How do you win a fight with sociopaths? This is the question Democrats have

[carpe diem]

to answer. Even with all of the accommodating and compromising, only 3 Republicans are even considering voting for the stimulus. And they aren't guaranteed until the vote is actually cast. The vast majority of the Republican party has the character of Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. The rest are just too ignorant or hateful and bigoted to see that they are supporting the very people who aim to do them the most damage.

You can't make someone who has no conscience and no sense of decency or shame do anything. They obviously do not give a damn about this country or the people in it. If it does not benefit their party or corporate interests, the whole planet can go up in flames as far as they are concerned.

How do you win when the enemy is insane and you need at least 3 of them to go along with you? Add to that the vile, traitorous 'blue dog' Democrat who yearns only for the approval of the nearest sociopath and hates the (D) beside his/her own name. I actually believe that we are lucky to be getting the bill that appears to be on the table right now. It will be a relief when they actually vote, I don't trust that even the few R's can hold on for too long. They will be gotten to and pressured, esp. Specter (he is notorious for saying one thing and voting something else).

I know that the bill is not what we want, but we will never get what we really want because we have to negotiate with pathologically dishonest and cold-blooded people who WILL NOT DO THE RIGHT THING NO MATTER WHAT THE CONSEQUENCES EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW IT'S THE RIGHT THING!

Of course the President made a negotiating error that is surprising for a lawyer and someone who cut his teeth in Chicago politics. He thought if he came to the table with goodies for the R's, they would ...LOL...be reasonable....ha!...and sign on for the good of the county. Wow! I'm sure someone, somewhere tried to tell him, but here we are.

What gives me hope is that the President seems to learn quickly and I think he now realizes that just because he was able to schmooze and charm Republicans in Illinois to be more cooperative, they were not the psychopaths he has to deal with now and if he gives them an inch, they and their media accomplices will knit a rope and hogtie him with it and laugh at him while to country collapses around us all.

The good news is, were only three weeks into this and he should have the lay of the land now and understand what will be required from here on. Hopefully.

[Lint Head]

1. You don't fight sociopaths you put them in jail. They eventually

commit crimes of passion a thievery.
:dem:

[undergroundpanther]

15. most sociopaths are not in jail

Most of them are very skilled in getting away with what they do.

My solution would be to find a 99,999 percent accurate way of detecting sociopaths and exiling them or removing them from anywhere they could do harm, and keeping them permanently away from non sociopath humanity..
If they continue to inflict harm, after all that, kill them.

They have no shame or guilt so they will NEVER be able to be trusted.

Sociopaths have no internal brakes limiting what they can do to get what they want.This lack of inner restraint and empathy makes them dangerous to humanity and toxic in any social situation.

They are not mentally ill,sociopathy is what they ARE,therapy or medications do not help them.Sociopaths think there is NOTHING wrong with themselves,they say nothing has to change in themself.They think WE are inferior.

So We may have to do the "unthinkable" one day it might come to that.If we want to live in a world that isn't dominated by bullies we might have to fight them eventually.

Asian cultures focus on the relation among people, therefore sociopaths tend to be outcast or even executed, like the Inuit do with the kunlangeta, as they call the sociopaths. In America's Judeo-Christian culture of individualism, instead, many traits of sociopathy are praised and reinforced, such as impulsivity, irresponsibility, and lack of remorse.

http://www.communities.hp.com/online/blogs/mostly_color/archive/tags/science/default.aspx?PageIndex=2

[sohndrsmith]

19. Excellent description. They really are the scariest beings of all, in my view.. n/t

[CitizenPatriot]

2. They are sociopaths

I am constantly amazed at the analogies between the repubs and the wife-abusers I've had the misfortune to know.

I will take issue with this:

"Of course the President made a negotiating error that is surprising for a lawyer and someone who cut his teeth in Chicago politics. He thought if he came to the table with goodies for the R's, they would ...LOL...be reasonable....ha!...and sign on for the good of the county. Wow! I'm sure someone, somewhere tried to tell him, but here we are."


Only because I think he KNEW what was going to happen. But, he couldn't appear to pre-emptively strike. He's playing the PR game. THough it sure has been bloody and the media isn't helping at all. He has to offer.

They turned their nose up during a crisis. all bets are off now.

I have no idea how you deal with a sociopath, but first you have to accept that their goal and yours are NOT the same. You want the good of the country, they do NOT. As much as we all joke about it, I think we're loath to really believe it. But it's true.

THey'd rather this place burned to the ground than Obama be successful.

[creeksneakers2]

3. I don't think Obama has much choice

I thought he was crazy until I read that the Senate rules demand 60 votes for any measure that raises the deficit.

[bridgit]

4. You bait them first with the scent of warm, fresh, oven baked cookies then BAM!

Sucka Goes Down!

[opihimoimoi]

5. Ron White.....stupid talks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gxKStPXyn8&feature=related

[PFunk]

6. Simple. You find a weak point and hammer it.

And with these idiotic repugs it's their constitutes. Many which are already PO'd at them. Find a way of going over the MSM's heads and speak directly to them. And they may put enough pressure on the weaker ones to go Obama's way if they want any chance to keep their seats.

Another way is to brand them as obstructionists and make it stick. A hard thing to do when the MSM's on the repugs side.

[ljm2002]

11. Not only their constituents...

...but the Republic governors.

All the governors are cutting back on state services, all are dealing with education and infrastructure deficits, things like that. And even the Republic governors wanted more, not less spending in the stimulus bill.

So how are the Democrats taking advantage of this? Where are the voices shouting this from the rooftops?

Chirp, chirp, chirp...

