If/When we win back Congress, should Dems treat Repugs the same way

[Pryderi]

Repugs have been treating Dems?

[The Doctor.]

1. WWSTS?

"What would Sun Tzu Say?"

[Pryderi]

2. I don't know. What would Sun Tzu say? What would Lao Tzu say?

[lapfog_1]

15. What would Shaka Zulu say???

If you don't know...

"Leave no enemy behind, for they will only rise up to strike you again"

Another quote... and I don't know from where...

"I will kill him, and then I will kill him again just so he will remember that he is DEAD".

Really, we need to marginalize the entire ignorant conservative movement. Especially the Neocons. We can't afford another Ronald Reagan or Shrubya.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

18. "we need to marginalize the entire ignorant conservative movement"

And the religious crackpot wing of the Republican party is going to help us do it. I'm convinced that they are the achilles heel of the whole conservative movement.

[Jose Diablo]

32. Yes, destroy it completely, utterly

Fracture it into it's smaller 3 components. The Republican ideology can never become a majority again.

Then we can get to the heart of our country's disease, unchecked capitalism and excessive materialism. We must get to the roots of our problems rather than just trying to cut the top of the weeds down. Libby said it, like aspens they are connected at the roots. A gardener knows how to weed, that is to pull-out the roots, in addition to the surface plant. Otherwise, these people will emerge at a later date, just like after Nixon, these ideologues re-emerged because the weeding back then was incomplete. Their ideas had not been destroyed, so the ideas gained new converts with Reagan. It is the ideas that must be completely discredited so nobody can ever think what they offer is a solution to a problem.

[libhill]

3. Absolutely -

We have to fight fire with fire. It's the only thing Rethugs understand. And we WILL win back Congress. The Repukes have shot themselves in the foot on sooo many issues. I don't think that the old Jaysus / Guns / Gays crapola is gonna cut it any more. Except with the hopelessly brain dead -

[wakeme2008]

13. IMHO to worry about "Jaysus / Guns / Gays" when gas is $3+ a gallon

will not work well this time...

[libhill]

23. Agreed

Only problem is, there are a few die hard idiots out there who'll vote against their own interests every time - and of course they always get played by the extremely wealthy Repuke base, who would starve them all on the streets, as long as they get their votes at election time...

[The Doctor.]

45. How much you want to bet that gas prices

take a dive right before the elections?

[Theduckno2]

4. Primary goal : reestablish a government that serves all the people.

Not just the haves and have mores. If while doing that the Dems are able to give the Repugs a well deservered drubbing, all the better.

As for me I hopefully look forward to seeing Hastert hand over the gavel to Nancy Pelosi and have the "adults" run things for a change..

[silverojo]

5. Yes. Next question? n/t

[sutz12]

6. No, we have to be better than them.

[MiniMe]

20. Exactly

2 wrongs don't make a right. The goal here is to get government to work as it should. That means the freedom of our elected officials to vote for what is right, not just along party lines. The only reason they could treat the dems like they did was because of threats, arm twisting, and corruption. I would like to think that the dems would be somewhat above that. If we act like they do, the public will quickly become disillusioned with the dems.

However, insisting on oversight needs to be the number 1 priority. We need something other than a rubber stamp congress!

[itzamirakul]

36. Your post makes it easy to see where the DLC gets its support among

Democrats.

[mandyky]

39. I think the DLC is full of crap

but I also said "two wrongs don't make a right".

Besides, if Democrats behave well in the Majority, the subsequent elections will be easier, I think, for Democrats. We can not stop thinking ahead. If we are bullies, that will be a one election win. If we reach out to moderates on both sides of the isle, maybe we can heal this nation.

As you can see by my sig line, I am by no means a DLC fan, or the pink tutu crowd...

[itzamirakul]

46. After the Democratic Party got squished like cockroaches during the

last two elections because we were "playing fair" and expecting the other side to do the same, you STILL expect us to attract some mythical moderates that will "help us win"? That is the craziest bs on this entire thread.

Where were the moderates to help us fight back when BOTH of the past two presidential elections were STOLEN? Information is STILL coming in to show how certain segments of the Democratic vote were prevented or not counted but you want us to go into the next fight like a bunch of doofuses, fighting fair while the other side is banging our heads with lead filled boxing gloves? You really need to wake up and realize what kind of world you are living in today. It is not like it used to be.

