continuing proofs America is wacko [2]

  playin with the big boys

A story that goes -      

'The Senate approved a bill Thursday outlawing workplace discrimination against gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.
The bill, which passed by a vote of 64-32.
"It is time for Congress to pass a federal law that ensures all our citizens - regardless of where they live - can go to work unafraid to be who they are," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The enthusiasm of the bill's supporters was tempered by the reality that the Republican-led House, where conservatives have a firm grip on the agenda, is unlikely to even vote on the legislation. '

Fortunately there are a number of states that have anti-discrimination laws on the books (though not all of them cover transgender), but there should be a federal law in order to protect people who live in states where such legislation is unlikely to pass in the near future. I can't say I'm surprised by the House GOP on this, but it's still disgraceful.

I swear, we in the good ole USA are going to have to wait for my parents generation to die in order to get gay marriage in all states, and these anti-discrimination laws. Mark my words. (But I would love to be proven wrong.)

 

It's interesting; a year ago shortly before Maryland voted on whether to allow gay marriage, I noticed that a lot of my most conservative friends on Facebook (despite going to a state university I ended up meeting a lot of really conservative people ) were actually talking in favor of gay marriage. I thought this was great and I asked around wondering if this was just a Maryland Republican thing, since Maryland as a whole leans quite liberal, or if it was a generational thing. Everyone I talked to said it was generational, and that their parents were all staunchly opposed to gay marriage. I do hope that as more states change their laws and God continues to not smite America for its sins more people will come around, though.

I wish my parents weren't such bigoted homophobes. I might actually have hope then.

Dont be so hard on your parents Bungo- walk a mile in someone elses shoes an all that- some things take more than a generation to change, people get set in their ways and ideas, its how they were raised, the environment they were raised in- and such a range of factors feed into this things, including the wider views of society.
A generation or two from now I predict people will view same sex relationships with about the same amount of shock we would the idea women can vote, ie none at all.

The gap in generations on this issue is already strikingly apparent.

I don't know about past generations, but people who complain about kids in comparison to past generations often ignore the idealism in youth, and I think it's stronger in many ways in the current generation than ever.  We may roll our eyes and complain about being politically correct, but in fact it has made an impact where it was meant to, and we are better for it.

I think in a lot of cases political correctness is just a sugar coated plaster over a festering wound, we can legislate against things like racism and sexism but people still hold those views but now they are just too scared to admit to them.

The older generation is scared to admit them, the younger generation don't have them.  Ask any teacher of young teenagers or younger: kids are not racist.  They learn it from their parents.  If their parents don't bring it up, by the time the kids are older teenagers they never learned the views.  The same thing goes for homophobia, though I think the younger generation is ahead of the curve and is actually aggressive rather than passive about it, as they are for race. Possibly because the older generation will talk trash about homosexuality, then give lip service to be fair. This stimulates the youthful idealism. People don't talk about race as openly - that fight is a couple decades further along.

I agree about the generational thing, its definately easier these days, but I think there is still a lot of bullying going on in schools as regards being gay, in one way this generation is hampered by social media, in my day if someone called you a name it was generally to your face, and it was settled openly end result a bloody nose, end of story, but today its all anonymous cyber bullying, its more cowardly.

Hey guys, dropping in on this a little late, but I'll try to make it short and sweet.

I completely agree. America has gone completely whackadoodle, in the complete sense of the word, as it was used way back in the 1930's.

I grew up believing that our government had enough checks and balances to prevent anyone from being bought, from abusing the system, and the ability to stop such people from being in our government.

I grew up believing that most politicians were honest, and that a few of them were crooked. I figured they'd get caught, like Nixon.

Right now I am so flummoxed by the governmental system, the bureaucracy, the red tape, the lack of social programs and the abuse of them, my own escalating poverty -----------------------------------------------that I cannot understand why we have not revolted, other than out of fear for the lives of our children.

I thought that after Sandy there would be an upheaval, a sort of New Yorkers Can't Take It Anymore thing. The Wall Street sit-in was nice, but it didn't do anything but cement the term "1%" in our vocabulary.
I wonder when we all all wake up from this nightmare...or will we live in it for another complacent 10 years?

Pettytyrant101 wrote:A generation or two from now I predict people will view same sex relationships with about the same amount of shock we would the idea women can vote, ie none at all.

Women can vote?  No wonder Forumshire has gone to wrack and ruin!  

Jane! Who let you out of Little Forumshire?! Back you go, that's a dear.

 

Iraq was the bigger fixed target, easier to hit. You fight the enemy you can find, not the enemy you have...

Could one of you UShobbits enlighten me on this filibuster 'nuclear' option?
Ive been trying to follow it- as far as I can tell the Democrats just overturned a 200 year old part of your government in order to prevent another Cruz style filibuster,butof Presidential appointees.
Now Ive never really understood US filibustering- the sight of Cruz reading out bedtime stories to his children from the senate floor just seemed absurd and to make a mockery out of US politics.

In UK politics filibustering exists, sort of, you can talk in certain debates for so long that the debate runs out of parliamentary time and no vote is taken- but the caveat to that, to prevent Cruz style ramblings- is the speaker must stay on the topic of the bill under discussion. So no bed time stories.

Adopting something akin to the UK rules on it would seem a better option than throwing it out altogether.

I don't remember the whole history bit it's not a 200 year old institution in its current form. It's been fiddled with many times over that period, mostly in the 20th century.

The procedural rules for how to bring a bill to a vote are convoluted, which allows the minority party a little more power by giving them the potential to block actions that they know they can't defeat.

These things are allowed to stand because when used with discretion they're good for everybody, and everybody is aware that they may someday be in the minority.

But filibuster is best used as a threat to encourage discussion. When it becomes as common as it has recently, it becomes a roadblock to government, and the rules get tweaked as they are now.

As for the procedural details..... maybe somebody else would like to take a shot at it?

The filibuster in the United States exists because of parliamentary rules that are set by the legislature, and the legislature is allowed to change its own rules.  It's not a matter of law or the constitution.  The filibuster didn't even exist for the first several decades of Congress' history, and there is precedent for removing it, as the House of Representatives did in the 1840s.  And, as Dave said, the rules for filibustering have been altered many times.  However, the Senate did not entirely remove the filibuster, they just said it can't be used to block Presidential appointments, with the exception of Supreme Court justices.  So in most cases the filibuster still exists for the Senate.

There are a handful of state legislatures which allow filibustering, and some of them require the filibusterer to stay on the topic of the bill.  I agree that this is a reasonable requirement, but that hasn't been the case in the Senate for a long time, if it ever was.  Al D'Amato famously read from the DC phone book in 1992, and Strom Thurmond read various historical documents (among other things) in his record-breaking 24 hours and 18 minutes on the floor of the Senate in 1957.  However, these days, Senators don't even have to stand and talk; they can just say they are filibustering and the rules of the Senate prevent any business from being conducted.  That's probably the main reason why filibusters have become more common in recent years, and yes, it is absolutely ridiculous.

Thanks David and Eldo for the extra info- the news reports often assume you already understand the process and so dont explain it.  

No problem. If you're interested, there's a pretty good explanation of the filibuster here:

http://newsbound.com/stacks/filibuster

Thanks Eldo- Ill take a look at that. Always interesting to see how the colonies are managing things.  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/open-on-thanksgiving-2013_n_4254974.html

     

I'm going to make sure to do all my shopping online. That is, if I actually do any shopping.  

Why did I create this thread in the Big Bad Serious Forum?   It should be in Off Topic.