US Democrats get 60th Senator

[Cycloneman]

Al Franken is waiting to be seated after being certified by his state as a Senator. He can't beat seated until the Senator he beat - Republican Coleman - stops trying to sue him for winning, however.

Just FYI, this will happen in 2010 or some such. Seriously, it's going to take at least until June.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

far as not imposing morality, that's a very recent development, certainly when the constitution was written that was accepted as a matter of course.

 

[Enoch]

Here's the other angle on the Specter thing: The man is nearly 80 years old, has a fairly impressive run of legislative accomplishments, and has had some serious health issues in recent years. Why is he so worried about re-election? Why can't he just call it a career and walk away? Politicians are strange beasts in how so many of them cling to their positions well into their autumn years.

[Wrath of Dagon]

We badly need term limits, having a professional politician class is completely contrary to the original intent. In case of Specter though, he said he feels more aligned with the Democrats now, and his own Republicans in Penn seem to hate him, so what's the downside for him?

[Enoch]

I didn't mean to imply support for term limits, which I think is an unnecessarily broad restriction. (While I have no problem in churning hacks with hacks, they would also exclude some talented, dedicated individuals in favor of second-tier talent, which is seldom a good idea.) If the people want a term to end, they can vote for the opposition.

 

I was simply postulating how odd it seems that a 79-year-old is so strongly motivated by concerns about his career in the future.

[Aristes]

I agree with you, Wrath, that social conservatives make up a strong constituency group within the GOP. However, just because it happened that way doesn't mean it was preordained. Politics makes for strange bedfellows and we are currently in bed with social conservatives because of political tactics Enoch has already cited. It need not have gone that way. However, since the fiscal convervatives used socially conservative tactics to dislodge southern Democrats, we've got got a platform that values an anti-abortion stance more than a responsible spending and taxation stance.

 

As regards the orginal intent of the constitution, we had started to move away from personal morals simply by providing protection and freedom for religion. ...And you simply have to be careful in making broad statements about the founding fathers. After all, there were a lot of competing views in the late colonial/early republic. There were plenty of people, some of them quite prominent, who would have disagreed with the idea of imposing a single set of personal morality on the citizens.

 

Legislation should be the means by which we balance personal freedom on one hand and the establishment and maintainence of a well ordered society on the other. Abortion laws and laws regarding homosexual activities cause more disturbance in society than the ills they seek to address.

[Wrath of Dagon]

If the people want a term to end, they can vote for the opposition.

They'd be voting against their self-interest unless every other state does the same. Legislative term limits are a good idea for the same reason presidential term limits are. It doesn't matter how talented one is if he's corrupt.

 

There were plenty of people, some of them quite prominent, who would have disagreed with the idea of imposing a single set of personal morality on the citizens.

Do you have any actual examples of that? Edited May 1, 2009 by Wrath of Dagon

[Aristes]

Depends on what you mean about actual examples. In terms of removing religious imperatives from becoming law, I have plenty of examples. In terms of substitution a single set of personal morality, I think the evidence overwhelmingly supports this claim, and not only because of the previously mentioned separation of church and state.

 

Oh, I don't know. Jefferson? I mean, I've read a little bit about these guys, and a little bit of it in their own words, but I guess Jefferson would be a good place to start.

 

EDIT: Just a quick edit. I think a lot of folks would be surprised at some of the attitudes that many of our founding fathers held. Adams wrote that the title of senator might someday need to be hereditary. He also stated that there was nothing inherently and diametrically opposed between republican government and a monarchy, from which he was pilloried, and wrongly I believe, as a monarchist the latter half of his life and after his death. Jefferson believed morality is inherent in the human individual and that, on a small scale, anarchy was perfectly legitimate. Even in a larger scale, he believed that morality, as passed down from generation to generation, was not necessary. Washington was quite the pragmatist in his views of human morality and how it governed individual actions.

Edited May 1, 2009 by Aristes

[Wrath of Dagon]

But did any of them actually believe that the government had no right to regulate personal morality? Religious freedom does not imply the absense of societal consensus on personal morality, for example I don't think it extended to things like Devil worship in their views.

[Aristes]

I think you did not understand my original point. I think that some of the founding fathers were quite happy to legislate a specific single personal morality. That is, in the form of religion, or some other standard. Some of the founding fathers did not view legislated morality in a positive light, and some of them, Jefferson for example, did not believe that morality was a constant. He believed that each generation could change the laws at will. He was not an ardent admirer of the Constitution in the first place. He was disappointed that the convention had not merely tidied up the Articles of Confederation and reaffirmed them. Hell, he didn't even believe in debts between generations. Some of that attitude derived from the fact that he lived under crushing debt much of his life, largely do to his spending habits.

 

Murder is immoral. It is also destructive to society. There is a clearly logical reason to criminalize murder. Homosexuality? Less so. ...And there were plenty of people who had a variety of views as regarded personal morals as something separate from laws. In the example above, Jefferson was an admirer of anarchy. He believed in an innate sense of human morality. He believe laws were necessary only as the population increased.

 

Also, this fight between atheism and religiosity is not something new. The French Revolution raged in Europe very soon after the Constitution made its way to ratification. Many of the French Revolutionaries were atheists and found a sympathetic voice in American Republicans. The notion of doing something for moral reasons was simply not a big concern, or even discarded out of hand.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the early Americans were a diverse group and that we can't simply say that early Americans held one view or another. It's kind of like the idea of "Early Christians." There was a lot of variety among the early Christians, and so you can make a claim about them, and it will be true, but it will probably not be universally true. Early Christians were human and believed in Christ. Otherwise, all bets are probably off.

