Should Op-Ed Threads Be Held To A Standard of Being Rubber Room or Flame Zone Material?

[JakeStarkey]

You want to use a progressive invention, boss, which makes you a progressive reactionary. That's fine. Just don't lie that you are not a progressive trying to use a process to force your will on a protect minority. I am not like you, who must force everyone to live by your standard.

 

[Boss]

You want to use a progressive invention, boss, which makes you a progressive reactionary. That's fine. Just don't lie that you are not a progressive trying to use a process to force your will on a protect minority. I am not like you, who must force everyone to live by your standard.

More of the same profound retardation. Were you parents siblings or something?

Child labor laws.. a progressive invention!
Women's suffrage.. a progressive invention!
Civil rights.. a progressive invention!

So I guess I must be a progressive reactionary since I support these things.

Again... NOT trying to use anything to force anything. The people are the sovereign, we're not ruled by a king or 9 people in black robes. Our nation is a collection of states who are governed by representative republicanism. The power to rule over social issues is not delegated to the federal government in the Constitution, it is left to the states and people respectively. Until YOU change the constitution, that's how we should run things.

 

[emilynghiem]

I am talking about structural barriers that prohibit what you wish to accomplish.

Reconciliation as public policy is governed by law.

The law would have to be changed.

It won't be.

Hi JakeStarkey what laws are you talking about?
What is the structural barrier causing a conflict?

If you mean the reconciliation process "within Congress"
this would work just fine.

The citizens team work out the agreement in advance, what we all agree will go in a bill and what we don't push or don't word the wrong way.

The same Congress reps and Senators etc. handle the bills as before.

The bill proposed just happens to be troubleshot in advance, edited and revised where all parties already agree it
solves all conflicts and objections. Any conflicts that would make it not pass reconciliation would be resolved in advance.

So by the time the proposed bill is given to Congress to review, write up formally to put through the process including reconciliation
there are no "partisan blocks and objections" left to prevent it from going through all the steps. Congress still follows procedures,
if it involves tax revenue it originates in the House, all the same rules apply.

JakeStarkey this is like cleaning out the car of junk BEFORE you take it to the dealer for repairs.
How is cleaning out the dirty laundry first going to prevent the car mechanics from doing their jobs on the car?
If anything it would help get rid of stuff in the way!

What are you saying is going to cause obstruction, barrier or problems with reconciliation?

For example if parties are fighting over how to respond to a preventable shooting where a mentally ill schizophrenic parent gets a gun and kills the kids.
The citizen groups find out in advance the parties don't agree on the gun regulations yet, and any proposals there are getting objected by either left or right.

But they do agree to pass a law giving grants or tax incentives for medical research and training to expand free healing therapy shown to be effective in diagnosing, treating and curing schizophrenic cases. For example, this can be a compromise in the medical marijuana research, to match as many funds and grants by investing equally in studying spiritual healing as reportedly more effective than marijuana and comparing the results in patients in replicated studies.

So this recommendation is offered to Congress, by citizens contacting their Reps Senators or party contacts as we do now.
And present an agreed statement that the parties already agree on X solution, but not Y or Z. and the proposed money can either come from A B or C source.

Congress can then choose to work on passing just the mental health research idea, that all parties support and none oppose.
(while the other gun issues are still worked on by the citizen groups).

The Congress members can review the points by which this group managed to get a consensus across all the parties, look over what is written and proposed, and work that into a bill that all members agree is a good solution and worth going through the process to pass, all the steps.

So it is the normal process of presenting an idea to Congress, and letting Congress go through the steps.
What I am proposing is that in presenting the idea, why not hash out problems in advance where party differences are addressed,
and not ignored. There isn't a bill proposed where the Republicans all say yes it's a good idea, while Democrats are saying no, that has to be stopped.

Right now, that's the kind of bills proposed to Congress, like Obama pushing a onesided gun law that Republicans are saying no to, but Democrats say yes.

Instead, the citizens recognize this split, and choose to start with a policy that will address the mental health screening diagnosing treatment and cure.
something all sides agree needs to be researched and solve, and even presenting a known solution that is deserving of research and resources.

