"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
02/17/2019 at 09:41 • Filed to: None
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"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
02/17/2019 at 09:41 • Filed to: None | 7
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Buffer
I read this article while I couldn’t sleep.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
This section caught my eye:
“President Trump’s assertions of executive authority remain well short of the extremes reached by Barack Obama who openly and repeatedly circumvented Congress.”
“In one State of the Union address, Mr Obama chastised both houses for refusing to give him changes in immigration laws and other changes. He then declared his intention to get the same results by unilateral executive action.”
“That shocking pledge was met with a roar of approval from the Democrats - including Speaker Nancy Pelosi - who celebrated the notion of their own institutional irrelevancy.”
“In 2011, I represented Democratic and Republican members who challenged the right of President Obama (and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton) to launch the Libyan war without a declaration from Congress.”
“Mr Obama then proceeded (like Mr Trump) to use loose funds in the executive branch to fund the entire war without an appropriation.”
“Ms Pelosi and the Democratic leadership enthusiastically supported Obama’s circumvention of Congress on both the lack of a declaration and the lack of an appropriation.”
The balance of power is a critical element of our Constitution. I told my left-leaning friends that they would indeed regret Obama’s unilateral actions to end-run Congress if an anti-immigrant conservative came to power after, and that is exactly what has happened.
We had a D president who abused his power to overcome an obstructionist R Congress. Now we have an R president who wants to abuse his power to overcome an obstructionist D Congress. This is bad whatever side you are on, and it is breaking us.
Our system is designed for compromise. This is why a Republican signed the Clean Water Act. It is why the largest immigration amnesty in US history was signed by a Republican. It is why Lyndon Johnson defied the South and signed the Civil Rights Act, despite the South being a Democratic stronghold at the time.
If you believe that “liberalism is a mental illness” or “all Republicans are racists,” stop it. It is this moral aggrandizement, and equating political issues with the moral character of the country, is what has led us to a place where the parties believe that the end justifies the means, and that holding the Presidency means working around Congress - instead of finding roads to compromise. But when each party (and their constituents) treat every issue as a moral imperative, we compromise our own principles and degrade our system of government.
Not all Republicans are evil racist Nazis. Not all Democrats are baby killing socialists who want to take away our cars. Nobody knows what the fuck we are doing, and both good and bad ideas can be found anywhere.
I don’t want to be a D or an R.
Thanks, Britain, for observing a truth we seem unable to see for ourselves.
You see, in the end it really doesn’t matter if a border wall gets built. Both are presenting this as an issue of the highest stakes. It is just a big, dumb government infrastructure project. If it gets built, the worst case is we wasted some money. We’ve done that plenty of times before. If it doesn’t, we still have to figure out out process for legal immigration reform and how to manage the flow of immigration.
The wall is about the 2020 campaign and politics. But we have told our leaders that compromise is weakness, so everyone is ready to die on this hill at all costs - the prize is RBG’s SCOTUS seat. If she dies before the 2020 election, the Kavanaugh fight will look like nothing.
It is all so stupid.
WilliamsSW
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 09:47 |
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Ugh. All sadly true.
Sovande
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 09:53 |
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Thieves. Each and every one of them are thieves.
Mercedes Streeter
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 11:29 |
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I’ve long thought the Republicans’ whining about Obama’s Executive Orders was and still is bullcrap.
Republican Messiah Ronald Reagan signed far more EOs than Obama ever did, but I don’t see them complaining about that. Heck, even Bush signed more.
That’s one of my problems with both parties, they’re grossly inconsistent and often hypocrites. EOs didn’t become a huge national issue until the black guy used them. *Sigh*
And Democrats, I hate how they’re currently pretending like they’re the greatest BFFs of the LGBTQ community. Most Dems didn’t become pro-LGBTQ until it was socially and politically acceptable to be...or about as recent as 2015. And I think an argument can be made that a lot of the Dems who “support” us only do so in name only because that’s what the Dem platform is currently about.
With each passing day I see why Madame DeLorean leans more Libertarian than I do.
On topic, only reason I can think he went the Emergency route is because he wouldn’t have gotten the funding through an EO? It's not often we see a National Emergency abused like an Executive Order can be.
Tekamul
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 11:55 |
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A lot of your points are good, but this is missing a few big things
If it gets built, the worst case is we wasted some money.
1) Much of the land, including the majority of the land in Texas, is privately owned. This is a huge eminent domain land seizure. Bas ed on the gov’ts history of abusing land values, it going to force a lot of people into difficult living situations, as they’re forc ed from long owned lands with less compensation than it would take to put a down payment on a new house.
2) The environmental impact is great. Migratory animals don’t recognize federal borders, but they do recognize fences and walls. It would devastate multiple populations, possibly driving some to extinction.
Throw those on top of the court battles, further political division, redirection of military resources that should be elsewhere, upheaval for border towns and the people therein, and it’s about a lot more than money.
DipodomysDeserti
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 12:26 |
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The hypocrisy of politicians is always rich. I will point out that the professor is full of shit when he wrote:
“ President Trump’s assertions of executive authority remain well short of the extremes reached by Barack Obama who openly and repeatedly circumvented Congress.”
Through F ebruary of 2011, Obama had issued seventy eight executive orders. Trump has already issued ninety five, and that’s with a Congress controlled by his own party. If he keeps this pace and serves another term, he’s on track to issue about a hundred more executive orders than Obama.
We need to have an honest conversation about this stuff. As you’ve pointed out, p artisan blow hards keep getting the way of that conversation.
SirDrivesAlot (now with hybrid powerrrr)
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 12:43 |
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A large part of the problem is that we have a Congress that is so fearful of offending their base that they choose to do nothing. If they would do their elected jobs then these EO’s would not be necessary. I do not agree with some of what Obama did with his (and I voted for him too) but this end run Trump is trying to do is setting up a very worrisome trend that does not bode well for the future.
My bird IS the word
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 14:26 |
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Yeah its about videogames. Skip past that part.
I was too young to play this when it came out. Suprisingly on point for 2001.
f86sabre
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 16:01 |
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Regarding declarations of war, well the last properly declared war ended in 1945. You are dead right on members of our government not being willing to have an adult conversation around the issues. That type of thing means learning the issues and discussing in a way that doesn’t fit into sound bites.
Finally, the wall. Everyone in the House and Senate knew Mexico would never pay for it. Those with a D attached knew that they were going to hang Trump with that promise. He made it easy by proclaiming it publicly every chance he could.
More and more it is looking like this...
AdverseMartyr
> ImmoralMinority
02/17/2019 at 20:28 |
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I think the author sort of skipped one big segment of American politics with this statement though:
“American politics have not been so bitter and divided since Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were forced to share the same bed in 1776.”
Did no one tell the author about that time US politics got so divisive that half the states tried to cecede and it turned into a bitter war?
davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> ImmoralMinority
02/19/2019 at 10:52 |
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If you haven’t yet watch Netflix’s Trump: An American Dream , you should.
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davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
> My bird IS the word
02/19/2019 at 11:05 |
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Love the Metal Gear series. Hard to believe 2001 was “roughly two decades ago”.
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My bird IS the word
> davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
02/19/2019 at 12:13 |
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It is really multilayered satire, kojima is a hell of a writer. The video really doesn't go into counterargument but its interesting to note that the ai has ego biases on top of everything else.