There are no moderates who are going to suddenly come over to "our side." If they are on the conservative side, then garbage like Limbaugh and O'Reilly will keep them on that side even though they are losing everything that ever made up the so-called American Dream. Our best bet is to keep encouraging the non-voting Progressives to come out to the polls.

[Lexingtonian]

7. No.

We'll treat them like the deluded insane maniacs and lackeys they've been. We'll speak slowly and kindly to them, recommend haloperidol, and inane misbehavior will result in cruelest ridicule and a verbal beating into the ground.

Oh, did I mention the criminal investigations?

[Bluebear]

10. What Lexingtonian said. nt

[Squeech]

27. Yeah, that too.

The criminal investigations are the MOST IMPORTANT PART.

In journalism, what you've just done is called "burying the lede."

Why was a Bush presidency even possible? In part it's because Nixon never faced a judge-- Jerry Ford felt that, "for the good of the country," we had to move on without justice being done. We can't let that happen again, too much of the system has been corrupted. Even if nothing else happens in 2009, even if we're doomed to four years of stagflation while we clean up the mess-- nevertheless if we *don't* clean up the mess, and another bunch of messianic bagmen get in there, we're totally cooked.

[mykpart]

8. Rethugs won't change just because they're a minority.

They will still be fiercely partisan, and vote against anything advocated by Dems, even if it's a Republican issue. What Dems must do is speak out loudly whenever that happens, and hold them accountable. And investigate the hell out of them!

[EST]

9. This is a question of far mightier proportions than it would

seem, at first glance, and one that, no doubt, is troubling to many.

On the one hand, we are still going to have to live with these creeps and (into the metaphor blender) you don't spank the baby with an axe.
On the other, rooting out corruption and venality, as well as severe mental aberrations and the returning of the government to its proper function has to be of highest priority and continuing attention.

There have to be consequences; the punishment of wrongdoing has to be sufficiently draconian to put "teeth" in the cautions against lawbreaking and hateful, malicious conduct.
The only workable solutions, as history teaches, are probably more like king log than king stork. Given that a government of people seems at its most efficient at long term planning and short term solutions, the most effective solutions may be the "barely good enough," at the national level to get the big cheeses and a kind of mandate to the local governments to root out the kind corruption illustrated by the Nevada voter registration fraud schemes and their many clones.
All we are asking for, really, is our public servants to plan realistically and be responsible for the notion that government needs to serve with the emphasis on the people, as individuals, rather than at the level of corporations.

Example: what people need is not universal health insurance, but universal health care.
(I know, dream on, Pollyanna.)

[EFerrari]

11. Hey, I'm GLAD the Republicans have screwed themselves

so firmly to Junior that they will be unable to shake him off. :)

[EST]

14. Does give them a tail for us to fling 'em with!

[Marr]

12. I think we need a ton of investigations, with alot of prosecutions, yes.

I think we need a good long stretch of public frog marches and humiliated crooks. I think this country deserves it, and I think we *need* it if we're ever going to convince people that law does in fact still mean something.

Of course, that isn't what the Republicans have been doing- they've just ignored over half the country, by way of completely marginalizing Democratic representatives. I certainly think Republicans should be marginalized politically, yes. Their policies should be dismantled and they shouldn't be able to move a fucking thing.

[marions ghost]

16. if we don't see investigations and immediate

reversals of Repug policies, nobody will have a shred of respect left for the Democrats.

Letting these people off the hook would be in itself another crime against the people.

[Hubert Flottz]

17. YES!

Only Worse!

[Pryderi]

22. I agree with you. Shove their meetings into basements, turn off their mics

while they're speaking and laugh, take voice votes and determine the opposite was voted upon. Seriously, how many average americans even know what republicans have done to dems?

[Hubert Flottz]

30. The GOP has earned TONS of payback!

Bush ain't the only bad apple!

[Crankie Avalon]

19. The elections are over six months away...

...let's not take anything for granted. After four years of the disaster known as "Bush," who would have thought he'd still be president after the 2004 election? Yet, here he is...

