**** Elections thread *****

[wufwugy]

Jeb endorsed Ted. I always liked Jeb. He gets a bad rap from conservatives because of his name, but he's been more conservative than his brother and father. Plus the younger you get in the Bush family the more they appear to be highly liberty/libertarian types, so it's possible there's a trend.

A Cruz/Bush ticket appeals to me in some ways.

[wufwugy]

So on the topic of apprehensions about a Cruz presidency,

I've been discussing him with a professor on religious history. He claims Rafael Cruz is a dominionist and all signs point towards Ted also being a dominionist. Dominionism is basically theocratic dominion of Christianity over the pillars of society, like the family, the media, etc. I've been researching how Ted fits into this, and, well, the connections are weak and circumstantial, but there isn't enough to rule it out. Rafael is defo a dominionist, but the closest thing Cruz has done is not lean towards denial of any of its elements and have support of dominionists.

[wufwugy]

The thing is that dominionism isn't exactly bad unless it translates into certain types of governmental policies. A brief history of Christianity and American government is that most Christians have always believed that theocracy is counter to the freedom of practice of Christianity (since there are so many different denominations), and that's basically why the separation of church and state became a thing. It wasn't atheism or secularism, but Protestants who agreed on most stuff but still differed and wanted to keep the freedom to do so.

I don't really have a problem with a president wanting to renew Christian values into the American narrative. The country could seriously use some elements of Christian values, but also some other ones would be bad. What I don't want is laws establishing conformity to any religious values.

[a500lbgorilla]

Trump's skillset is perfectly aligned for campaigning and he's a real threat to win the presidency.

[FeliciaLee]

Jeb endorsed Ted. I always liked Jeb.

"They do it out of love," "I <3 Common Core" sunk Jeb.

[JKDS]

I worry that as soon as the masses catch on to trump, he'll be praised for this and it'll take him to victory.

But I still think he gets crushed by women voters.

[wufwugy]

I worry that as soon as the masses catch on to trump, he'll be praised for this and it'll take him to victory.

But I still think he gets crushed by women voters.

He'll be praised for what?

Don't worry, he would lose the general election harder than anybody in our lifetime. He is even more unpopular among steady churchgoers that, for the first time in over 50 years, some of the Mountain West states could flip blue due to so many of them staying home. I wouldn't be remotely surprised to see Utah go blue since masses of Mormons would not bring themselves to vote for Trump. The Christians his schtick works on are the evangelical-in-name-only's that you get in the South and Northeast (well, and maybe Catholics, but we don't know yet).

His gender gap with women is so bad (and unfixable) that he would need to win an impossibly large proportion of men.

[wufwugy]

Clinton vs Trump preview:

[wufwugy]

TBH even if Trump hits 1237, I see many delegates abstaining from the first vote. It's a misdemeanor, but they would get away with it.

Even the RNC doofuses know that a Trump nomination would destroy GOP political presence and turn the next four years into a Democrat free-for-all on every policy and appointment their hearts desire.

[JKDS]

Praised for his ability to persuade and debate. He loses to everyone that does their homework, but in terms of quick and easI'll remembered soundbites, he's crazy good.

But, I'm hoping this fear of mine is unfounded...and that this Clinton turns this into a "woman's rights" election and sweeps.

Though I hate her too.

[wufwugy]

If he ever gets to the general, the entire Democratic base and its media loyalists will tear him to shreds. They're quiet now because they don't want to interrupt their wet dream of being handed an election they were destined to lose.

His tactics only work on Republicans because the field is crowded and the RNC media (Fox) is owned by a guy who loathes Cruz with all his might, and the main actor in the conservative media (Limbaugh) refuses to attack Trump.

[wufwugy]

Keep in mind that if this nomination was HU from the beginning, Trump would have won just a handful of states at most and would have already dropped out. That's against any of the other candidates regardless of who. If it was HU vs Cruz from the beginning, Trump would have won maybe New Hampshire and Vermont and Massachusetts and zilch else.

