Hostage Takers And Extortionists Cannot Be Rewarded

[The Magistrate]

No offer short of unconditional surrender by Congressional Republicans is acceptable.

They have to drop the gun and kick it over to the officer; they cannot just tuck it back into the waist-band and drape a shirt-tail over it.

The debt ceiling must be raised by an amount sufficient to ensure it is the next Congress which must vote to raise it, and the continuing resolution must be for the full fiscal year --- neither can have any condition attached.

[cali]

1. and that, sir, is nothing but the plain, unvarnished truth.

[spanone]

2. you are correct, sir.

[HangOnKids]

3. K&R

[tillikum]

4. I think that the American story for this century is succession.

it seems to be uncoiling faster and slower, but it is palpable.

[The Magistrate]

6. Secession Is Not An Option, Sir

No more acceptable now than it was a century and a half ago.

[tillikum]

18. acceptable..... no, but always an option. albiet a bad one.

[calimary]

13. Welcome to DU, tillikum!

Glad you're here! These bad-news bums need to be taught a lesson. Here's what they need to hear: "DISARM. NOW. DO NOT put the gun back in your holster. Set it down and kick it over to the corner. Then turn around with your hands clasped behind you so we can cuff you without incident, and keep you from hurting yourself and everybody else around you any further."

There should be a penalty to pay for what they've done. First and foremost they should NOT be allowed to have ANY demands considered at this time. WE make the demands - that they open the government back up with NO strings attached and NONE of this piecemeal crap. NO six-week deadlines. NONE. Hey GOP, here's what YOU get, and what YOU get to do: FULLY fund the government and raise the debt ceiling so our nation doesn't become a deadbeat like the lot of you have proven yourselves to be. Your monstrous, selfish, shortsighted, ill-informed, wrong-headed, utterly infantile, sociopathic, spoiled-brat, snot-nosed behavior forfeits ANY meeting or even momentary consideration of your demands. YOU meet OURS. And THEN we might have something to start talking about.

Very pleased also to be able to kick The Magistrate's most excellent thread here while I'm at it!

[Hekate]

20. That issue was settled in 1865. It's not now nor ever has been a viable option...

... regardless of the lunatic fringe.

[tillikum]

22. re: viability. that view strikes me as adolescent and incompletely thought out

considering the ratio of representatives to population since 1865, and the resulting constriction of access to our system of government by the "average" American.

America may in fact be ungovernable. we will see.

[Hekate]

25. LOL. I'm not known for being "adolescent" here. But you go ahead & explain why you like the idea...

... of a second American Civil War, because that is what secession would mean. The original Civil War cost at least 600,000 lives. How do you imagine (or fantasize) such a thing would take place in modern times, translated into real life? What's the mechanism? Plebiscite certainly won't work -- the Constitution does not allow for states to decide to vote themselves out. If you somehow did have a vote, what about the many Americans who have no intention of leaving the country? The 1947 India-Pakistan partition was quite violent and resulted in one of the greatest forced migrations in human history. How would we be different?

Don't talk to me about the ratio of representatives to population leading to secession -- tell me how to make it better. Direct democracy is unworkable past a certain population point, and the Founders knew it. The original 13 states were not ancient Athens (where a remarkably small percentage of the population had full participation in Greek democracy in any case), and the Founders of the US were very concerned about the possibility of mob rule. That concern is what led them to developing the very different Senate and House, and the Electoral College, among other institutions. They did NOT intend for there to be direct democracy.

So, tillikum, please proceed.

Hekate

[tillikum]

27. i pretty much said what I needed to but as my observation seems to have upset you personally

i'll try and as it seems that an elementary solution is staring all of us in the face. i'd ask that in the future you refrain from reading into my statements, or jumping into what Berne would call a Parent-Child interaction because i am adept at diffusing them (even on an internet forum).

but as to your requested answer, here goes. maybe if we increase the size of our governing body in our representative democracy (our system, and i think the term you were searching for) to achieve the same ratio of population to legislator within newly formed and partitioned legislative districts, we could increase both access to our representatives and our ability to build stronger coalitions. propinquity is real!

535 is a pretty arbitrary number, and as far as i know all we need is a little bit more real estate at the Capitol as well as some extra office supplies and viola......representation better resembling what our founders intended.

sorry i bruised your ego, hope this helped.

[Hekate]

31. Condescending much? You asked for my thoughts, I gave them to you

You said: "that view strikes me as adolescent and incompletely thought out". As it happens, the idea of secession is not new to me and I have thought it out. It means Civil War.

