Did they have that flag burning amendment vote yet?Follow

Somebody needs to learn copy+paste.

In other news, Israel totally kicked some road's *** a few minutes ago...Take THAT, you freedom-hating strip of asphalt!

They are desecrating the flag and what it symbolizes by making it a crime to desecrate the flag. Why do they hate Freedom???



Edited, Jun 27th 2006 at 6:05pm EDT by bodhisattva

Bah, I was going to make a thread about this.

It was going to be a poll too!


Curse you, rush hour traffic.

Scary.

Oh I am eagerly awaiting the "Democrat <insert name here> says he loves America but did you know he voted for flag burning? Does that sound like loving America to you??? This add brought to you by Veterans for Truth"

Heh. Waiting?

You do realize that's about 99% of the reason for having the amendment vote in the first place, right? While I'm not super thrilled about such tactics, the underlying principles are sound. Part of what you want to do leading up to an election is show the voters what the other party stands for in terms of actual voting and actual agenda.

Anyone can say "I'm for X", but you'll never know what that means until a vote on X is called. It's a lot harder to argue the real differences between the parties, so we tend to get these semi-bogus broadly defined proposals instead. After all, "So and so voted to allow people to burn the flag!" fits nicely on a newsletter and is understandable by everyone. "So and so voted for <some obscure income-assistance program that no one really understands>" doesn't carry quite the same power...

It's not like Liberals really have a position to complain about it. For 40 years the Dems controlled congress. Did you think it was a coincidence that a big entitlement, affirmative action, or education bill would appear magically on the vote schedule before every single election?

It's not like the Republicans wrote this particular play into the book.

Depends on what you mean by "better". In the context of using the things that are inherent in our congressional system and designed to give the party with the majority an edge, no. They're no better. But I don't find any particular ethical quandry here. The ability to schedule votes is an advantage granted to the majority party. Not using it to their advantage would be kinda like a football team avoiding plays that give them an advantage depending on which direction down the field they're facing (wind direction, sun blinding, etc).

It's not "better" really. It's just the way it is.

Republicans are "better" in my mind because I happen to agree with them politically. So, if I have a choice between two parties, and both have the exact same tools available to them, and both have the exact same advantages when they are in the majority, but I happen to agree with the agend of one party and disagree with the other, then clearly it is "better" for the party I agree with to be in the majority.

Would I prefer that such tactics be avoided? Sure. But it's the height of hypocracy to argue for such a thing only when it's your side that's at a disadvantage. If you want to argue that the majority party should have no power to set the voting schedule, then by all means, make your argument. But don't do so just because the Republicans happen to be the majority party right now. Do so because it's the right thing regardless of party in power. I have a sneaking suspicion that none of those complaining about this would have brought up a similar argument if it was the Democrats in majority, and it was one of their wedge issues being brought to a vote in the months leading up to an election.

I could be wrong on that, but I highly doubt it.

Jeez thanks for pointing that out cause I had absolutely no clue.


Seriously, how f'ucking stupid are you?

dp


Edited, Jun 28th 2006 at 1:28am EDT by trickybeck

hrm, I wonder if anyone ever bothers linking outw-ar, etc anymore. If not, might be time to remove those filters.

so, another *****-waving contest between chavez and bush? =P