Civil Unrest next level or the beginning of the failure of our democracy

Wholly evil, no- but people I would have no problem doing whatever is necessary to stop because they are advocating a path that is purely evil, yes. I just hope the necessary is peaceful, and still believe it can be.

When those little ladies realize they are duped, and stop supporting Trump, I will no longer consider them an enemy. I am willing to forgive and welcome back.

My point was this, you said the following:

When just prior you had said:

Which is… making a statement. So your point becomes self contradictory on this end.

And the fact is that numerous people have proposed ways and means for a sitting Senator to do more than just make mention of their ‘deep discomfort’. How there are real concrete actions they can take. Now obviously with McTurtle leading the senate, some moves are more effective than others. But sponsoring bipartisan legislation (even if it doesn’t go to the floor, which you can hammer McConnel for), forcing contentious votes and debates, withholding support for judicial nominees, actually using the office to reclaim some of the power ceded and hold the president accountable as a co-equal branch of government.

They’re senators, not some powerless shrinking violet. If ICE is acting as a gestapo force you have the power to end it. Put legislation out there, force votes, do the hard work of politics.

Don’t just say you are concerned and troubled. If you hate making statements with no force or action behind them, as you say, how can you possibly be satisfied with their inaction?

So, yeah, lots of actions they can take have been proposed here. You’ve chosen to ignore them because you either dislike them, or in search of maintaining the ‘moderate’ title, give Republicans a pass when they really, absolutely, do not deserve one.

Question, are people being duped evil? That’s a real question, not a trick one.

People that are buying narratives/propaganda and not seeing the underlying truth/evil are they evil?

I think my call on that is no, they are not, they are stupid. My position is narratives over facts allow evil to occur. Everyone embraces narratives, I see it all over in almost every post here, but unlike Trump they don’t wield it for evil/personal gain. Its just a tool that can be easily manipulated for such purposes, and for that alone is why I despite its use, generally speaking, in politics.

They’re not evil, they’re duped for some reason. This is why they are forgivable, but when it comes to preserving American freedom, you do what is necessary (what is necessary is a matter up for debate, for example Armando might be willing to take more drastic steps than I would right now)

I do think you have to call evil when you see it- and I have no issue with calling Trump evil in a way I would not have used for even Bush Jr. With Bush Jr. I at least felt he would respect his own electoral and political defeats and at least mostly the rule of law, and that if God came down and told him the truth about his policies, he would have changed them.

Trump wouldn’t.

I don’t believe so. Making a statement in the context I mean it is political theater, knowing it will have no real result

While if you have integrity you say X is wrong even if its someone you like or your side. They are showing integrity taking a risk to buck political lines and say Woah, this is wrong!

The GOP had more voices speak out against this than any other action he’s taken recently, and it resulted in the President changing policy. This by definition makes it not theater, since it had the desired result.

That’s not my position. So I agree with you. my position is, what action can they take that are not mainly symbolic. The vast majority of the players in the GOP right now are ‘cultish’ as corker describes it. So a handful of old guard republicans that have integrity don’t have a great hand to move the bar toward sanity…yet.

They can submit legislation that wont go anywhere, they can become obstructionist (which no one really respects- or I don’t anyway). they can…?

Yes, this is the problem. You’re the only person in the conversation who thinks that for a Senator to use his voting power to influence a President is some kind of awful behavior we ought to disrespect.

I completely agree with every word you said.

You raise the real question I think, what do we define as necessary, how far are we willing to break/bend our existing system of government to stop a criminal?

For some I feel they want our sane leaders to go to far, but then that’s always going to be subjective measure.

Which is why I don’t like bending/breaking institution rules unless you are willing to bare the cost of a constitutional crisis…

LOL, ill concede that. Its my values and Ill stick to them even if they are inconvenient. its not the first time I’ve dealt with that.

If a Republican senator were to vote with Democrats in the Judiciary Committee demanding an investigation into, say, the formulation and promulgation of the policy that led to mass family separations, how would that in any way not be doing the job they were elected for? And if any Republican senators are in fact decent people, why haven’t they done this?

Well, the problem is, it doesn’t seem like that at all. It looks more like it’s an argument of convenience. Here’s why I say that.

You speak approvingly of McCain’s vote in 2017 to spike repeal of the ACA. If you disapprove of obstructionism for its own sake, that must mean that you think his vote was made out of some conviction to save the ACA. But if you examine the historical context, it’s absurd to think that.

McCain voted 3 times against the ACA when it was first passed: He voted to prevent cloture on 12/23/09, he voted against Senate passage on 12/24/09, and he voted against the reconciliation bill on 3/25/10.

Then, on 2/2/11, he cast a vote in the Senate to repeal the ACA.

