State politicians flee Texas to derail legislation on voting restrictions, abortion access

[barbos]

And I would agree, a bill that had no other purpose than to make it needlessly difficult to vote would be subverting democracy.

But the Texas bill is not that and equating any bill that makes it harder to vote as 'subverting democracy' is simple, simple-minded, and wrong.



Irrelevant. Why not the bill now? If you have evidence that this bill subverts democracy, produce it. But don't make the false claim that it makes it more difficult to vote, and then equate "more difficult to vote" with "subverting democracy"

It IS relevant. And it is you who must provide evidence of the need for this bill. So where is evidence of illegal voting?
As of right now. It's pretty clear that what repubs are doing is what their degenerate base wants them to do. We can debate how little this bill do in terms of voter suppression, but one thing is crystal clear, these motherfuckers think they need to do it in order to keep their stupid base happy and ready to vote for them.
Repubs painted themselves into a corner electorally.

 

[Metaphor]

It IS relevant. And it is you who must provide evidence of the need for this bill.

Why? I didn't start a thread about the need or lack of need for this bill. I started a thread about Democrats in Texas subverting democracy. I'm not making claims about this particular bill--you are.

So where is evidence of illegal voting?

When did I claim there was illegal voting?

As of right now. It's pretty clear that what repubs are doing is what their degenerate base wants them to do. We can debate how little this bill do in terms of voter suppression, but one thing is crystal clear, these motherfuckers think they need to do it in order to keep their stupid base happy and ready to vote for them.
Repubs painted themselves into a corner electorally.

Democrats in Texas have openly subverted democracy by fleeing the state. One might imagine that they'd be ashamed of this, but they don't appear to be.

 

[laughing dog]

If these legislators are doing the will of their voters by preventing a quorum, and they sre nit breaking any laws, then this is democracy in action.

 

[Gospel]

This is so boring. Yeah, walking away from your job and expecting to get paid is dumb. Next? I thought we were over this when 15 republicans walked out of the impeachment trial. We just keep lowering the bar for the sake of our team. At some point, the bar will be too low for America to fit under. Yall keep this bullshit up.

 

[Metaphor]

If these legislators are doing the will of their voters by preventing a quorum, and they sre nit breaking any laws, then this is democracy in action.

An interesting take. Of course, that means that every single time a Republican obstructed anything by (ab)using procedural rules, that too might have been 'democracy in action'. I understand from this thread that Mitch McConnell did such things, and has faced the electorate multiple times since 1985 and been returned, so I assume this means Mitch McConnell is a shining beacon of democracy in action.

 

[marc]

To me, it is like seeing person A hitting person B. You might think the attack is reprehensible, and normally would be right. But then you find out person B was attacking person C with a knife, and person A was trying to defend them.

The republicans are attacking the voters, and while normally leaving the state to prevent a quorum is reprehensible, the democrats are doing it to defend the voters, so I don't have a problem with it. Would I have a problem with republicans leaving a state to prevent a quorum? It would depend on the reason they were doing it, but knowing what the modern party is like, yea I would likely be against them.

Is this how a functioning democracy should work? No, but we have been dysfunctional for some time, with bad-faith negotiations, and outright ignoring policies that over 70% of the people are in favor of because the donors are against it.

 

[Elixir]

"We have to subvert democracy to save it!"

Yeah, that's the Republican mantra now. Even if it means a violent assault on the Capitol to stop Congress from certifying the results of a free and fair election.

I might have known you'd defend the deplorables on this one.

Dang, I was just about to say the same thing to you!

 

[Patooka]

Why? I didn't start a thread about the need or lack of need for this bill. I started a thread about Democrats in Texas subverting democracy.

Which is pretty laughable. Being critical of this act without any context is pretty dishonest. Like I said before; Texas is a state riddled with gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement. To focus on the one single time Democrats did something questionable shows how bad faith your premise is.

 

[TV and credit cards]

If these legislators are doing the will of their voters by preventing a quorum, and they sre nit breaking any laws, then this is democracy in action.