He is so loathed that I expect maybe 20% of the GOP base that voted for Romney in 2012 to stay home if Trump is the nominee. I would vote for Hillary if it meant keeping Trump out of the White House. I intensely disagree with the Democratic Party, but I believe the only difference between Trump and any of history's most deeply evil dictators is circumstance. The man has zero boundaries in his quest for power. It's such a shame that it has become faux pas to contrast something to Nazis, because here we have a man whose tactics and apparent motives are indistinguishable from those used by Nazis in their rise to power.

[spoonitnow]

Sorry to break what I'm sure is like wufwugy holding 18 of the past 20 posts, but Cruz sucks at poker:

Cruz also angered a number of upperclassmen his freshman year when he joined in a regular poker game and quickly ran up $1,800 in debt to other students from his losses. Cruz’s spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said Cruz acknowledges playing in the poker games, which he now considers “foolish.”

“He went to his aunt, who worked at a bank in Dallas, and borrowed $1,800 from her, which he paid in cash and promptly quit the game,” Frazier told The Daily Beast, explaining that Cruz worked two jobs and made monthly payments to his aunt for the next two years to repay the debt.

[spoonitnow]

While we're at it, go ahead and stick a fork in Cruz because his ass is done. Clinton's next.

[a500lbgorilla]

Praised for his ability to persuade and debate. He loses to everyone that does their homework

Loses how? Politics is a spectator sport in this fine day and age. You could only possibly mean that he loses to all viewers that do their homework, which is practically none of us. We have better things to do.

As a quick aside, this is why the Rs rub me so wrong with their Supreme Court nom blocking bullshit. I, personally, don't vote to elect someone to just turn back to me and ask for my opinion on all matters of state. I've got shit to do. I can't be wasting time making judgement calls on every issue before the government - that's why I elected you; to take care of all this. You're supposed to be privy to all the necessary information, you were elected to use your best judgement, but when a sticky spot pops up, you're running back to me for your marching orders? I'm half tempted to vote for Trump because he won't give a shit about my opinion in anything.

[wufwugy]

Loses how? Politics is a spectator sport in this fine day and age. You could only possibly mean that he loses to all viewers that do their homework, which is practically none of us. We have better things to do.

As a quick aside, this is why the Rs rub me so wrong with their Supreme Court nom blocking bullshit. I, personally, don't vote to elect someone to just turn back to me and ask for my opinion on all matters of state. I've got shit to do. I can't be wasting time making judgement calls on every issue before the government - that's why I elected you; to take care of all this. You're supposed to be privy to all the necessary information, you were elected to use your best judgement, but when a sticky spot pops up, you're running back to me for your marching orders? I'm half tempted to vote for Trump because he won't give a shit about my opinion in anything.

It's not the nom blocking that does this, but their reasons for the nom blocking. They're perfectly fine giving in and doing the wrong thing if enough people tell them to.

The nom should be blocked for reasons of principle, not for reasons of letting the voters decide.

BTW Trump cares deeply about what you think. He uses the opinions of voters to mold his policy ideas. Cruz is the one who doesn't care what you think and stands on principle regardless. Or at least he's the one who has done that and is more likely to do that.

[a500lbgorilla]

I'm a follow the process kinda guy, and the process says that the President nominates a candidate (which he did) and the senate considers or denies them.

They prefer the metaprocess where everyone japes around about the process to whichever is their political end.

Obama done good with his pick and I think it should be considered in good faith.

[wufwugy]

Obama done good with his pick and I think it should be considered in good faith.

"Blocking" is denial. The Senate doesn't have to have hearings on a nominee to uphold their duty. The guy has a record. He only looks like a reasonable pick because constitutional principles have been forgotten.

[spoonitnow]

[wufwugy]

[wufwugy]

Just keep Senor Trumpamos from 1237 and Cruz gets the nomination. TLDR: many of Trump's bounded first vote delegates are Cruz supporters. Trump hasn't been picking delegates well. He may not have even known about the rules.

http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2016...d-trump-doesn/

[spoonitnow]

Cruz can't beat Clinton, and Trump already is.