Sound representation isn't simply a matter of numbers, and more real estate and office supplies won't do it. You think we've got dysfunction now? Just multiply it by N.

My thoughts (in shorthand, as I don't feel like doing your research for you) are: Reverse Citizens United (will take a succession of Dem presidents to change the composition of the SCOTUS); get big money out of campaigns (will take getting the radical right out of Washington before we can even start); shut down K Street (told you this was shorthand).

Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

Welcome back and enjoy your stay.

Hekate

[tillikum]

33. by that logic then we don't need the 535 we have then eh friend.

lets chop it down to 53 then. or 6. see if power doesn't coagulate and distill on a linear scale if we are lucky, exponential if it doesn't.

i love an predictable argument where a comment on a view gets attacked for referencing the person and not the perspective or comment in question.

i hold the pedantry of those INTERCHANGES not the PEOPLE (big difference) exoutheneó so in fact absent any further rational discourse 9my goal for coming here), we are in fact done.

[bullwinkle428]

5. Proud to K&R this one, good sir.

[LuvNewcastle]

7. Every time someone declares war on the government, unconditional surrender

should be the only option.

[The Magistrate]

9. Certainly, Sir, Whoever Does Must Be Willing To Face Up To The Consequences

"Once in feudal Japan, a commander was asked by a soldier if his was the loyal army or the rebel army. He answered 'If we lose, we're the rebel army; if we win, we're the loyal army.'"

[dogknob]

8. Boot! n/t

[cer7711]

10. Amen to That, Brother!

What we have in progress right now is nothing less than a neo-Confederate insurrection; it must be snuffed out as firmly and decisively as the last one.

See: http://www.salon.com/2013/10/07/shutdown_shows_the_civil_war_never_ended_partner/

[Fozzledick]

11. Hear, hear!

[Jack Rabbit]

12. That's the most uncompromising position I've ever seen you take, sir

Of course, when politicians act like extortionists, it leave much room for compromise. The Tea Party/Republicans got their way on that.

[The Magistrate]

15. There Comes A Point, My Friend, Where You Have To Break Out the Iron

You just cannot govern a country like this.

These people are insurrectionists, they are wreckers. Like radical parties in Europe in the past, they have entered the government only to hobble it, to ruin it, to make it fail, in the hopes that they can rule the wreckage.

They are profoundly anti-democratic, in the 'small d' sense: they simply do not accept as legitimate the result of any election or legislative vote which they lose.

It has to be brought to an end.

[calimary]

14. Absolutely, sir! Any responsible parent knows you CANNOT reward or reinforce bad behavior!

Time for the grown-ups to act like grown-ups. And for the sniveling tantrum-throwing infants around them to try growing up a little, themselves.

[The Magistrate]

17. Indeed, Ma'am: It Is A Disgrace How Close To 'Problem Child' Parenting This Is

Tantrums by a spoiled child old enough to know better is a pretty good fit for the behavior and the personality of the Republican Congressional delegation, and the Republican voting base.

[calimary]

28. These are some FABULOUS new memes!

republi-CON "Problem-Child Parenting" from The Magistrate, and "government by temper tantrum" fom MarianJack!

Should be said, read, and SPREAD!!!

[indepat]

16. Anything less would be capitulation to unpatriotic hostage-takers and extortionists imo

[freshwest]

19. +1 million or billion or trillion. Whatever it is.

[Hekate]

21. You have articulated the perfect metaphor, Sir

The Radical Right in this country has advanced far too far into the government at all levels, and their destructive behavior cannot be sustained any longer.

[malaise]

23. +1,000 Sir

[B Calm]

24. K&R

[mnhtnbb]

26. Precisely.

[gulliver]

29. Agreed

No more threats of destruction and sabotage every single damned year from the Republicans. Americans need to be able to get on with their lives. Republicans gave us George W. Bush, war, and economic catastrophe. We need to flush them.

[horseshoecrab]

30. K&R

Many thanks for this excellent thread Magistrate!

[grantcart]

32. No compromise, no negotiations and no fig leaf.

Then we will never have to go through this again.

[TheKentuckian]

35. No promise of that. Some nuts are tougher than others but this must be the response

any and every time such antics are attempted.

I very much consider them in the act of war threshold, threatening serious and long lasting damage to our country and the function of our government.

A lot of Democrats pooh pooh the importance of money and finance, like the real life impacts don't mean suffering, misery, sickness, and death for real people just as certainly as forces on the loose but generally for a long time with a broader pain zone.

Don't discount the gravity of what they keep threatening us with or the impact that just making the threats has on the strength of our currency and the stability of the economy.

[Hekate]

34. Kick