[Zodiak]

7. I complain till I'm blue in the face

But I am confident that Obama went into this with his eyes open. The way he sees it, he approaches this bipartisanship with as much ostensible naivety and sincerity as possible (and he did, because it pissed us off, bigtime, which is part of the show), knowing that the Republicans will act with belligerence, and then he can wash his hands of making the same effort in the future. This effectively squelches the "he won't work with republicans" meme that the MSM was sure to beat him over the head with for his entire term, and casts the Republicans in a very bad light trying to obstruct during a crisis. It kills the patriotism bullshit that has been shoved down our throats from Republicans for decades, now. Meanwhile, we are pissed off and become a counter to the RW noise machine...phoning congress, remaining active for the next election cycle....talking to our friends.

In the long run, this will isolate Republicans further...and it highlights to us who in our own party can use a little trip to the woodshed.

The first step in change is to open people's eyes, and they are opening. This whole bipartisanship meme followed by the Republicans acting like babies is going a long way towards that. Their own electorate is coming to a "teaching moment".

[HowHasItComeToThis]

8. BINGO FOR YOU, REMEMBER THE MEDIA ARE THE PROPAGANDISTS

[anonymous171]

9. You ignore them unless they get in your way, in which case you destroy them.

[Life Long Dem]

10. They spent like drunken sailors and now they don't care what Obama needs

to put the country back to work.

Oh they'll let it go to a point, a point perhaps where someone like McCain might have to sell a house. Or the homeless start roaming their neighborhoods causing a disturbance and some aggravation in being interrupted from watching an episode House.

[ClarkUSA]

12. The same way we've been winning since 2006... speak truth to power and stay organized.

Oh, and have an amazing movement candidate for POTUS.

[Numba6]

13. The American Taliban (the GOP)

Republicans look to Taliban for Guidance, as they hold American Jobs for Hostage

[HOLOS]

14. The Pres. is giving the R=eptilians enough rope to hang their hateful, corrupt

destructive, sociopathic selves (again)!!

[undergroundpanther]

16. And these fools will hang there

And even bigger fools will PITY them.
And give them another FUCKING CHANCE!!!

I DO NOT want these slime bags to be tolerated, appeased or pitied ANYMORE!!

[sampsonblk]

17. How many billion is that per crossover?

We are getting robbed blind in this one.

Meanwhile GOPers are getting money for their districts, and still getting the political benefit of saying they voted against it.

This is ridiculous.

[bottomtheweaver]

18. We already won. Dems have the votes to pass any damn bill they want.

That is, if they wanted to. Apparently, they'd rather pretend they didn't. :shrug:

p.s. the rules business is just a cloak for capitulation. If they want to play hardball, they can. They have the votes.

[Seldona]

20. Did we really give them much, if anything?

We used one of the oldest tricks in the book from what I have read. If you want a million dollars in court, ask for three million.

From the New York Times:

-The Congressional Budget Office released a report on Feb. 2 saying that, over all, the Senate version of the stimulus package would provide a swifter boost to the economy, with a combined $694 billion in spending and tax breaks by October 2010, compared with $526 billion for the bill that the House approved. The total cost of the Senate bill was $64 billion more than the House plan.

On Feb. 4, Senate Democrats easily beat back a number of efforts by Republicans to vastly change the stimulus measure by stripping out spending programs and broadening the tax cuts. Negotiations continued on efforts by two moderate Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, and a conservative Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, to cut tens of billions in spending from the bill. Ms. Collins and Mr. Nelson worked together to push for cuts of between $50 and $200 billion; Ms. Snowe called for $100 billion to be dropped.

The next day, a bipartisan group of 20 senators began a series of closed-door meetings to try to cut provisions thought to be less tied to job-creation. Aides said the group had drafted a list of nearly $90 billion in cuts, including $40 billion in aid for states, more than $14 billion for various education programs, $4.1 billion to make federal buildings energy efficient and $1.5 billion for broadband Internet service in rural areas. But they remained short of a deal.-

http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/u/united_states_economy/economic_stimulus/index.html

I don't know where the author gets their math for the increase of the Senate Bill over the House version. It doesn't add up to me.

If the House version passed with $526 Billion in spending and tax cuts by Oct. 2010, and the Senate bill proposes an increase to $694 Billion in the same time-frame, that leaves a net INCREASE of $168 Billion if my math is correct.

So even if we 'negotiate' with the other side to cut the entire $90 Billion recommended in the closed door meetings, that still leaves a net increase of $78 Billion over and above the original plan passed by the House, no?

If that is the case we slaughtered them on this.

But even if the author's math is on at a $64 Billion increase, and we give them the entire $90 Billion in cuts from the Senate version to pass the damn thing, we will only have negotiated away $26 Billion out of the original $526 Billion stimulus package passed by the House.

There is the issue of tax cuts, but let's see where they go. Don't get me wrong, I am all for infrastructure spending. But targeted correctly it could help a lot of people. Like not having to pay tax on unemployment income, for example.

We may not have a deal yet, but the point of contention has changed drastically in our favor in less than two weeks imo. To top it off repubs are revealed for the obstructionists they are to a very nervous, and pissed off, public.

I hope I am not missing something here.

[Clio the Leo]

21. One of the reasons he'll win in 2012 is because he will have earned a reputation...

... for working across the aisle. Voters in the middle of the spectrum ... which is where most everyone is .... hate partisanship in GOOD times and they'll surely hate it even more in bad times. He'll need something other than "change" in four years. He'll say, "Look, I TRIED to work with these guys from day 1 and all they did was try to mire this country in partisanship!"

Mark my words.

[rucky]

22. Don't address their points - question their motives.

Nice rant, btw!