Vice President Biden noted yesterday that he hoped that the Tea Party might finally get Democratic and liberal votes out of their “lethargy.” The comment struck a nerve with me since various Democratic leaders have expressed surprise and mild criticism over the lack of enthusiasm by Democratic voters. What is striking is the fact that Biden and others continue to consider their own failure to give voters a reason to become active after years of broken campaign promises and outright betrayals of core values. The best that they can come up with (yet again) is that the other people are worse than we are.
It is unclear why Biden thinks, for example, civil libertarians should be energized after the Obama Administration embraced and expanded Bush-era policies in the war on terror. President Obama has shielded Bush officials from any investigation, let alone prosecution, for torture and has fought to block any cases that would hold companies or agencies responsible for violations of human rights or privacy.
It is unclear why Biden thinks environmentalists should be energized after the Administration opened up pristine areas of the East Coast for oil exploration and, even after the BP disaster, downplayed the spill damage to lift the moratorium.
It is unclear why Biden thinks that peace advocates should be energized after the Administration continued both wars and the gushing of both American blood and treasure.
It is unclear why Biden thinks gay and lesbian activists should be energized after the Obama Administration fought in court to preserve Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and then appealed to limit the major victory enjoining DADT.
For over a decade, the Democratic Party has based its demands for political support not on its own performance but on the “lesser of two evils” argument. They simply cannot understand why voters would be less than enthusiastic in fighting for them to retain power. Indeed, from the very start of this Administration, the clear message to liberals has been “you have no where else to go.” What the Administration and congressional democrats did not consider is that liberals, civil libertarians, and environmentalists could decide to simply go no where and stay at home.
Biden was speaking(at a fundraiser in Chevy Chase, Md. when he noted that “[m[aybe the best thing to happen to us lately is the Tea Party wins. Maybe it’ll shake some of our constituency out of their lethargy.” Biden seems to welcome that there is finally a compelling reason for voters to take to the streets: even worse people are running for office.
How about another option? The Democratic leaders could actually fight on principle over things like torture and give voters a positive reason to care about their future. If you want voters to care, you can start by giving them something to care about — other than the job security of Democratic officeholders. If the Obama Administration did not actually jettison these issues for political convenience, it might not have been more popular, but it would have been more respected and it would have garnered far more enthusiasm from Democratic and liberal voters. Instead, the Democratic leadership has repeatedly conveyed that they are concerned only about retaining their offices and power at any cost — hardly a motivating message for votes.
So here is my suggestion for a new campaign motto: “Fighting Lethargy With Leadership.”
Source: The Hill
Swarthmore mom
1, September 26, 2010 at 6:53 pm
Howard Dean had a fifty state strategy and it worked.
It certainly did. I admire him as an individual who knew what he was doing and how to do it well.
@Kay: Oh, Kay. Let me help.
Leviticus 18:22: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: It is an abomination.
Leviticus 20:13: If a man has sex with another man, kill them both.
Deuteronomy 23:17-18: God says do not bring any whore, sodomite or dog into the house of the Lord, for these things are an abomination to the Lord. (A sodomite in the Bible is a homosexual, hence the word Sodomy for anal sex. Sodomites are called dogs in the bible.)
1 Kings: 14:24, There were also sodomites in the land, and they did according to all the abominations…
1 Kings 22:43, 46: Jehoshaphat did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and exterminated the sodomites from the land.
Romans 1:26-32: Paul condemns homosexuals and lesbians, and declares them “worthy of death”.
1 Corinthians, 6:9-10: Paul lists among the things that will keep you out of heaven being homosexual, or just “effeminate.”
1 Timothy: Homosexuals are declared lawless, disobedient, unholy and profane.
In Revelations (22:15), all the politicians are condemned to hell: “Dogs (meaning homosexuals), sorcerers, whoremongers, idolators and anyone who ever told a lie will not enter the heavenly city.”
You can’t cherry pick the bible when we have access to the Internet, Kay honey.
Redistricting will happen before the 2012 elections. Republicans are cleaning up in the governor’s races. Why not stay home and help them redistrict the few progressives we have out of existence?
Howard Dean had a fifty state strategy and it worked. Some states are conservative especially in the rural areas. I know of a bluedog that won a district in Southern Minnesota. He is better than the republican he replaced and certainly better than the republican Michele Bachman in the next district. He was former military so he was a bit more conservative. He represents the people of his district not more progressive people in the city of Minneapolis. I don’t care to be in a party that is pure and monolithic.
Tony C
Good grief! Now I’m to believe Obama was a conservative in disguise? They are more clever than even I gave them credit for.