 

[emilynghiem]

Yet you want to use the progressive invention of the initiative referendum to force your will on the protected minority.

So you are a progressive conservative, one who is willing to forego his beliefs to get his goals.

So you, like many on the right and the left, are a hypocrite.

You can keep parroting the same nonsense over and over, I can't stop you, Jakey.

I suggested social issues be resolved at the state or local level through ballot initiative as opposed to being forced upon the people at the national level through judicial fiat or executive order. This has nothing to do with me getting my goals. I'm not like you, Jakey... I don't think of myself as a king or god who rules supreme over everybody and demands they adhere to my views. I am content living in a society where we collectively decide what our boundaries and limitations on society should be.

The reason we don't have a national ballot initiative is because we have a representative republican system instead. This is designed to protect the "protected minority" and it does, when it's allowed to function as designed. That does not include radical SCOTUS decisions that rewrite our definitions and create new laws. It also doesn't include radicals in Congress who exploit their power to bypass the rules, pass legislation that no one reads in the middle of the night or radical Presidents through executive order, to impose their ideological agenda.

These are measures not conducive with our form of government.

Dear Boss we can use this initiative system within a collaboration of party members and leaders with ideas to propose.
Why don't we receive and listen to each other's petitions and ideas for reform first?
Work it out, including personal issues and venting as you and Jake are going through, get past all that.
And reach agreement on what we want to initiate.

Then when all parties have put the best ideas together, reviewed each other's and troubleshot it for all the nonsense and noise,
why wouldn't our Congress and President consider this and find a way to implement it?

It could be through states, or Congress, governor or executive orders, or referendums etc.
But the difference is people would all support it, no matter which route works to implement it in the proper channels and places.

If all the parties hash out the issues in advance, that would guarantee more effectively written focused bills minus any partisan agenda or objections.

I'm perfectly open to using just the given system of legislature to propose and pass bills, if that is good enough to get the job done. Why not?

Boss what do you think of these ideas

A. someone else proposed a process change, that before Congress votes on federal bills,
a preliminary process is used to vote on whether or not that bill is Constitutional or requires an Amendment to add it to federal govt.

So some change to federal authority as broad as the health care program would be voted on first:
does this require a Constitutional Amendment ?
to add "right to health care" similar to "right to bear arms"
or "right to marriage" similar to the "right to vote" as an Amendment
(and NOT just rely on passing it first WITH THIS CONFLICT GOING ON WHERE HALF OF CONGRESS SAID NO) and then
when it's contested have the Courts rule and create these rights. Do they need a Constitutional Amendment to begin with?

B. to propose per party or per state a third level of law besides civil and criminal, but this is locally managed and may be kept optional,
where health and safety is a lighter level of violations and abuse that are not criminalized or penalized
but subject to counseling and correction if the districts and citizens OPT INTO such a policy such as in exchange for tax breaks if they
invest in prevention and counseling that reduces costs of sending people to prisons or mental wards or public hospitals

this health and safety ordinance level can be the area
by which states address
* abortion and health care decisions and policies and separate funding if people have different beliefs of what they can fund by conscience
* marijuana and drug use addictions and treatments
* marriage laws and child welfare custody issues
so abuses or conflicts can be addressed here BEFORE they become civil or criminal violations

if you are only causing abuse to your own health that's one level, but threatening to abuse, oppress, or harm another person
is not criminal yet if there is no proof. It can be prevented if intervention and complaints/counseling is managed
BEFORE a civil or criminal violation or complaint occurs.

The problem with preventing abortion and drug abuse is there are internal issues that govt is not authorized to regulate or penalize.
So what about a health and safety level, where complaints of sex abuse or relationship abuse can be consulted on or corrected BEFORE they escalate to civil or criminal issues.
This way we don't wait for problems to be on the criminalized level for govt to intervene.
People can have a reliable system, even voluntarily funded, to get assistance in advance
where it's still free choice to address problems that are not the place of govt to manage for us.