[wufwugy]

The sky is purple and Jesus was a turtle.

[spoonitnow]

It's worth noting that Cruz was slightly ahead of Clinton and dive-bombed after it was discovered he cheated on his wife while she was suicidal and suffering from terrible depression.

[wufwugy]

After it was discovered, huh?

[wufwugy]

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stephan...paign-defector

TLDR: An early advisor in the Trump camp: he was never supposed to win. He was supposed to be a protest candidate who would gain PR boost for future business. But people kept backing him and his ego has taken over and he's trying to win. He's incompetent on policy and lost in politics.

Fun stuff.

[FeliciaLee]

As a quick aside, this is why the Rs rub me so wrong with their Supreme Court nom blocking bullshit.

http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/22/...ourt-nominees/

[spoonitnow]

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stephan...paign-defector

TLDR: An early advisor in the Trump camp: he was never supposed to win. He was supposed to be a protest candidate who would gain PR boost for future business. But people kept backing him and his ego has taken over and he's trying to win. He's incompetent on policy and lost in politics.

Fun stuff.

No shit. And he's still winning. Think about that for a moment. The fact that he is winning is exactly the reason why he needs to. Politics needs something like this.

As an aside, I think you'd really like the HBO series The Newsroom if you haven't seen it already. I'm certain it would become one of your favorite shows you've ever seen.

[spoonitnow]

Also, I think that Trump's path to winning in the general is going to be picking up a ton of Bernie supporters. I don't think Hillary will take Bernie as her running mate.

[wufwugy]

No shit. And he's still winning. Think about that for a moment. The fact that he is winning is exactly the reason why he needs to. Politics needs something like this.

That's one of the better arguments I've seen for Trump. My problem with it is that the value this element brings isn't gigantic; it's not tiny but it's not big. It comes at the expense of so many other bigger things. On top of how there's a different guy in the race who brings even more of what politics needs, particularly what many Trump supporters say they care about yet they tend towards low information and bobbleheading enough that they don't know this fact.

As an aside, I think you'd really like the HBO series The Newsroom if you haven't seen it already. I'm certain it would become one of your favorite shows you've ever seen.

I loved the first season. It got bad though.

[wufwugy]

http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/22/...ourt-nominees/

I wish I was a Senator just so I could block a Clinton nominee for 4 years. Standing up for what's right is a winning position.

[wufwugy]

No shit. And he's still winning. Think about that for a moment. The fact that he is winning is exactly the reason why he needs to. Politics needs something like this.

Another thing, if we're using heuristics, a Trump presidency would be a similar type of bad as an Obama presidency, where people went with their emotions, ignored facts, and thought things like "somebody like this will be good for politics."

[wufwugy]

A little while after Trump loses the nomination, expect to hear about Fox falling to an astounding depth in ratings. Even though the network has seen higher traffic from Trump, it has lost about half of its base traffic. Most of this new traffic will vanish once Trump does. Similar will be true for Limbaugh. Neither will fully recover from this unabashed support for Trump. They're thinking short when they should be thinking long.

[wufwugy]

To know how badly Trump would bungle the presidency, look at how badly he has bungled, um, everything else.

He consistently under-performs quantitative expectations. He's greatly under-performing in the hidden primary (delegate selection and stuff). His asinine media habits got him in deep shit by calling Cruz's wife ugly. His cult of incessant lying and bullying has gotten his campaign manager arrested for something where the victim didn't even intend to press charges in the first place. The man is a walking disaster and if he somehow pulled a rabbit out of his ass and beat Hillary from her prison cell, he would have the most scandal-plagued presidency probably ever and would lose to a 2020 primary.

[spoonitnow]

http://tinyurl.com/wufwugyblog

[spoonitnow]

Also, Trump wins when he pulls a ton of Bernie supporters from under Clinton. Her only option to win is taking Sanders as her running mate, which will never happen.

[wufwugy]

Why do you say she won't take Sanders as her running mate. She might and she probably should. Pretty much the only other option is Warren, but she may not accept.

