The bargaining advantage of not caring

[BoberFett]

Exactly my point. The Democrats want big change and the Republicans want no change. Rationally you would expect that if this were the case (and both parties in roughly equivalent positions, as they generally are), that this would mean small change. The Democrats are willing to accept less than what they want and take small change, the Republicans are not willing to take less.

You missed werepossum's point that if one party desires no change while the other desires change, compromise means that eventually one party gets everything they want while the other party gets nothing.

 

[fskimospy]

Hit the nail on the head.

Policy is only ideology implemented in the terms of this discussion if it represents only one ideology, which policy almost never does. I feel like I should just give up on this, because I guess (predictably) the reaction was 'OMG PARTISAN FIGHT' as opposed to looking at the implications of this idea.

 

[PokerGuy]

because I guess (predictably) the reaction was 'OMG PARTISAN FIGHT' as opposed to looking at the implications of this idea.

Oh, yeah sure, representing one side as "uncaring" does wonders for stimulating non-partisan debate.

 

[fskimospy]

Oh, yeah sure, representing one side as "uncaring" does wonders for stimulating non-partisan debate.

How stupid are you? You obviously didn't read my link.

Uncaring is defined generally as 'lacking affection or warmth'.

'Not caring' in this link was referring to Republican legislators not having a policy preference for bills under debate.

Jesus christ, people.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Policy is only ideology implemented in the terms of this discussion if it represents only one ideology, which policy almost never does. I feel like I should just give up on this, because I guess (predictably) the reaction was 'OMG PARTISAN FIGHT' as opposed to looking at the implications of this idea.

There's no use. They project their own governance by ideology onto their opposition. It's all they know.

 

[werepossum]

There's that blind conservative compulsion for ideology. Of course there can be policy without ideology behind it. Policy born of logic, fact, reason, practicality. That's what the folks in the extremes will never understand.

Incorrect. Totally and embarrassingly incorrect. One can and should see logic, fact, reason, practicality. But to make policy, there must be an underlying ideology. It is not sufficient to see reality, one must also have some basis for changing or preserving that reality, or otherwise no policy is required. One must have SOME basis for making policy, after all, some underlying theme that says "A" is bad, "B" is good, "C" is so good that everyone must have it, "D" is so bad no one must be allowed to have it. As an example, everyone agrees that health care is good, but we cannot have policy that just says "health care is good". In order to have policy, we must have some ground rules. Is health care better than, say, freedom? What is the proper mix? Is health care good enough that government needs to step in and provide it? Is health care good enough to justify removing wealth from one person to facilitate it for another? If so, what mechanism is best to remove this wealth? What mechanism is best to gift this wealth to those who need it? At what point does one person's right to something (be it wealth, privacy or whatever) become as important, or more so, than another's right to health care? Are there any forms of health care which can be seen as unimportant, or is anything that can (reasonably or otherwise) be termed as optional? Are breast implants as important as kidney transplants? All these things require ideology to evaluate because, even in the most progressive government, there will never be enough resources to have everything desirable for everyone. There must be ideology to determine priorities of needs and goals as well as preferred manners of fulfilling these needs and achieving these goals, both of which drive policy.

Ideology is an underlying set of principles which must drive policy, if only because there are near-infinite possible choices of goals and numerous if not near-infinite possibilities for funding those goals. It is ideology that defines what is good, what is good enough for government to provide, how this may be done, how it may be funded, how it may be enforced. This becomes policy, which one or both sides tries to turn into law (legally enforced policy.) This silly tendency among progressives to say we have policy and the right has ideology is fooling no one. It's merely mental masturbation.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

And with that, the point of this thread is completely hammered home. Thanks for removing any doubt.

 

[werepossum]

And with that, the point of this thread is completely hammered home. Thanks for removing any doubt.

Always glad to help preserve your delusions, dude.

 

[Fern]

I think the author is wrong.

It all depends on whose ox is being gored.

If you're a Repub and don't want government involved in/running HC, you look like your pursuing ideology because you know that compromise gets government's foot in the door and then you can be sure that incrementalism will begin.

On the other hand, when you're talking about terrorism and civil rights issues, the Dems look like the ideologues because they don't want to compromise, and they worry about incrementally losing civil rights etc.

I don't really see any difference between the two sides (Repub/Dem). Who plays what role (policy vs ideology) changes with the issues etc.

fern

 

[fskimospy]

I think the author is wrong.

It all depends on whose ox is being gored.