If such a local grievance and counseling process is set up through districts, churches or nonprofits can run them voluntarily and businesses/people could qualify for tax breaks or discounts if these show the crime rates and costs are reduced in that district.
If the cities agree to adopt them, then police and school facilities could be used as centers to provide counseling and other services. I think the schools would be good places, to involve both parents and students, so everyone learns skills in conflict resolution to stop bullying, rape, relationship abuse etc BEFORE they escalate to civil or criminal violations. Teachers and police can build better relations and not have all this work dumped on them as the bad guy. All citizens can receiving training and assistance to stop abuses and seek restitution for past problems that can be invested back into rebuilding their own community programs.

 

[Boss]

Yet you want to use the progressive invention of the initiative referendum to force your will on the protected minority.

So you are a progressive conservative, one who is willing to forego his beliefs to get his goals.

So you, like many on the right and the left, are a hypocrite.

You can keep parroting the same nonsense over and over, I can't stop you, Jakey.

I suggested social issues be resolved at the state or local level through ballot initiative as opposed to being forced upon the people at the national level through judicial fiat or executive order. This has nothing to do with me getting my goals. I'm not like you, Jakey... I don't think of myself as a king or god who rules supreme over everybody and demands they adhere to my views. I am content living in a society where we collectively decide what our boundaries and limitations on society should be.

The reason we don't have a national ballot initiative is because we have a representative republican system instead. This is designed to protect the "protected minority" and it does, when it's allowed to function as designed. That does not include radical SCOTUS decisions that rewrite our definitions and create new laws. It also doesn't include radicals in Congress who exploit their power to bypass the rules, pass legislation that no one reads in the middle of the night or radical Presidents through executive order, to impose their ideological agenda.

These are measures not conducive with our form of government.

Dear Boss we can use this initiative system within a collaboration of party members and leaders with ideas to propose.
Why don't we receive and listen to each other's petitions and ideas for reform first?
Work it out, including personal issues and venting as you and Jake are going through, get past all that.
And reach agreement on what we want to initiate.

Then when all parties have put the best ideas together, reviewed each other's and troubleshot it for all the nonsense and noise,
why wouldn't our Congress and President consider this and find a way to implement it?

It could be through states, or Congress, governor or executive orders, or referendums etc.
But the difference is people would all support it, no matter which route works to implement it in the proper channels and places.

If all the parties hash out the issues in advance, that would guarantee more effectively written focused bills minus any partisan agenda or objections.

I'm perfectly open to using just the given system of legislature to propose and pass bills, if that is good enough to get the job done. Why not?

Boss what do you think of these ideas

A. someone else proposed a process change, that before Congress votes on federal bills,
a preliminary process is used to vote on whether or not that bill is Constitutional or requires an Amendment to add it to federal govt.

So some change to federal authority as broad as the health care program would be voted on first:
does this require a Constitutional Amendment ?
to add "right to health care" similar to "right to bear arms"
or "right to marriage" similar to the "right to vote" as an Amendment
(and NOT just rely on passing it first WITH THIS CONFLICT GOING ON WHERE HALF OF CONGRESS SAID NO) and then
when it's contested have the Courts rule and create these rights. Do they need a Constitutional Amendment to begin with?

B. to propose per party or per state a third level of law besides civil and criminal, but this is locally managed and may be kept optional,
where health and safety is a lighter level of violations and abuse that are not criminalized or penalized
but subject to counseling and correction if the districts and citizens OPT INTO such a policy such as in exchange for tax breaks if they
invest in prevention and counseling that reduces costs of sending people to prisons or mental wards or public hospitals

this health and safety ordinance level can be the area
by which states address
* abortion and health care decisions and policies and separate funding if people have different beliefs of what they can fund by conscience
* marijuana and drug use addictions and treatments
* marriage laws and child welfare custody issues
so abuses or conflicts can be addressed here BEFORE they become civil or criminal violations

if you are only causing abuse to your own health that's one level, but threatening to abuse, oppress, or harm another person
is not criminal yet if there is no proof. It can be prevented if intervention and complaints/counseling is managed
BEFORE a civil or criminal violation or complaint occurs.

