'm going to use golf as an analogy because people lose their perspective when we talk about policy. Trump often complained about Obamas golfing how he shouldn't have time and the cost. Now Trump golfs 25x as often, and he does at his own courses and the staff stay at his hotels, so he is massively profiting personally from Tax payer dollars. So well it is technically true that both Obama and Trump golfed during their presidency, the frequency, personal benefits and costs to the american people are not at all equal. The same is true with how Trump is running his presidency, and I guess you like that. But will you like it when president AOC stacks the supreme court and does whatever she damn well pleases completely ignoring what little rules, checks and balances your system apparently has? Because the door is now open. What I'm asking is that all Americans no matter what team you were born on and have supported no matter how stupid or awful they are, start thinking, hmmm do I want the other side to be able to do this? All of you really need to take a stern look at the rules and concentrate on making them actually sensible and fair. If you think the other side can't have their own maniac populist who ignores all the norms and fucks up your democracy and country you are very naïve. Do you really want to bet your democracy on "your" side winning? And when that has happened in countries has that ever worked out well for the people? Left or right? That sentence was not directed at you explicitly, although you do go on to match it. You are being far too narrow and ignoring how we got here. In progressive land, we have a sudden reverence for constitutional norms or aversion to executive power that they've been living by. But of course this isn't true. First, recall what I said about the actual machinery of the state. Dems are just fine with a powerful coercive government, because most of the time they either control all of it or at least part of it. Who do you think argued for an expansive view of the civil rights laws this administration is now using to go after places like Harvard? Or my favorite example: DACA. I remember arguing multiple times over the years about DACA with people here who insisted that it was ok and even good! because it was A) the "right thing to do" and B) that since Republicans wouldn't work with Obama on giving them citizenship, that it was ok for him to implement that program. I don't want to hear a single word about the Constitution or abusing norms from people who gave Obama a pass on DACA, who thought Biden trying to wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of student loan debt with his pen was ok, or the people who cheered when a local NYC prosecutor went after Trump for paperwork that he claimed would change the election when it was impossible for it to have done so. Or when a president exercises the other great power he has: to not enforce the law. Like Biden did with the border for years. Now, Trump comes in to undo the first lawless action and once again everyone lights their hair in fire. Just like with the Dobbs decision, what most Democrats mean by "Democracy" and "norms" is "we win" and facism is just when they lose. The different agencies of the federal government should have considered what they were doing when they try to impede Republican presidents from lawfully implementing their agendas. The thing is, slippery slopes are...slippery. Trump wins a nailbiter in 2016 and so many people are spun up into hysterics. How was that for the national temperature? Biden is elected by a similarly slim electoral college win and everyone, including Biden himself, thinks he was elected to re-make the world in his image. How did that work out? I agree with you, we should all abide by the maxim that we should never take more power than we would give our enemies. Problem is, Democrats don't actually believe their enemies should ever be allowed to have power. And thus we are here. If one side wins by the rules but doesn't get to govern within them, then maybe next time they win they'll just ignore them all together? Sorry, I don't take this argument sincerely when it's only applied to Trump, when the same people yelping now spent the last 15 years arguing that the Constitution was a hopelessly flawed document tainted from the beginning by evil and thus should be given as little reference or reverence as possible. Again, I have far more disdain for the people who thought that the power was theirs by right of being right. But unfortunately, the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
This is a valid, but also heavily biased argument. It is within the core Republican doctrine to argue that it is not the gun that kills, it is the shooter.
You're arguing in this post that we shouldn't give people metaphorical guns? Well, we agree then. But Republicans don't. They think it's the metaphorical shooter who kills, not the metaphorical gun, and the metaphorical gun should be freely available. Republicans want ultimate power and the ultimate right to wield it, and they never get the idea perhaps losing their metaphorical guns would be the solution to many of the problems in America. They're significantly more committed to holding on to absurd levels of power than Democrats are. I don't know why you're painting this as a Democrat problem.
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