Disaffected Sanders support wouldn't help Trump much, especially since it wouldn't put any Republican over the top in the swing states.

[wufwugy]

Proof that Trump's followers are clueless: Trump attacked Walker for not raising taxes in Wisconsin. Easily 85% of Trump's followers think they are taxed too high already, yet I guarantee <10% will ever hear about this or any of the million other retarded things Trump says and believes.

[spoonitnow]

Proof that the vast majority of people who vote are clueless: Trump attacked Walker for not raising taxes in Wisconsin. Easily 85% of Trump's followers think they are taxed too high already, yet I guarantee <10% will ever hear about this or any of the million other retarded things Trump says and believes.

fyp

From this post and others, you seem to think that politics (in both campaigning and all other forms) has the slightest thing to do with being right or doing the right thing or even being effective.

[wufwugy]

Calling Trump supporters dolts doesn't mean other voters aren't. Trump supporters are a subset of a larger sample of dolts.

From this post and others, you seem to think that politics (in both campaigning and all other forms) has the slightest thing to do with being right or doing the right thing or even being effective.

Strange. I wouldn't think that.

Politics is sales. There are all sorts of different kinds of sales. That doesn't mean that one kind of sale works while none of the others do.

You may be reading my posts wrong.

[a500lbgorilla]

http://thefederalist.com/2016/02/22/...ourt-nominees/

What's your point here?

[FeliciaLee]

What's your point here?

You said you are turned off by the right because of things like this, but both parties do this kind of crap all of the time.

[a500lbgorilla]

That doesn't stop me from disliking the Rs for doing it now.

[spoonitnow]

So much non-thinking in this thread. It's why I stopped hanging out in here.

[wufwugy]

So much non-thinking in this thread. It's why I stopped hanging out in here.

You're focused on one dynamic of a complex system.

I've done a decent job of laying out analyses with strong predictive power. When everybody was awash in how inevitable Trump was, I was providing explanations for why he was not inevitable. When Cruz was on nobody's radar, I was detailing how he was not only a major player but potentially the hidden favorite. When everybody was enamored with Marcomentum, I gave specifics on why he was dead yet nobody was seeing it. The claim of non-thinking in this thread is simply inaccurate.

There's no need to mess your britches just because Trump will not be the nominee.

[JKDS]

You cant really say you called cruz when you called almost everybody at some point.

Calling it now: Walker/Rubio 2016!

Probably wrong

if hillary wins, imma eat my sock

dont bump this


more seroiusly, like back in 2013 i predicted walker would win the nomination. seems to not be too far off. granted now i think rubio will get it

I really do think Rubio takes it away. It just seems nobody can compete with his total arsenal. The guy is a natural at every aspect of campaigns.

Rubio wins all. Bank it.

I now think it's going to be Bush..

The country needs President Carson.

The establishment wisdom that Carson could never be the nominee is so so wrong.

...

The stage is seriously ripe for Carson to win.

Cruz is the quintessential darkhorse IMO

I have decided that the most formidable GOP ticket would be Rubio/Fiorina.

OTOH I think Cruz is the one likely to make the least amount of strategic mistakes.

Calling it now, President Carson sits the Oval in 2017.

[wufwugy]

^^ Little of which was analysis I gave.

I would never claim that I get on the correct positions from the beginning. Analysis is about convergence. You go with what you have and entertain every possibility and narrow things down as you go. If you do it well, you get to more good spots before others do. The stuff you quoted was batting things around and saying stuff that could never be rightly used to claim predictive power.

There's a world of difference between back before Iowa having off the cuff said "Rubio gonna win it all" and before Super Tuesday explaining in detail why Rubio was eliminated based on state projections. I'm not sure to what extent I did it here, but I know I did it elsewhere. This is one of the bigger ones because it was at the time that Rubio had the second highest equity (second to Clinton) to win the entire race in the betting markets, yet I was adamant that he was egregiously over-valued. Then just a few weeks later, the reasons for why he was over-valued revealed and he plummeted in the markets.

You cant really say you called cruz when you called almost everybody at some point.