If you're a Repub and don't want government involved in/running HC, you look like your pursuing ideology because you know that compromise gets government's foot in the door and then you can be sure that incrementalism will begin.

On the other hand, when you're talking about terrorism and civil rights issues, the Dems look like the ideologues because they don't want to compromise, and they worry about incrementally losing civil rights etc.

I don't really see any difference between the two sides (Repub/Dem). Who plays what role (policy vs ideology) changes with the issues etc.

fern

What you wrote is nonsensical.

The government already controls a huge percentage of the health care system, arguing that they would oppose that bill because they were afraid the government would get their 'foot in the door' is absolute silliness. In addition, Democrats have never been particularly friendly to civil liberties, and they are anything but absolutists on the matter. Go look at the national security legislation passed since 2006 in case you were wondering.

You're just not describing reality.

 

[Fern]

No, but when the chairman of those committees comes up and specifically asks Republicans what issues they want addressed in order to secure their votes, that's supposed to be read as attempting to meet them in the middle somewhere.
-snip-

But it's not.

I rarely employ examples/analogies, but I'll try one here - Let's say my wife wants to build a new house and I don't. How is it a 'compromise' if she offers to let me choose the bathroom floor tile in the new house? It's not.

Or, let's say one side what to go to war with Iran and the other doesn't. Is it a compromise if we drop only 2,500 bombs instead of 5,000? Of course not.

The fundamental structure and focus of the HC reform is what was not agreed to. Accepting Repubs ideas for issues to be addressed in that (unagreed upon) structure is no compromise IMO.

How do you compromise on getting pregnant? You either do or you don't.

I think the mistake here is assuming that compromise is always possible. Some times it simply isn't. In such cases, at most you can get concessions for your agreement, but IMO that's not "compromising", it's conceding.

Fern

 

[sandorski]

Protip: The current Economic problems have only delayed the inevitable. That being, that big Change is coming, one way or another. The Status Quo is woefully inadequate to address the looming issues faced by the US. Spending will be Cut, Programs scaled back, Taxes/Fees will be Increased.

 

[werepossum]

Protip: The current Economic problems have only delayed the inevitable. That being, that big Change is coming, one way or another. The Status Quo is woefully inadequate to address the looming issues faced by the US. Spending will be Cut, Programs scaled back, Taxes/Fees will be Increased.

This is absolutely true, the only question is before the crash or after.

 

[manimal]

But it's not.


The fundamental structure and focus of the HC reform is what was not agreed to. Accepting Repubs ideas for issues to be addressed in that (unagreed upon) structure is no compromise IMO.

Actually the framework was very similar to conservative ideas in the 90s in theory and later in practice with Romney care.

The ideological difference was in the fact big business and their lobbying held sway with both republicans and democrats alike.

Can you really analyze a situation where a blanket position of no was taken on EVERY position irregardless of substance including the Salt treaty which was originally put in by the great father Reagan in all his splendor....if every vote is no how can you come to this isolated conclusion?

You can cherry pick the rhetoric from both sides but in this case all you are repeating is what the machine wants you to repeat. When it comes to the health care bill during the committee days long before death panels became mantra and canon many ideas from actual republicans made it into the final bill.

 

[WackyDan]

You guys are seriously revising history here. The health care bill the Democrats put up this time is EXTREMELY similar to a health care bill put forward by REPUBLICANS in the 1990s, it's in no way, shape, or form some sort of uncompromising adherence to core ideology. (which was again my point) I don't know what to say other than what you guys are trying to put forth is factually incorrect.

Stop trying to turn this into a Democrats are good/Republicans are bad thing, because that shit is seriously boring. This has nothing to do with who is good or who is bad, it has to do with the differences in how the parties look at the same issue.

I'm sorry for even trying to address an issue deeper than 'HEY GUYS REPUBLICANS/DEMOCRATS R EVIL'.

Read my fucking comment again. You have it completely out of context. Slow down... READ, comprehend.

 

[Zebo]

This is absolutely true, the only question is before the crash or after.

After, way after. Zimbabwe after.

Why?

Because everyone KNOWS what needs to be done but they can't do it.

Try and cut military spending and take on the public employees unions or the banks and get no money from anyone. GL with that!

We have campaign contribution system that rewards graft, fraud, incompetence, greed, and seemingly crazy compromises because none wants to make tough choices. We get big government conservatives and crooked liberals.

Social Welfare? forget about that too. Go watch a couple of hours of LA riots over at Youtube to see what that would look like, everyone knows this. Or 50 million old folks voting the other way next time. Not happening.