The problem with preventing abortion and drug abuse is there are internal issues that govt is not authorized to regulate or penalize.
So what about a health and safety level, where complaints of sex abuse or relationship abuse can be consulted on or corrected BEFORE they escalate to civil or criminal issues.
This way we don't wait for problems to be on the criminalized level for govt to intervene.
People can have a reliable system, even voluntarily funded, to get assistance in advance
where it's still free choice to address problems that are not the place of govt to manage for us.

If such a local grievance and counseling process is set up through districts, churches or nonprofits can run them voluntarily and businesses/people could qualify for tax breaks or discounts if these show the crime rates and costs are reduced in that district.
If the cities agree to adopt them, then police and school facilities could be used as centers to provide counseling and other services. I think the schools would be good places, to involve both parents and students, so everyone learns skills in conflict resolution to stop bullying, rape, relationship abuse etc BEFORE they escalate to civil or criminal violations. Teachers and police can build better relations and not have all this work dumped on them as the bad guy. All citizens can receiving training and assistance to stop abuses and seek restitution for past problems that can be invested back into rebuilding their own community programs.

Dear emilynghiem, you really need to work on consolidating your thoughts and posting in a more concise way. I start reading and you're all over the board with your thoughts. I know that you know what you're trying to say but it's seeming to take you forever to say it. Apply some of your own advice to your posting. Write all your thoughts down first, then review what you've written to edit out what is not needed or consolidate that which is redundant. Search for ways to make your points with fewer words and less redundancy.

The bulk of what you are saying is already being done. Turn on C-SPAN and you can watch members of Congress debate virtually every bill they pass. Executive orders and judicial rulings are not debated by our representatives, that's why I have such a problem with this method as a way to enact laws. I also have a problem with Federal government taking over the role of State governments. We are not the United STATE of America.

We are a country of over 350 million people. We cannot all sit down and iron out our various viewpoints for obvious reasons. Even when we were a much smaller nation of a few million, this was not possible. That's why our founders established a system of government that does this through representatives we elect to speak for us. They also, at the same time, enumerated that which can be debated collectively as a nation and that which is to be left up to the states and their people to determine for themselves.

However, all of this has changed over the years. Many can argue over when it happened or where it began but the fact remains, we no longer have the type of government our founders established and we're moving toward a type of tyranny our founders loathed.

When we deal with social issues like abortion or gay marriage, this is where state sovereign is important and the founders realized this. That has been replaced with a 'one-size-fits-all' type of solution under the guise of individual liberty. My state is forced to allow abortions and gay marriage even though 80% of my state opposes such things. Now we are entering an era where our basic constitutional rights are being stripped away by activist federal government. This whole thing has to stop or we are headed for a major revolt and revolution. That's not kooky crazy talk, that's just a fact of life. It's coming... and your approach of mediation and negotiation isn't going to be effective in stopping it or making the changes to prevent it.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Guys, what you want will not happen.

 

[Boss]

Guys, what you want will not happen.

Well, it happened in 1776 because people became fed up with tyranny of government. People also thought it wouldn't happen then... said it was insane to revolt against the strongest army in the world... they had no chance.

I'm not suggesting people take up arms and fight a war against the US military. That's not necessary this day and age. All across this country, people are assembling to discuss things like convention of the states under Article V. We can take our country back, the founders gave us the mechanism to do that without the need for armed revolution.

One thing we're not going to do is continue tolerating soft tyranny from the liberal left.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Fallacy of false equivalency, boss.

There is no soft tyranny from anybody, except the corporations.

 

[Boss]

Fallacy of false equivalency, boss.

There is no soft tyranny from anybody, except the corporations.

Corporations don't get to vote.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Fallacy of false equivalency, boss.

There is no soft tyranny from anybody, except the corporations.

Corporations don't get to vote.

They get to spend oodles of money, which indeed does influence the vote. Stay in reality, bud.

 

[Boss]

Fallacy of false equivalency, boss.

