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Sabotage the economy because they cannot tolerate electoral defeat. Sabotage the civil service and judicial systems because they cannot tolerate electoral defeat. Now enable terrorists to inflict harm on the country because they cannot tolerate electoral defeat. This is a treasonous act by any objective measure.

How you continue to defend and support the Republican Party is beyond me.

@Putin33 Who are you talking to?

"Now enable terrorists to inflict harm on the country because they cannot tolerate electoral defeat."

It was a joke, silly. Nobody is threatening to legalize terrorism.

It's believable because of how unhinged your party is.

Well, it's certainly been an interesting insight into how unhinged somebody is, I'll give you that.

You think your party is behaving rationally?

In some cases, no, and in other cases, yes. Which is also what I think about your party.

I do not think, though, that anybody who followed the American political process and had a shred of connection to reality would accidentally believe a story that Republicans were threatening to repeal the criminalization of terrorism.

So it's the false equivalence game, is it?

Not that I'm aware of.

"I do not think, though, that anybody who followed the American political process and had a shred of connection to reality would accidentally believe a story that Republicans were threatening to repeal the criminalization of terrorism."

But it's believable that your party would push us to the brink of default over it, is it? Your party has had a habit of acting unbelievably in the past 5+ years. Deflect this on me all you'd like, your party has repeatedly engaged in political terrorism over Obamacare.

" It's not as if you're going to be able to implement your ideologically pure agenda with your small ideologically pure party. You only get to power through coalitions. "

99% of the time, I agree. On the flip side, the NDP in Canada have never held power. However, when Canadians list the things they like the most about Canada, they list things that the NDP initially proposed. Other parties stole their ideas to steal their votes, and put them into place. It's not common, but it happens.

One way to raise issues is to be an activist, and one way to be an activist is to start a party, or hijack a party that has similar beliefs. You do it to raise issues that you think are important and hope other people feel the same way, and hope that the idea gets stolen and implemented.

If, on the other hand, you have to sell your soul to a larger party to get power, like the one-party system that Putin33 was describing, you have to give up what you believe in too, which means that people with ambition of holding power move up the ranks, not people with ideas. Stagnation has to be fought in one-party systems.

Cue obligatory ad hominem in order to deflect from the batshit nature of Semck's political friends.

OK, here comes the ad hominem:

Putin33 doesn't have a good sense for too-good-to-be-true stories when they flatter the communist preconceptions.

"Republicans are threatening that if ObamaCare is not repealed this week, terrorism will no longer be a federal crime"

When you believe every word every communist dictator utters, that sentence is not even a stretch to believe.

People always have to "sell their soul" to get power though. What you describe, as you say, is not a party gaining power. The people who sold their soul got into power and implemented the New Democrats ideas. What people call "selling their soul" is also called compromise, and in a system where majorities implement laws, there is no governance of any kind without compromise. If you have nothing but people with ideas, and nobody with a sense of how to practically implement them or a strategy for achieving a coalition, the ideas become rather worthless.

It's Bush that pushed your country into bankruptcy. Anyone who succeeded him, no matter what political stripe or how brilliant or not, was doomed to failure and would have to blow up the balloon of default just a little bit more.
I don't think it's fair to blame Obama on that. And I've seen plenty of political terrorism on both sides.

@Theodosius

"plenty of political terrorism on both sides"

Dude that is histrionic.

Communists have a better record of truth telling than the corporate media you rely on for your information, particularly the corporate media attached to the GOP, and more clear-eyed view of economic reality than your fellow laissez-faire dogmatists who think every problem is solved with the same solution, damn the evidence.

@Putin33 I'll agree that "sell your soul" and "compromise" are about the same, but there's a world of difference between compromising with equal interlocutors, and "compromising" with a one-party-state. The second "compromise" is just compliance.

Democrats voted for Bush's tax cuts. Republican leaders are on record claiming they will refuse to cooperate on any issue whatsoever, because Obama cannot be awarded any bi-partisan achievements. They almost pushed us to default, and they've shut down the government now multiple times over the course of two presidencies. The two are not anywhere near each other.

I don't know why you think two parties run by millionaires and billionaires is a system of 'equal interlocutors' for the rest of us.

@Putin33 I don't consider them unequal to me. They have no power over me. Most of them can barely tie their shoes.

Yes, that's the purpose of starting a small ideological party. Not to gain power, but to get ideas implemented. You don't need to hold power. You just have to get the attention of those in power.
If you are in power, compromise is the best way forward to stay in power. If you don't care for power, but just want to get ideas implemented and don't care who is doing it, then there are alternatives. That's one.

@ Tendmote,

You earlier complained about laws 'criminalizing ordinary people', ostensibly implemented by these same people who 'can't tie their shoes'? So which is it?

@ Theodosius

The cost of fragmentation which small ideological parties produce is not worth the new ideas, typically. The fragmentation of the left in center-left countries like France & Canada has produced a lot of rightwing governments.

If not for the New Democrats, Harper Conservatives would never have been able to come to power in Canada. Better to start a caucus within the Liberal Party than to cede power to a truly obnoxious enemy, imo.

@Putin33 - The government is too powerful, I agree. Most millionaires and billionaires aren't in politics at all, was my point.

At least I've never had to get my "ideological correctness" checked.

I'll agree that Communists have a better record of telling truths than corporate media in the States. Back when the USSR was in business, I compared articles on the same event in the USSR, Great Britain, Canada, and the USA. The USA had the most bias, then the USSR, then Canada, and then Britain. That happened the next two times I compared too.
I like the 'States. Great people, etc., but your news media sucks. Even the reporters complain that they can't report something unless it has a pro-US stance. When I worked down there I had to keep the TV off to keep away from the fifteen-minute updates of the OJ Simpson trial and five-minute updates on pictures of someone's back screen door where, "something might happen here, we're not sure yet..."

Not that our news media is fantastic, but Wow.

Yes, Putin, I agree. It does speak to the stupidly of those wanting power in the Liberal and NDP parties that they have not just banded together or only run one candidate per riding. That "compromise" thing.

The Reform and the Conservatives banded together and got great results, so it's not like there isn't a big shining example hanging out here.