Then, on 12/3/15, he cast a vote in the Senate to repeal the ACA. Here’s what he said about the ACA on the Senate floor:

“Today, I am proud to once again stand with my Republican colleagues as we continue the fight to repeal and replace Obamacare. From the start I opposed the sweeping scope of this healthcare law…”

Then he ran for reelection in the Senate in 2016. Not surprisingly, he campaigned against the ACA.

5/16/16: “The Obamacare system is collapsing and tens of thousands of Arizonans are being forced to find new health-care coverage and brace themselves for higher premiums next year,” McCain campaign spokeswoman Lorna Romero said in a written statement to The Arizona Republic . “Democrat Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick’s continued support of the failed health-care system shows she is nothing more than a rubber-stamp for President Obama and the liberal establishment."

8/29/16: Senator John McCain (R-AZ) is seeking re-election for a 6th term, in a state where Blue Cross Blue Shield is pursuing a rate increase of more than 51%. To Senator McCain, the answer is obvious; Obamacare is unraveling. He tells FOXBusiness.com “the whole thing is collapsing like a house of cards.”

9/16/16: The fundamental problem is they decided they were going to take money from healthy, young Americans to subsidize the health care of not-so-healthy older Americans,” McCain said. “This is why there has to be a repeal.”

McCain opposed the ACA at every single opportunity he had, both rhetorically and with his vote. Then, suddenly, on 7/28/17, after 8 years of railing and voting against the ACA, he suddenly votes to save it, and he does it in a way to maximize the irritation value it has for Trump.

It’s perfectly clear from the record that he cast that vote simply to frustrate Trump, who he dislikes. So, he did what you said you deplore: He voted simply to be obstructionist, against his own stated convictions. Why, then, do you seem to approve of his vote?

I consider ourselves to already be in a systemic crisis, and that the actions of the current administration are a crisis on top of that.

The systemic crisis might solve itself eventually, but the actions of the administration can only be checked through mass revolt at the polls, or worse (which I hope isn’t the case- because the US would become Syria)

Nothing you say is incorrect. He wanted to repeal and replace. Except what he rejected was just a straight repeal. which isn’t good for anyone.

there was 5 minutes after Trump was elected I was curious if he had a actual ‘plan’, turned out to be all smoke and mirrors.

He thought they could do better, but taking it away without a adequate plan to replace was a non starter. I saw that, anyone with some objective thinking did.

I’m certain he would have voted “for” it, if had been a reasonable repeal and replace option…but just repeal? no.

The earlier bills he voted for had no replacement component, yet he voted for them anyway.

Here’s the text of the 2011 bill he voted for. Find the replace part if you can.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/6079

Wasn’t aware of that, and I don’t know the details about that either, there might be other factors effecting that. Every time I heard him speak he was adamant we could do better, I agreed with that. His vote in the end also reflected that.

If he took actions not consistent with that earlier for some convoluted political reasons I would be… disappointed. Its a good point and I’d research it, if he was still in office.

ew, I really don’t like the wording in this bill, and its inaccurate though I’m curious if the following is true or taken out of context…
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts that health insurance premiums for individuals buying private health coverage on their own will increase by $2,100 in 2016 compared to what the premiums would have been in 2016 if the law had not passed.”

Yet my doing a lot of work to point it out to you doesn’t seem to change your mind at all. You still think it is wrong for legislators to oppose things just to be obstructive, and you still think McCain was right to vote against the ACA repeal. Is that right?

His actions don’t effect my values, his actions that reflect my values garner my support.

This applies to both sides by the way,

That’s cryptic, but I think you mean you approve of the means because you approve of the result.

If so, then presumably you would approve of several Republican Senators joining with the Democrats on a vote of censure against the President, or to reject the appointment of someone you thought was bad, or even to threaten such actions in order to (for example) force the President to stop putting kids in cages? Because those actions would reflect your values?

I support vocalizing support of a position I hold, more effectively important is action to that goal.

I would definitely support it, specifically to specific unlawful or immoral actions that responses resulted in stopping or punishing such action absolutely.

I would appreciate the bravery of gestures of defiance, but unless its expected to result in turning off supporters to him, then defiance is mainly a dramatic gesture. So, only have value to the person doing the act.

I don’t appreciate them if they would otherwise interfere with the running of normal business and simply punitive responses of shutting down government because of someone elses overall lack of character.

Well that not entirely correct, I do support this IF the intent is to trigger a constitutional crisis and everyone agrees the risks are worth the cost it can bring to stop a worse result of no action.

is this the part we disagree on? If Mueller were fired, I would agree with everything you are saying. All stops lifted, force the issue. Any GOP not going FULL defiance at this point would be a active/passive collaborator…