We will print until world no longer takes our paper.

 

[Zebo]

You missed werepossum's point that if one party desires no change while the other desires change, compromise means that eventually one party gets everything they want while the other party gets nothing.

Not the way I've seen.

More like:

"You toss a goody to the homebuilders in my district and I'll will toss a sweetener to your defense contractor in your district." wink wink. None will notice if we keep this on the down low.

 

[PokerGuy]

How stupid are you? You obviously didn't read my link.

Uncaring is defined generally as 'lacking affection or warmth'.

'Not caring' in this link was referring to Republican legislators not having a policy preference for bills under debate.

No, I did read your link. Don't come up with this "this isn't a partisan thing" tripe. "Not caring", regardless of how you define it, has negative connotations.

You're too stuck in partisan hackery land to see the reality that people have pointed out to you that the position of the parties is not fundamentally different. It just depends on the situation is all. You only think it's ideology vs policy because of your vantage point.

 

[trenchfoot]

Best thread I've been keeping tabs on in a long while. :thumbsup:

*friendly bump*

 

[werepossum]

Not the way I've seen.

More like:

"You toss a goody to the homebuilders in my district and I'll will toss a sweetener to your defense contractor in your district." wink wink. None will notice if we keep this on the down low.

That is the way D.C. works - the more votes you can buy with earmarks, the less you have to compromise what you want. As long as core ideologies don't clash too much, either party can get pretty much whatever it wants just by buying votes with individual earmarks.

 

[fskimospy]

No, I did read your link. Don't come up with this "this isn't a partisan thing" tripe. "Not caring", regardless of how you define it, has negative connotations.

You're too stuck in partisan hackery land to see the reality that people have pointed out to you that the position of the parties is not fundamentally different. It just depends on the situation is all. You only think it's ideology vs policy because of your vantage point.

You appear to be incapable of dropping your love for what amounts to little more than a political sports team long enough to look at what's going on. If you want to be Terribly Offended by someone saying that Republicans 'don't care', go ahead, but that's not the point.

You are certainly welcome to think that it's not policy vs. ideology, but just the reactions from conservative people in this thread offer an awful lot of evidence that he's right.

 

[PokerGuy]

You appear to be incapable of dropping your love for what amounts to little more than a political sports team long enough to look at what's going on.

Riiiiiiight. Maybe a mirror might help you find someone who is incapable of seeing reality because of their particular tint of political glasses.

You are certainly welcome to think that it's not policy vs. ideology, but just the reactions from conservative people in this thread offer an awful lot of evidence that he's right.

I haven't seen any such 'evidence'. As werepossum posted, policy is simply the implementation of ideology. The two can not logically be split.

 

[werepossum]

Riiiiiiight. Maybe a mirror might help you find someone who is incapable of seeing reality because of their particular tint of political glasses.

I haven't seen any such 'evidence'. As werepossum posted, policy is simply the implementation of ideology. The two can not logically be split.

Amusing that otherwise intelligent people can convince themselves that support for abortion and gay marriage are just policy, whereas opposition to abortion and gay marriage are ideology. Just another way for progressives to take the high road by renaming their half of the highway.

 

[fskimospy]

Riiiiiiight. Maybe a mirror might help you find someone who is incapable of seeing reality because of their particular tint of political glasses.



I haven't seen any such 'evidence'. As werepossum posted, policy is simply the implementation of ideology. The two can not logically be split.

The only way you can take that view is if you willfully misunderstand the meaning of the word 'policy' as it is used in the piece I linked. It's amazing, the whole thing was like a page long and the difficulty of reading and internalizing what I thought to be a very simple thought has proven to be an insurmountable hill for you to climb.

In this argument, Democrats care about making A policy, which in their mind they are willing to compromise on. That's what it means to care about policy, not that laws are implementations of ideology. Republicans are substantially less interested in making this policy, because their constituencies are more all or nothing. This is not difficult to understand.

Watching you flip out about this would be fun normally, but I'm actually interested in this topic and your retarded posts are shitting up this thread. So, please stop.

 

[PokerGuy]

Watching you flip out

Flip out? Me? Can you show me where I flipped out, 'cause I musta missed it. You apparently are the one flipping out because others don't see it the same way you do.

It depends on the situation, the issue, and the starting point of each side. You say the democrats are more interested in policy and are willing to compromise, while republicans are more all or nothing. I say bull, and nobody has presented any real evidence to support that notion.