Obstruction

I suspect it's pretty clear where I stand on the showdown over health care, the government shutdown, and the looming debt ceiling.

I support the president not negotiating on defunding a law that that made it through Congress and the Supreme Court and which several repeal votes failed on, because that is supporting the democratic system. If he gives in at this point, then popular support and the procedures spelled out in the Constitution no longer matter, and the terrorists will have won.

The shutdown and the debt ceiling are concerns, but I suspect things will work out. One thing that is especially appalling is the heroism some of the obstructionists are willing to take credit for. I can see why it's more appealing than admitting you are throwing the congressional equivalent of a tantrum, but I still favor a closer relationship with reality. Anyway, it got me thinking about when such behavior would be acceptable.

To look further into this, I am going to take a quote from George Will:

"I hear Democrats say, ‘The Affordable Care Act is the law,’ as though we’re supposed to genuflect at that sunburst of insight and move on. Well, the Fugitive Slave Act was the law, separate but equal was the law, lots of things are the law and then we change them."

Okay, there is kind of a fair point in here. The Fugitive Slave Act was law, enacted by Congress. "Separate but equal" covered many laws, but was shored up by a Supreme Court Case, Plessy v. Ferguson. They were both bad things. So, if you have the opportunity to go against the popular will to strike these laws down, do you?

It's not necessarily an easy question. I think looking at the value of keeping the government running needs to be a separate post, but for now let's agree that it is a major thing, that affects many people negatively.

Knowing that, I already think that I would not do it for the Fugitive Slave Act, because in that case the real problem is slavery. If you strike down that law, but still allow slavery, you have gained some good but left a lot of bad, and so maybe it's not worth scorching the earth, which you should never do lightly.

What about "Separate But Equal"? I might lean more towards that one. It was an insidious policy, and perpetuated many ills. Of course, with it relating to a Supreme Court decision rather than a law that passed, that gets trickier for how to fix. There were probably many things other than pure obstruction that could have been tried, and maybe enough people cared to do it.

Personally, I don't like disruption. Think of "You lie" during the State of the Union address. Really, he was just being a jerk. It was rude, it didn't change anything, and the refusal to give even the most basic respect to those you disagree with is a large part of what is wrong with society and government.

Also, it tends to be ineffective. Those tactics tend to reinforce alignments rather than bringing anyone over, so all you do is increase bad feelings, which is the last thing needed now.

There are certainly times when the minority has a moral imperative over the majority, and that is very much the case for those who worked against slavery and for Civil Rights. I guess that is why the keep bringing up the examples that they do, but really, there is no equivalence between increasing access to health care and the Holocaust.

The voice of the people has its flaws, because people have flaws, but it's still not something to be taken lightly. It is amazing how little awareness some show of the irony of their actions. To quit picking on legislators for a moment, I am going to provide this example:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/11/dozens-not-thousands-show-up-for-dc-trucker-protest/

If that was successful, it would have made life much worse for a lot of people, so I'm glad the turnout was low, but also, one of the demands of "Truckers Ride for the Constitution" was that President Obama resign. You know, because the person who was elected, based on popular and electoral vote, twice, should step down because of a bunch of truckers who apparently have nothing better to do.

I hate to be difficult based on technicalities, but that kind of sounds against the anti-constitutional, a little. And again, this is something that mainly results in increasing bad feelings, because nothing significant happened on a federal level, but I do find myself wanting to end every sentence with "You half-wits!"

I do not rule out that there may be times when I will go outside the normal processes, but I think there will need to be some criteria in place. The issue will need to be important enough that the inconvenience it causes you will have value, even to you. It will need to be the only option possible. It will need to not be based on my own stupid narcissism.

I don't think that comes up very much.