An interesting take. Of course, that means that every single time a Republican obstructed anything by (ab)using procedural rules, that too might have been 'democracy in action'. I understand from this thread that Mitch McConnell did such things, and has faced the electorate multiple times since 1985 and been returned, so I assume this means Mitch McConnell is a shining beacon of democracy in action.

Well that would depend. If it is done on rare occasion, one might be led to believe is is something the legislator feels most passionate about. On the other hand, if it is done on a regular basis, one might come to the conclusion it is being done simply to obstruct, to keep the other side from looking good in the eyes of the voters.

“One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration”
-Moscow Mitch

 

[Elixir]

“One hundred percent of my focus is on stopping this new administration”
-Moscow Mitch

The Republican party is not just anti-Democrat, it is anti-democracy. Their worst nightmare is that things might go well for the American people over the next 3 years, so they are hell bent on making sure that Americans suffer at every turn - the exact opposite from what they were elected to do.
Democrats walking out to stop the TX legislature from inflicting pain on most citizens of TX is an affront to the Republicans' effort to cause that pain. IOW, Dems are doing what they were elected to do, a large part of which is protecting democracy from Republicans' attempts to destroy it.

I don't recall a time when Republicans were enthusiastic about encouraging participation in the democratic process, but I have really only been paying attention since the late 1950s. Still, this is the first time I've seen them try to destroy it in such an overt manner. They need to be stopped, even if some of their own means need to be invoked to stop them.

 

[Swammerdami]

If these legislators are doing the will of their voters by preventing a quorum, and they sre nit breaking any laws, then this is democracy in action.

An interesting take. Of course, that means that every single time a Republican obstructed anything by (ab)using procedural rules, that too might have been 'democracy in action'. I understand from this thread that Mitch McConnell did such things, and has faced the electorate multiple times since 1985 and been returned, so I assume this means Mitch McConnell is a shining beacon of democracy in action.

In your opinion, is shooting the gunman who's about to shoot an innocent person the moral equivalent of his shooting the innocent person?

Is starting a back-fire to quench a fire the moral equivalent of burning down a forest to improve your view?

Is using a parliamentary trick to salvage democracy the moral equivalent of using such a trick to subvert democracy?

 

[Jarhyn]

Seeing this thread just disappoints me in humanity. What we should have seen is each party to treat this as has been in the past. Indeed we see one group do so; though all on that side maintain that the defense of the power to acquire representation is more appropriate than the fear others have of their loss of power over others.

I might point this out, this useful bit of language, the distinction of power-to and power-over.

It is this distinction which differs in these two implementation of the same nominal act. Burning a church is power to, when nobody is in it. It is the power to, in fact, reject power-over. Or to claim the power-to. It is hard to accept power-to in the shadow of a monument erected by those who genocided your people. Sometimes the shadow must be lifted for the power to be real and understood

At any regard, there will thus always be a defense of the power-to, that attacks and removes the power-over. And this is well and right.

 

[Elixir]

If these legislators are doing the will of their voters by preventing a quorum, and they sre nit breaking any laws, then this is democracy in action.

An interesting take. Of course, that means that every single time a Republican obstructed anything by (ab)using procedural rules, that too might have been 'democracy in action'. I understand from this thread that Mitch McConnell did such things, and has faced the electorate multiple times since 1985 and been returned, so I assume this means Mitch McConnell is a shining beacon of democracy in action.

In your opinion, is shooting the gunman who's about to shoot an innocent person the moral equivalent of his shooting the innocent person?

Is starting a back-fire to quench a fire the moral equivalent of burning down a forest to improve your view?

Is using a parliamentary trick to salvage democracy the moral equivalent of using such a trick to subvert democracy?

Right. The GQP is a malevolent entity, period. If Meta (in Australia!) doesn't like it, he can fill out the form:

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You're expecting democracy in Texas, Metaphor? Good luck - the best you could hope for is electoral fuckery. Texas has been broken for some time. Fuck, even one of its senators proudly tweets how gerrymandered the state is. What the Democrats did is an issue. It is also part of a much bigger problem. I can't even begin to imagine how to unravel that shitshow of a state.