[shadowknows69]

21. I'd love to say yes

But the fuckers would whine so much it would be unbearable. I'll be happy if the Dems can just undo half the damage that was done to us.

[stepnw1f]

24. We Will Force Their Churches to Accept Homosexuality

and if they do not concede, we'll take away their tax exempt status, since they have no problem with merging Church and State. A little taste of their own medicine...

[Protagoras]

25. Not the same way because we want to SUPPORT

the constitution, not destroy it.

We should do our best to permanently remove the Frists and Santorums of the world...send them back to their cat killing factories. But most we need to remind about the constitution.

The best thing we can do is hammer down lobbying reform and campaign financing...then most of the true pukes will wither away all on their own.

We don't just want to get in and become assholes like we are replacing. We want to get in and be GOOD. Then we get the added privilege of staying in because people realize life is better under democrats.

[Buns_of_Fire]

26. Absolutely NOT. We should treat them WORSE.

With all due respect to the healthy give-and-take of political discourse, naturally, as we gently, respectfully, and politely nail their hides to the wall and place their heads on pikes outside the Capitol as a reminder to future generations. O8)

[Jose Diablo]

28. Yes, take it all the way, destroy the Republican party, utterly

The Dixiecrats, Reagan Dems/Repuks and Globalists/Corporatist can each form a party of their own and never become a majority again.

Maybe in a generation, slowly these people can be educated enough to reform, but this Republican party is to be scrapped. It has no value for the people, it is of no use whatsoever.

[lpbk2713]

29. Fuggen 'A'

They would laugh at any conciliatory gestures and would see wanting to get along with them as a sign of weakness.


Besides, there's a huge payback imbalance.

[cali]

33. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

This isn't about republicans. It's about our democratic institutions. And what the repukes have done in the House is proufoundly undemocratic. If we do as repukes have done; refusing to allow amendments to bills, and stifling democrats, we further perpetuate the harm the repukes have inflicted on the democratic process. See that's not so hard to grasp, is it?

[Pryderi]

35. I say we make their party small enough to drown in a bathtub!

[warrens]

31. One thing for sure

No lobbyist that even employs a Rethug as temporary receptionist can have any access at all. That's where the scumbags hide out while they are out of power. Make sure they can't find a job anywhere in Washington, and purge the bureaucracy too, to get rid of the Linda Tripp moles.

This ain't tiddlywinks. These bastards are traitors attempting to destroy our country and turn it into a third-world ghetto with cheap, compliant labor keeping the wealthy wealthy.

[rucky]

34. If we get rid of the rotten ones, hopefully we won't have to. n/t

[mandyky]

37. No, 2 wrongs don't make it right

And hopefully we won't get drunk with power and create the Democratic versions of Tom DeLay and Duke Cunningham.

I'd say taking the highroad would be best. That is not saying Dems should not exert their power, but it can be done reasonably.

[kentuck]

38. They are a much more effective minority Party than the Democrats...

They know how to use the rules and to disrupt the legislative process, which they will do. They will simply change the rules again..

[11 Bravo]

40. Hell, yes! The only cheeks I'm turning are my ass cheeks ... ...

so the Repugs can kiss them.

[gkhouston]

41. Not exactly the same way...

it's not about payback or revenge so much as doing our utmost to stop the abuses permanently. If that means flattening most of their party, so be it, but let's not forget the unintended consequences of the Treaty of Versailles. We need to prosecute the corruption and we need to get lobbying and big business out of government and ain't none of that gonna happen overnight, especially with the mess we'll be inheriting from *. I think truly think FDR started out with a better set of conditions than the next Dem president will have.

[Initech]

42. I'm in favor of revoking tax exempt churches who get into politics...

That should be the first law passed when the Dems regain control.

[Odin2005]

43. No, the Late Roman republic shows what will happen if we do tit-for-tat.

The last 100 years of the Roman Republic is a story of tit-for-tat violence between populists and rectationaries, both using unconstitutional means (the abuse of the office of dictator in this period is what gave it the bad connotations it has today, orinally a dictator ment an emergency executive for crisis periods that served for a maximum of 6 months) to acheive thier goals, eventually leading to the fall of the republic whn these politicians got thier own private armies.

[Rocknrule]

44. I know we're better than that...

but they deserve it