The claim that I called Cruz has nothing to do with having stated it at any point, because, as you pointed out, I have called just about everything. To the way my mind works, jumping on everything is the right way to mull things over. What matters is the explanations. I made off hand remarks about thinking Rubio was going to win, but then later, after more information was gathered, I spent a page or two explaining why Cruz was being underrated. These are two different types of things.

I would never say that I don't say things that are wrong. But what I would say is that if you follow what I say, you will get to the right spot more often and more quickly than by following the average pundit.

[boost]

Dude, your hand waving to explain away JKDS' compilation just makes you look downright delusional.

[wufwugy]

Dude, your hand waving to explain away JKDS' compilation just makes you look downright delusional.

My initial claim was never that I have predicted things because I have at some point said them. You must think I'm the world's dumbest person if you think I would be so stupid as to think that I can claim predictive victory simply because of something I once said. Clearly, when I referenced analyses I've given with predictive power, I was talking about something else entirely.

There was no hand waving to JKDS' response. His compilation misunderstood my initial statement and I clarified why.


I know nobody reads most of what I post in here, much less follows my thinking as it develops. It makes sense that what stands out are the widely various snippets. I have put boat loads of text into why I thought Cruz was greatly underrated long before that was the common narrative, yet I get told that doesn't count because long before that I put a couple lines into saying something contrary.

[wufwugy]

It's like how I got banned from the 2p2 Game of Thrones thread. During the off season, I had made all sorts of wacky predictions; some were accurate but most weren't (as should be expected at that point). Nobody thought I was a bookreader and paid me no nevermind. Then as we got deep into the season, I laid out a detailed explanation of one specific thing I thought was just around the corner, and then I got banned. Apparently I had gotten it right to the point that they thought I had book knowledge and was spoiling.

Early, varied, and unsubstantiated claims are of a different nature than later, specific, and detailed claims.

[wufwugy]

BTW I really hate this line. Pushing predictive skills is an idiotic position to hold even if you're right. I've certainly made many predictions (ones I consider legitimate predictions meant specifically as predictions) that were wrong. Especially with somebody who posts the way I do, it can appear on the surface that I'm a retard.

My intention was only to point out why Spoon's statement was incorrect.

[a500lbgorilla]

Yeah, let's be clear who really called Cruz

Cruz is the cleverest mfer in the Rs today.

Cruz has a tomorrow. Enjoy 2017.

Ted Cruzin' and a brusin'

[wufwugy]

Yes you saw through the fiction earlier than most.

[a500lbgorilla]

I like Cruz.. I respect the game he's playing... He holds himself infront of his people like he's wearing flowing robes of white and he's crisp enough to handle himself if anyone tries to corner him. I think he's completely bonkers though.

Let's not forget though

[wufwugy]

How come?

[a500lbgorilla]

In Thomas Schelling's the Strategy of Conflict, he talks about how commitment influences negotiation. There's a big difference, he says, between demanding someone's wallet at knife-point while wearing a jacket, chinos, wingtips, and a smiling face versus wearing disheveled half-clothes and staring through unblinking bloodshot eyes.

If you can make them believe you'll realize the worst outcome as a matter of course, they'll be more amenable to concessions.

Ted ran this gambit against the entire congress and the entire country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...utdown_of_2013

Now I didn't personally appreciate this because it's insane and so I still consider him to be capable of insanity.

He's the leading edge of the executioner's axe of the Republican Party. Well.. maybe Trump's the leading edge and Cruz is the Priest to administer Last Rites.

[a500lbgorilla]

Also, as a quick aside, I'd like to notice that the appeal of Trump and Bernie is their authenticity. For some, Trump appears to speak his mind, for others, Bernie has a resume a life-long that says he means exactly what he says and intends to do just that.

And in that same vein, I welcome you to this: http://www.radiolab.org/story/montreal-screwjob/

[wufwugy]

Concerns over Cruz's shutdown tactic are legitimate. I disagree and think it's a quality tactic. They get ya to do the bidding of the state by making not doing so look crazy.