I believe I was the first to say that a veto proof congress was nearly impossible this year. However this year’s votes (and non-votes) will affect the elections to come, which has always been my point. We may all be gone by 2012 or 2013, but if not we have to consider our votes (and non votes) now as affecting future elections also. Look at how well 2000 turned out.
Jeff Sessions of Alabama is the ranking republican member on the Senate judiciary committee. Take the committee from Leahy and give it to him. We’ll get some really good choices for the courts. Forget a woman’s right to choose. I read the same things on right wing blogs too, Buckeye.
HenMan
Ya, you betcha!
I was thinking about this some more. I want to make it clear that I am not an expert on anything.
As the Supreme Court has explained:
[I]n interpreting a statute a court should always turn to one cardinal canon before all others. . . .[C]ourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there. Connecticut Nat’l Bank v. Germain, 112 S.Ct.1146, 1149(1992)
Now in Deuteronomy there are very specific taboos about incest but unless I am just missing it, I just don’t see anything about same sex sex. And, since these sections are so specific and frank about sex and since they use the rules of parallel construction, wouldn’t or couldn’t you think that if they meant no woman – woman or man – man sex that they would just come out and say that. Why would Deuteronomy be so frank about incest and then expect you to deduce other sex taboos from parables about gardening?
In other words, you can read the Bible expansively if you have an agenda. But, if you were reading it as a modern day statute and they were writing about wasting seed by throwing it on the rocks, you could just interpret that totally literally as referring to gardening. Especially in the context that in other discussions of sex, at least in Deuteronomy they aren’t mincing any words.
In many districts this year the choice will be between the blue dog democrat and the tea party republican. If you want some of the liberal democrats to keep their committees, you vote for the bluedog. If you want Joe Barton, Pete Sessions, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Michele Bachman to run the House, vote for the tea party or don’t vote at all. It’s not complicated.
I liked Deuteronomy
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Bible/Deuteronomy.html
Am I missing something? I don’t see prohibitions against homosexuality there. It says clearly
Cursed be he that lieth with his father’s wife; because he uncovereth his father’s skirt. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Cursed be he that lieth with any manner of beast. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Cursed be he that lieth with his sister, the daughter of his father, or the daughter of his mother. And all the people shall say, Amen.
Cursed be he that lieth with his mother in law. And all the people shall say, Amen.
It says
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.
Buckeye: Sarah Palin couldn’t have said it at all. She doesn’t know what civil liberties are, and if she did, she would denounce them as a commie plot- ya know, like flouride in da water dere, hey?
@Elaine: I mentioned turning the country over to a “religious nut job.”
@Kay: In my view, religious people are entitled to believe whatever fantasy they want. A “religious nut job” is one that wants to impose their fantasy on me by law. People that believe in completely unverifiable things (which is the definition of religious faith) like the “ensoulment” of a just-fertilized egg are entitled to that belief, that belief may give them comfort and calm, but just as they feel it is wrong for a government to impose atheism upon them and OUTLAW religion, they are not entitled to use the power of government to make me respect something I find both unprovable (their vociferous assertion is not proof) and anti-scientific and just plain idiotic. A cell is not a person.
Same thing with homosexuality and gender equality, they don’t get to impose their two thousand year old teachings of homophobia and misogyny and xenophobia and racism on ME. Those that are so distressed at the rejection of their religious tenets that they are willing to resort to violence and have them imposed by law are “nut jobs,” whether they be Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist or Satanists, I don’t care. They are all nut jobs.
But to be clear, I don’t object to them taking personal comfort in their fantasies, I object to them trying to coerce me into acting in accordance with their fantasies.
Hen Man
Sarah Palin couldn’t have said it better!
@Buckeye: You cannot tell if anybody is a conservative in disguise. Just look at Obama, who woulda thunk this candidate would become this President?
In my view, this is a good thing. Judge things on their merit, not on the person’s claimed credentials or claimed affiliations or claimed education. This is how my academic publications have been peer reviewed, I don’t put ANY of my credentials on there, and in double-blind reviews my name doesn’t even appear, so nobody can look me up. They judge my work and my logic ONLY, and “proof by assertion” or “proof by intimidation” won’t work.
There is no chance the Republicans will get a veto-proof Congress, it is physically NOT POSSIBLE in this election. Chances are (according to Nate Silver’s blog, the best statistical political blog on the net) they won’t even get the Senate. But VETO PROOF the Senate? Impossible in 2010. They will probably win the House, but it is a one in a million shot to veto proof that, too.
So it doesn’t make a difference what you are “willing to believe,” facts are facts whether you believe them or not.