 

If we're going to move the discussion to morality, and I'm guilty of helping to move it there, then we should probably define our terms. ...But the idea taking the time to adequately define my arguments makes me cringe. haha

[Enoch]

If the people want a term to end, they can vote for the opposition.

They'd be voting against their self-interest unless every other state does the same. Legislative term limits are a good idea for the same reason presidential term limits are. It doesn't matter how talented one is if he's corrupt.

Well, sure. But where's the evidence for the connection that you're assuming exists between time spent in office and corruption? Despite what Frank Capra would have you believe, I suspect that first-term legislators are just as likely to be corrupt as 20-year veterans (but somewhat less likely to be competent).

[Humodour]

Al Franken is waiting to be seated after being certified by his state as a Senator. He can't beat seated until the Senator he beat - Republican Coleman - stops trying to sue him for winning, however.

Just FYI, this will happen in 2010 or some such. Seriously, it's going to take at least until June.

 

Incorrect, it will happen in June/July this year.

[Humodour]

They are actively trying to silence talk radio and even proposals for blocking internet content

 

Also, if this is happening, it is pretty shocking.

 

Don't worry, they're not. It's just Guard Dog's usual talent for mischaracterising the stances of individual MP's with an agenda as the stances of an big tent entire party.

 

He is, of course, free to try and back up his claim with evidence to the contrary.

[Wrath of Dagon]

If the people want a term to end, they can vote for the opposition.

They'd be voting against their self-interest unless every other state does the same. Legislative term limits are a good idea for the same reason presidential term limits are. It doesn't matter how talented one is if he's corrupt.

Well, sure. But where's the evidence for the connection that you're assuming exists between time spent in office and corruption? Despite what Frank Capra would have you believe, I suspect that first-term legislators are just as likely to be corrupt as 20-year veterans (but somewhat less likely to be competent).

I don't have hard statistics, but all the people I can think of who were accused of corruption were serving long term. I believe the maxim that power corrupts, and that once they start believing they're part of the ruling class they begin thinking they don't have to play by the same rules as us peons. Aside from corruption, if the terms were limited perhaps they wouldn't be so obsessed with keeping themselves in power, which to me is what's causing most of the problems in our political system.

[Meshugger]

If the people want a term to end, they can vote for the opposition.

They'd be voting against their self-interest unless every other state does the same. Legislative term limits are a good idea for the same reason presidential term limits are. It doesn't matter how talented one is if he's corrupt.

Well, sure. But where's the evidence for the connection that you're assuming exists between time spent in office and corruption? Despite what Frank Capra would have you believe, I suspect that first-term legislators are just as likely to be corrupt as 20-year veterans (but somewhat less likely to be competent).

I don't have hard statistics, but all the people I can think of who were accused of corruption were serving long term. I believe the maxim that power corrupts, and that once they start believing they're part of the ruling class they begin thinking they don't have to play by the same rules as us peons. Aside from corruption, if the terms were limited perhaps they wouldn't be so obsessed with keeping themselves in power, which to me is what's causing most of the problems in our political system.

 

Why cannot the voters realize that the senator or congressman in question has become corrupt and simply vote for someone else?

[Wrath of Dagon]

Because it's every man for himself. So long as a politician is supplying pork for his own district/state, they don't care he's not acting in the national interest. Now if he's dumb enough to actually break the law and get caught, he'll be removed from office, but so long as he's getting legal bribes, i.e. getting political contributions in return for doing favors for the contributors, no one seems to mind because everyone else is doing the same, so why should the voters single out their own representative? But the larger issue is that the original intent was to have citizen legislators, not a professional politician class. Once they've been out of the private sector for so long, they lose touch and just go along with the prevailing political culture.

[Cycloneman]

Al Franken is waiting to be seated after being certified by his state as a Senator. He can't beat seated until the Senator he beat - Republican Coleman - stops trying to sue him for winning, however.

Just FYI, this will happen in 2010 or some such. Seriously, it's going to take at least until June.

 

Incorrect, it will happen in June/July this year.

Sorry, I've just been informed that... it looks like I'm right?

 

Yes, yes, that's correct.

Embattled RNC Chair Michael Steele let his 100th day at the GOP helm slip by with little fanfare amid last weekend's White House Correspondents Dinner festivites. But in an interview after the gala, Steele said that if the state Supreme Court doesn't rule ex-Sen. Norm Coleman the winner, "then it's going to the federal courts."

 

Asked if Coleman should concede if entertainer Al Franken (D) is deemed the winner, Steele said, "No, hell no. Whatever the outcome, it's going to get bumped to the next level. This does not end until there's a final ruling that speaks to whether or not those votes that have not been counted should be counted. And Norm Coleman will not, will not jump out of this race before that."

[Meshugger]

Hypotethical situation: Since the Senators chair is empty so to speak, what would happen if the juridicial procedure takes longer than the actual mandatde period for a Senator?

[Guard Dog]

Hypotethical situation: Since the Senators chair is empty so to speak, what would happen if the juridicial procedure takes longer than the actual mandatde period for a Senator?

 

A Senate term is six years. Once a case like this goes into the appellate court it will move pretty quickly. The hold up to date has been the recount. That has been completed. Now it's just wrangling over what votes actually "count".

 

I must admit I have not really been following this one. Politics has become a very distasteful thing to me lately. But I do have one question. Al Franken? Al Fu****g Franken??? What the hell were you thinking Minnesota? He wasn't even a good writer, his SNL skits were terrible, he was a bitter and tragically un-funny radio host, and you make him your senator? This fool has failed at everything he has ever done. I'm no fan of Norm Coleman but for God's sake... Al Franken? But then this is the state that made Jesse Ventura Governor so...

[Killian Kalthorne]

I use to live in Minnesota. Then I left. I never looked back.