He's the executioner's ax of the RINOs, not the party itself. RINO is a bad label, as it should be CILO (conservative in label only), but the point is that Congress is full of GOPers who campaign on principle but then give in to most of the wishes of the opposition even when they hold the most power.

[a500lbgorilla]

Concerns over Cruz's shutdown tactic are legitimate. I disagree and think it's a quality tactic. They get ya to do the bidding of the state by making not doing so look crazy.

I agree it's a quality tactic. I just see where I stand in relation to it, is all.

[wufwugy]

Where do you stand?

[a500lbgorilla]

I dunno.

[wufwugy]

500lbgorillas For Underwood!

[a500lbgorilla]

Well, the first way I took that question is appropriately answered by I dunno. I don't know where I stand on matters of State. I only have a sense of which is a good choice and which isn't. But, more broadly, I know where I stand in relation to the gov't shutdown... I'd like for stability, predictability, sturdiness... you know how Banks build those big granite pillars, I'd like the gov't to constantly signal its granite stability to me.

[wufwugy]

I agree with those values. It's complex though. Stability isn't the only virtue, as you can be stably negative.

I'll support shutdown tactics if they're for the purpose of reasserting liberty and responsibility (stably so).

[wufwugy]

Yo, Rilla, food for thought (a theory I've been batting around): pragmatism is a path to tyranny. Example: take John Kasich, a guy whose defense against big government is mostly just responding to big government policies by saying "that's not realistic." When somebody wants government to pay for college, his response is that it's not realistic for the practical purposes of the tax increases it would take to enact the policy. He claims to be a conservative because of this. But I think there's nothing conservative about this, and indeed it shows that he's every bit as philosophically inclined towards government authoritarianism as his more obvious counterparts like Sanders, despite the fact that he doesn't realize it. This is because his position necessarily means that if there was a surplus, regardless of the reason for that surplus, it would mean that government paying for college would become realistic, and thus according to his rationale, government funded college would then be something he could support.

It's by his pragmatism that he could get from a situation of liberty to a situation of authoritarianism and not know it. This is part of why I support strategies based in ideals and principles. It's probably less wrong for somebody like Cruz to try to make positive change by periodically shutting down the government yet failing than it is for somebody like Kasich to maintain a steady and practical course that inevitably leads to greater tyranny.

[wufwugy]

Tying into this, I think people kid themselves when they claim to know what is practical and what is not. The stuff that ends up happening is typically stuff that didn't look practically possible at the time. The course of history is made by that which is unpractical. This is why standing on principle is important and standing with pragmatism is dangerous. When you stand on principle, that which becomes practical ends up being something influenced by the stood-on-principle, but when you stand with pragmatism alone, you're really just opening the doors to whatever powers are most persuasive at the time. The latter doesn't build strong societies.

[JKDS]

We're gonna play Monopoly the way I want, and if you don't play that way, I'm flipping the table over and sitting on the board until you agree.

The government shut down was a bullshit tactic, and spat in the face of democracy. The republicans don't get to singlehandedly decide an issue by singlehandedly also taking away our entire system. People lost jobs over this.

"Oh but Obama care bad wah wah wah". Tough fucking shit. Use democracy like how you're supposed to it and vote to fix it. Don't flip the table over and attempt to take this issue away from the system our nation was built on. It's total asinine crap.

[JKDS]

Now is it strategic, legal, possible, and potentially effective? Sure.

But Senators are supposed to be representatives of the states. Representatives of the people in those states. As a whole, they represent our nation, and the best that we have to offer. And our system is one where we take issues, like Obama care, and debate and argue and whatever until we come to a vote and a resolution. We may disagree on many issues, and the pendulum may swing further to the right on some days and further to the left on others, but it's supposed to be that we, as a nation, are always striving to work together to figure out what's best for this country. You have a point, so do i, what do we do when we disagree? The answer cannot be "im sitting on the board till you agree with me"

[wufwugy]

We're gonna play Monopoly the way I want, and if you don't play that way, I'm flipping the table over and sitting on the board until you agree.