HenMan,
Just so you know: I’m not making any excuses for Obama. I hope you didn’t read that into some of the comments I’ve made on this thread.
Kay,
You wrote: Just because people are religious doesn’t mean they are “nut jobs”.
**********
Did someone commenting on this thread claim or imply that all people who are religious are “nut jobs?”
During the 2 days we have been jousting here, President Obama has instructed his Attorney General to (1) file a brief opposing the ruling of the California judge that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is unconstitutional, and (2) file a brief opposing the lawsuit filed by Anwar Awlaki’s father asking a court to enjoin the President from murdering his son, an American citizen, without due process of law. To quote Glenn Greenwald, “But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is ‘state secrets’: in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are ‘state secrets’, and thus no court may adjudicate their legality.” In addition to these two outrages, and unreported by the press, Obama has ordered his Attorney General to fight every habeus corpus hearing attempted at the Guantanamo concentration camp. I will not vote for this man again. I give him an “F” on civil liberties issues, and it’s clear to me that he will do nothing to change that grade. It’s time to stop making excuses for this man- we have seen enough to know who he is and what he stands for.
Just because people are religious doesn’t mean they are “nut jobs”. Our constitution was based on the Laws and Liberties of Massachusetts. It was written in 1652 by a minister and based on the Old Testament.
As explained in “Slave Nation”, slavery was abolished in the U.K. after a slave challenged slavery thru habeas corpus. What happened is that the slave lived in the U.K. with his owner. While there he attended church and U.K. citizens became his “godparents”. Then his “owner” decided to return to the New World so he had the slave held in a ship pending his departure. The godparents he met at church applied for his habeas corpus petition on his behalf.
The Church in the past has allowed people to advocate for freedoms and rights with at least some support and protection. The Old Testament records most or all of the due process rights that we theoretically have today. The Old Testament is a respected document that we have in common with the Muslim World.
Tony C.,
“They must be punished at the polls, and the only way I can stomach punishing them is to withhold my money and my vote. Anybody with a brain should do the same…”
Let me get this right: You think that those of us commenting on this thread who disagree with your method for solving the problem with our Democratic politicians must be brainless. I may be just as upset as you are about the situation in Washington–but I’m not ready to hand over the keys of government “to some religious nut job that will govern by adhering to a ludicrous set of beliefs.” Don’t we have more than enough of those nut jobs in Washington already? (And don’t forget “the family” and C Street.)
P.S. Please don’t imply that I’m stupid because I disagree with your method for solving the problem…just post your arguments and positions.
Well as Elaine suggested I went to the Nation article on Feingold. It didn’t give any detail as to how Feingold “pressed the Obama administration to get serious about civil liberties”. And I looked at the website of the Senate Committee on the Constitution and I didn’t see it there either but perhaps I missed something.
To me “civil liberties” are the main political issue. Even healthcare will be better if we can actually sue insurance companies and their directors to enforce insurance contracts.
While Obama is still president, why can’t the U.S. make a stance that it will only imprison its citizens thru a proper criminal procedure? Why can’t the U.S. actually use its expensive ECF (Electronic Court Filing) systems to ensure procedural due process? Westlaw’s Nutshell book on civil procedure discussed misuse of motions to dismiss. It seems that any B.S. can be put in a motion to dismiss. That can be stopped by the computer system designers. For instance, if there is a claim of res judicata then the computer system could require a link to court documents showing that there actually was an evidentiary hearing and that the findings that were claimed to have been made were actually made.
To me “civil liberties” are also the key to world peace. People around the world are oppressed by small town despots like Kevin Bennett (In Steamboat they called him King Bennett). On the other hand, if neighbors of city council members can actually enforce the zoning or people can safely pursue whistle blower lawsuits or file for damages against government employees who rape them or cut off their hands, then won’t there be world peace? People around the world will be grateful to the U.S. if it takes the lead in making it possible and safe for citizens to sue their governments.
Obama should also require DOJ and other federal agencies to file the reports required by The Privacy Act. These required reports include reports of allegations of violations of computer matching systems. For instance, I was held in jails that had contracts with the feds which defined federal prisoners as people held pursuant to a federal criminal proceeding yet DOJ asked and paid them to keep me behind bars without a criminal charge. I complained but DOJ ignored my complaints and covered up their illegal detentions.
OMB is claiming on its website that the agencies should be prepared to file these reports which have been required but weren’t filed since Thornburg was AG. Why doesn’t Eric Holder require DOJ to comply with 5 USC section 552a reporting requirements?
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/circulars_a130_a130appendix_i