Having said that, Democrats shouldn't stoop to the same shitty tactics Republicans used. For starters, Republicans are simply much much better at it and it also evaporates any credibility they have.

I expect legislators to do their jobs and not to openly subvert democracy.

Insurrectionist. Call them insurrectionists.

Are they murdering anyone? Who has the zip ties? Where are the ones with horns on their heads? Get it?

It's a continuation of civil rights. Don't expect Texas to give a shit.

 

[ZiprHead]

"I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of the people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down."

Paul Weyrich - Conservative political activist

Texas is already the hardest state in the nation to vote in. It has only a 44% participation rate.

 

[Metaphor]

Why? I didn't start a thread about the need or lack of need for this bill. I started a thread about Democrats in Texas subverting democracy.

Which is pretty laughable. Being critical of this act without any context is pretty dishonest. Like I said before; Texas is a state riddled with gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement. To focus on the one single time Democrats did something questionable shows how bad faith your premise is.

Without any context? The context is in the OP.

 

[Metaphor]

In your opinion, is shooting the gunman who's about to shoot an innocent person the moral equivalent of his shooting the innocent person?

Is starting a back-fire to quench a fire the moral equivalent of burning down a forest to improve your view?

Is using a parliamentary trick to salvage democracy the moral equivalent of using such a trick to subvert democracy?

"To salvage democracy"?

Has any person on this thread read about the Texas bill that they are so sure is "subverting democracy?"

Are you all so used to surrounding yourself with like-minded believers that you expect no pushback on claims you make so easily, like that the Texas bill makes voting harder (asserted without evidence) and any bill that makes voting harder subverts democracy (asserted without evidence)?

 

[Metaphor]

To me, it is like seeing person A hitting person B. You might think the attack is reprehensible, and normally would be right. But then you find out person B was attacking person C with a knife, and person A was trying to defend them.

The republicans are attacking the voters, and while normally leaving the state to prevent a quorum is reprehensible, the democrats are doing it to defend the voters, so I don't have a problem with it. Would I have a problem with republicans leaving a state to prevent a quorum? It would depend on the reason they were doing it, but knowing what the modern party is like, yea I would likely be against them.

Is this how a functioning democracy should work? No, but we have been dysfunctional for some time, with bad-faith negotiations, and outright ignoring policies that over 70% of the people are in favor of because the donors are against it.

That this bill is 'attacking the voters' is an unevidenced opinion. Nobody has explained how it's "attacking the voters".

 

[Metaphor]

I'm profoundly disappointed in the responses on this thread. Most have implicitly defended the action by claiming that the Democrats doing their job and attending the legislature would be a greater subversion of democracy than the passing of a bill which has the majority support of the legislature.

We have the belief that the Texas bill "makes voting harder"--an assertion without any evidence. We have the belief that any bill that 'makes voting harder' is a 'subversion of democracy'--an assertion not only without any evidence, an assertion that is prima facie laughable.

 

[marc]

To me, it is like seeing person A hitting person B. You might think the attack is reprehensible, and normally would be right. But then you find out person B was attacking person C with a knife, and person A was trying to defend them.

The republicans are attacking the voters, and while normally leaving the state to prevent a quorum is reprehensible, the democrats are doing it to defend the voters, so I don't have a problem with it. Would I have a problem with republicans leaving a state to prevent a quorum? It would depend on the reason they were doing it, but knowing what the modern party is like, yea I would likely be against them.

Is this how a functioning democracy should work? No, but we have been dysfunctional for some time, with bad-faith negotiations, and outright ignoring policies that over 70% of the people are in favor of because the donors are against it.

That this bill is 'attacking the voters' is an unevidenced opinion. Nobody has explained how it's "attacking the voters".

It is not ‘unevidenced opinion’, it is seeing the pattern of Republican voting bills over the past couple decades. Especially after SCOTUS struck down parts of the voting rights act.