The government shut down was a bullshit tactic, and spat in the face of democracy. The republicans don't get to singlehandedly decide an issue by singlehandedly also taking away our entire system. People lost jobs over this.

"Oh but Obama care bad wah wah wah". Tough fucking shit. Use democracy like how you're supposed to it and vote to fix it. Don't flip the table over and attempt to take this issue away from the system our nation was built on. It's total asinine crap.

I'm not sure what democracy you think it spat in the face of. It aligned just fine with the republic. There were no system takeover elements involved and the economic effects aren't actually known.

The media got this one wrong.

[wufwugy]

Now is it strategic, legal, possible, and potentially effective? Sure.

But Senators are supposed to be representatives of the states. Representatives of the people in those states. As a whole, they represent our nation, and the best that we have to offer. And our system is one where we take issues, like Obama care, and debate and argue and whatever until we come to a vote and a resolution. We may disagree on many issues, and the pendulum may swing further to the right on some days and further to the left on others, but it's supposed to be that we, as a nation, are always striving to work together to figure out what's best for this country. You have a point, so do i, what do we do when we disagree? The answer cannot be "im sitting on the board till you agree with me"

It's a tactic just like the others. There are those who believe that the continual raising of the debt ceiling and funding of the rapidly inclining socialist and statist agenda is causing intense damage to peoples' lives.

Put some of this in perspective. The government's intrusion into your life is drastically higher than it was intended to be and than it would have been at most points in history. The country didn't start out with an IRS, it didn't start out with an unfathomably bloated job-killing anti-production welfare system, it didn't start out with untold numbers of burdensome regulations. For most of its history, it didn't have these or only had them in small ways. These things are causing incredible damage, and the time we live in right now is only a revving of the engine of more of these destructive elements.

Fighting against that by using a negotiation tactic of shutting down some periodic government functions is not only legitimate, but it's the least of what would be considered reasonable to the framers of our government.

[JKDS]

They sure did, because if they did they're jobs congress would be in full Democrat control right now.

[JKDS]

It's a tactic just like the others. There are those who believe that the continual raising of the debt ceiling and funding of the rapidly inclining socialist and statist agenda is causing intense damage to peoples' lives.

Put some of this in perspective. The government's intrusion into your life is drastically higher than it was intended to be and than it would have been at most points in history. The country didn't start out with an IRS, it didn't start out with an unfathomably bloated job-killing anti-production welfare system, it didn't start out with untold numbers of burdensome regulations. For most of its history, it didn't have these or only had them in small ways. These things are causing incredible damage, and the time we live in right now is only a revving of the engine of more of these destructive elements.

Fighting against that by using a negotiation tactic of shutting down some periodic government functions is not only legitimate, but it's the least of what would be considered reasonable to the framers of our government.

Since when does democracy give two shits about what "some believe"?

This system of ours deals with disagreement through voting. The republicans wanted to kill the affordable care act, and since they Couldn't get the votes to do so, they decided to defund the government instead.

Utter complete madness.

[wufwugy]

They sure did, because if they did they're jobs congress would be in full Democrat control right now.

I don't understand your point.

[wufwugy]

Since when does democracy give two shits about what "some believe"?

You presented reasons against the shutdown tactic based on what some believe. I countered in kind.

Also, it's not a democracy.

This system of ours deals with disagreement through voting. The republicans wanted to kill the affordable care act, and since they Couldn't get the votes to do so, they decided to defund the government instead.

Disagreement through voting is not the only thing it is. Defunding the growth of government is a legitimate negotiation tactic (not to mention a legitimate policy as is), and some think a tactic/policy that provides net benefit to citizens.

Utter complete madness.

I'm telling you it's not. The media got this one majorly wrong. They want nothing more than the Democrat Party's agenda to go through, so they framed this entire thing as illegitimate, crazy, scornful, anti-all-the-good-things Republican obstructionism.

[wufwugy]

Keep in mind that what you're calling utter complete madness, I call small beans. If I had my way, I'd run a 100x bigger shutdown til the cows come home (read: forever), and I would do it because I believe it would vastly improve the lives of American citizens.