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babylonsister

(171,021 posts) Fri May 31, 2013, 04:41 PM May 2013

It’s Beyond Time For All Democrats To Stand Up To Republican Obstruction

http://www.politicususa.com/congressional-republicans-fostering-culture-intimidation.html

It’s Beyond Time For All Democrats To Stand Up To Republican Obstruction

By: Rmuse
May. 31st, 2013

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This week, Democrats and several groups have begun anew pushing for reforms to give the government a chance to work for the people, and it is about time since Senator Reid’s “expression of comity” for his “esteemed colleagues across the aisle” at the start of the current session of Congress did absolutely nothing to alleviate the gross level of Republican obstruction that has continued unabated over the past five months. It is the push to stop Republican obstructionism, stop their economic terrorism, and install leaders to run various protection agencies that precipitated Mitch McConnell’s allegation that Democrats were fostering a culture of intimidation, or as its definition informs; to compel or deter actions with the use of threats. It is despicable that Republicans have used threats against Democrats to enable them to rule from a minority position, but their actions have gone beyond threats and their obstruction is creating real harm to the people they were sent to Washington to serve. Republicans have taken filibusters and obstruction to such an unprecedented degree that they have blocked discussion and debate of their own ideas and policies that impact every man, woman, and child in America, and they have convinced many Democrats that abridging the obstructionist tactics is toxic to discourse and bi-partisanship the GOP is successfully blocking.

Republicans have played on Democrats, especially President Obama’s, desire to govern in a bipartisan manner to such an extent that Democratic inaction is part of why Washington is paralyzed and the nation cannot progress beyond Republican limitations. There are a substantial number of liberals and Democrats that are so terrified of offending Republicans by calling out their obstruction or accurately portraying their un-American and anti-government tactics that they openly criticize any negative characterization of the GOP as “prohibiting reasonable discourse and debate” and “threatening bipartisan solutions” to America’s problems. Whether the left’s altruists are aware that discourse and debate is not remotely possible with conservatives, or that GOP intransigence drove them to reject their own solutions because President Obama embraced them is questionable, but their naiveté and ignorance of the current crop of Republicans and their opposition to governance is absolutely stunning. It has gotten so perverse that political commentators who use inflammatory rhetoric and facts to expose Republican malfeasance are accused of prohibiting discourse, civil debate, and discussion necessary to solve the nation’s problems, and it is the same argument that drove Harry Reid to just “streamline Senate floor business” instead of bringing an end to Republican Senate rule from a minority position.

It is beyond time for Democrats, all Democrats, to stand up to Republican obstruction and demand reform to allow the government to operate on behalf of the American people. That may require some Democrat, any Democrat, to go in front of the American people and tell them exactly why roads and bridges are crumbling, why wages are declining, and why education, social programs, and consumer protections face extinction. However, not only will that require telling people the truth, it will mean hurting Republicans’ feelings and engender outrage, cries of intimidation, and accusations of tyranny from conservatives, as well as incite many Democrats to decry truth as obstructing discourse, debate and their precious bipartisanship that is as much a pipe-dream as expecting Republicans to give up ruling from a minority position. Regardless of what one thinks about Mitch McConnell and his anti-government and un-American ideology, he is at least smart enough to know all he had to do to intimidate Harry Reid and President Obama was tell them attempting to govern through orderly discussion, discourse, and debate is Democrat’s “culture of intimidation” that will likely produce three-and-a-half more years of obstruction, super-majorities for discussion, unwarranted filibusters, and of course the requisite Democratic “we’re sorry; please forgive us.”