There is no soft tyranny from anybody, except the corporations.

Corporations don't get to vote.

They get to spend oodles of money, which indeed does influence the vote. Stay in reality, bud.

I'm in reality, bud.

Corporations spending money don't influence my vote. Do they influence yours?

Look.. IF this is a problem we need to work on a solution. We can't eliminate corporations. We can't keep them from spending money. I think the first thing we should do is identify how they are supposedly influencing the vote... you claim it's happening but you're not showing evidence.

Is this more of you just parroting Marxist anti-capitalist clap trap again?

 

[JakeStarkey]

If you are suggesting the oodles of money corporations spend on election lobbying somehow fail to affect the outcomes, you are far out of reality, bud.

 

[Boss]

If you are suggesting the oodles of money corporations spend on election lobbying somehow fail to affect the outcomes, you are far out of reality, bud.

I'm not suggesting anything, I am asking you direct questions you are failing to answer. The fact that you can't answer them should be clear enough. We're not going to get rid of corporations, we're not going to stop them from spending money, the SCOTUS says we even have to let them have political free speech rights. So it seems we have to address the problem of people who are letting their votes be influenced. Mine aren't, I assume yours aren't.. so what are we doing different? Again... Corporations don't vote... We do.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Your questions are meaningless, thus not worth answering.

Corporations are spending oodles of money on lobbying elections results: facts.

You suggest better education is necessary, but only if those efforts had enough money to counter the corporations' spending. Is that possible?

 

[Boss]

Your questions are meaningless, thus not worth answering.

Corporations are spending oodles of money on lobbying elections results: facts.

You suggest better education is necessary, but only if those efforts had enough money to counter the corporations' spending. Is that possible?

Why do you think my questions (which you can't answer) are meaningless?

Again... Corporations don't vote and they don't influence my vote. I didn't suggest "better education" ...I asked you how corporations influence your vote. They don't influence mine, I take it they don't influence yours, but apparently you think they influence someone's. How do they do that? If you can't explain it how am I supposed to accept it?

Let me help you here, Jakey... you are parroting the talking points of Marxist-Socialism. It's all about the "evil capitalists" and how they are responsible for everything wrong in your life. I'm sure some politicians live in the back pocket of their big corporate donors but it's our duty to be an informed electorate and weed out those politicians. We're the ones who vote.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Your questions are meaningless because they don't address the problem, which is corporations like unions get to contribute oodles of money, which skews elections.

That you cannot see this, Boss, is your issue: no one else's.

 

[Boss]

Your questions are meaningless because they don't address the problem, which is corporations like unions get to contribute oodles of money, which skews elections.

That you cannot see this, Boss, is your issue: no one else's.

You're not making any sense because you're not connecting any dots. How are elections skewed because of corporate oodles of money? Money doesn't vote!

 

[Boss]

Your questions are meaningless because they don't address the problem, which is corporations like unions get to contribute oodles of money, which skews elections.

That you cannot see this, Boss, is your issue: no one else's.

You're not making any sense because you're not connecting any dots. How are elections skewed because of corporate oodles of money? Money doesn't vote!

 

[JakeStarkey]

"Money doesn't vote!" Anyone who says money does not buy elections does not serve the time for an explanation. Either that person is stupid or is playing stupid.

Yes, corporations spend money to influence elections. So do unions. That has to stop if we want a better America.

What we don't want is an America that boss so dearly wants.

I tried to explain to Walter Williams that his idea of a libertarian America (John C. Calhoun was an idol of his) would have Walter sweeping the office not writing the columns.

Sorry, boss, the states don't protect civil liberties.

 

[Boss]

Again.. repeatedly telling me that something is so without showing me how it is so or why, but just because you say it's so... is not going to cut it with me. I understand corporations contribute money to both sides and virtually all politicians. I don't understand how that influences how you and I vote at the ballot box. Are the evil corporations using mind control or alien superpowers? Yes... people with money do have influence... we're not going to get rid of people with money or their influence. We've never been able to do that. So the situation becomes, we have to elect people who are above reproach and can't be bought.