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Just a reminder, the house vote on impeachment wasnt even supported by all democrats. 2 democrats voted against it and all republicans voted against it. They couldnt even get support from democrats and they knew damn well they couldnt get support for 2/3 of the senate.
I hate trump and want him out of office as much as anyone, but the impeachment caused me to loose all respect for democrats.
It looks more like a desperate attempt to manipulate the 2020 election and win, rather than any real attempt at impeachment. Sad thing is they probably hurt their cause more than helped. I know I have lost what little respect for the democrats I had despite my hatred of trump.
@freemo I support them in principle. The fact that they strongly suspect the senate won't accept the impeachment, doesn't change that they do as the constitution intended.
Also, I believe the fact that some democrats voted against the impeachment shows that the democratic party left the vote up to their representatives. I'm pretty sure the Republicans party put a lot more pressure on theirs. It's clear that any republican breaking the party line would end his career that very second.
@freemo Since some democrats were already suspected/known to vote against means any democrat had the liberty to do so as well without much additional stigma. Not so on the rep side.
I think you get my point.
I'm sure many republicans agreed that the events leading to impeachment happened and agreed that they are impeachable offenses. That they voted against the articles only shows they voted partisan and not in good faith.
@stevenroose @freemo
I think the whole 'requirement' to vote according to party lines is a decease. (not just in the US)
If 'you' really believe so, then you should get rid of the whole representative democracy thingie and replace it with a (weighted) party vote system.
I'd imagine the vast majority of america would love to do away with the two party system. Me personally I'd like to see parties as a whole disappear.
@freemo
I can understand forming of parties as a way to division labor as you can't be an expert in all areas. But there surely are (potential) issues.
I think a 2 party system is toxic, like life/society is all black and/vs white. Consequently I like that we in .nl have so many parties.
It doesnt appear to me parties represent a division of expertise in any country I know of. I dont know anywhere that has a party of mathematicians or economists and another party of law experts or anything ike that (if that were the case I might see parties serving a function but it would all look very different).
Generally parties look more like religious affiliation. It tells you what dogma a person subscribes to a little else.
@FreePietje Sure but that isnt examples of parties having expertise, those are examples of dogmatic principles.
What we need is not party line dogmatics of either not spending a penny or burning all our money on social programs. We need a nuanced approach where money is spent on some things selectively but not others.
Thats exactly why we need to do away with parties all together. We dont want the extremism dogma and parties lead to, we want people who are free to arrive at nuanced solutions which would fail under dogma.
@freemo You phrase this/these issue(s) in dogmas and (religious) extremism and I disagree with that.
At least in .nl, religious dogmas/extremism has (very) little effect on our politics. And I'm very glad about that.
Some people think social (security) programs are wrong and we should spend as little as possible on them. Others feel differently. I think in .nl all sides are reasonably represented and we form some middle ground.
That's all from me for this year/decade on this :)
@FreePietje In the NL that is true, and I often represent holland as a good example of reasonably sane politics. But that isnt thanks to parties it is despite it.
Holland would certainly do much better if it didnt have parties as can be seen by the botched sorts of reactionary laws that spring up.. IE shrooms are illegal but truffles which are no better (even higher risk) are legal. Weed has a similar half assed legal structure around it. In general we see the dogma parties bring at work in this, no nuanced well crafted middle ground laws. Just a compromise between two sets of dogmas.
@freemo We used to have a sane, pragmatic view wrt drugs and I'm saddened that we haven't progressed on that for a long time.
I hate the "drugs are bad, m'kay" line as it's wrong and stops critical thinking. Another argument I think is BS is what other countries may think of .nl. Fuck that. We should do what we think is right for our country.
This does indeed reek of dogma and religion. But I don't think it applies to all areas in .nl.
Agreed with your reactionary laws point. I don't like that.
@FreePietje I entierly agree that its bad to compare to other countries. Its one reason that even though i do think you guys are ahead of the game of the majority off countries in how you handle drugs it is still worthy of criticism. If i compared the netherlands to other countries we as a country are probably still ahead of most. I dont mean in terms of legalization but in terms of sympathy and treating drug abuse as a disease more than something to shame.
But i agree there are also a bunch of other ways we can say the netherlands is ahead, but again its not about if your ahead or not, its just about how much parties and dogma are in the way, and I think that is absolutely present here despite having a better grasp on it than most.
@freemo
While math is an exact science, most things are not.
Let's take economics for example. When there is a recession (about to happen), you have one group that thinks we should cut spending, while another group wants to increase spending. Both positions have merits.
I haven't thought this entirely through, but I think we're too spastic when it comes to economic cycles and 'controlling' it and maybe we shouldn't increase or decrease based on the position in the cycle.
@stevenroose