Such a treat I have for you if you'll click my sig.

Such a treat I have for you if you'll click my sig.

(This time I'll remember to put the link in place.) ;->

They are not "lobbyists" they are "bribists". And lobbying is not a victimless crime.

But you are the one that made the analogy between math and politics. Do you now mean that that analogy does not work very well? If so, we agree.
— Mike Sulzer

as far as the propositions of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality

— Albert Einstein, address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences, January 27, 1921: http://pascal.iseg.utl.pt/~ncrato/Math/Einstein.htm

it might also neutralize the more rabid excesses of the present GOP, which would be a plus

I can't see how a Blue-dog contribution to the GOP can be a good thing. The two issues I care most about (a non-aggressive foreign policy and privacy and personal freedom) are exactly the two that they are most at odds with Progressives on. Reducing the influance of theocrats might be a net positive, but if it doesn't result in changes in our Middle East policy, then what's the point?

I had rather thought that the title of my post "Blue Dogs may be the new Republicans" suggested the direction I expected the movement to take. Silly me. I don't see the Blue Dogs being able to take over the party infrastructure of the Democratic Party, especially not as long as Howard Dean is in charge.

I also don't expect any of this to happen overnight. There will have to be a gestation period before any new party is born out of the Blue Dogs. However, after the election this November I expect the Republican Party infrastructure to be a shambles. I anticipate that sometime between then and the 2010 mid-terms that the Blue Dogs will assimilate whatever may be left of the RNC infrastructure into a new party apparatus. Whether they will call themselves Republicans or whether the Republican Party will go the way of the Federalists and the Whigs is another question, but that is just a matter of labeling.

But as of now, the Blue Dogs amount to a party within a party, and a situation like that cannot long endure. If they're as smart as they claim they are, they'll be looking for a way to break out and I expect the Republicans to provide it to them by self-destructing.

Yes, it's not an impossible scenario, but it is improbable in the sense that one would think that the Dogs must either take over the existing infrastructure of one or the other of the two current parties, or set up outside them and develop their own with the support of corporate donors who are disenchanted with the existing alternatives. The latter is the more difficult path, I think, largely because corporations aren't the risk-takers which their own publicity often claims them to be.

The Blue Dogs may be the new Republicans was no doubt clear to you, but to me it sounded as though you expected them to cannibalize the Democratic Party from within in one of those tectonic shifts which have already occurred several times already in party history, rather than leave and take over the remnants of the Republican Party.

These are two very different scenarios, I think, and of the two, the first is blocked principally by the strength of the Democratic left, which looks in the ascendancy to me, and the second can only proceed if the Republicans fall into even greater disarray than now seems likely, and moreover are willing to be re-directed by what would undoubtedly be considered interlopers, even if they shared a similar philosophy.

As you say, time may be the key. The realignment of the Dixiecrats took over forty years, and although their switch led to Republican majorities in the South, it manifestly didn't result in them taking over the Republican Party. The end result was more an ideological amalgamation rather than a Leninist subversion.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you -- it wouldn't be the first time I didn't get it here at UT -- but you must at least admit that I'm taking your insight seriously.

Imagine, for example, bucky without the need to attribute all the evil in the world to a single source, or rather to a single malfunction. He might actually enjoy playing the game all we non-misanthropes have to play, and we wouldn't need earplugs when we're around him.

Imagine a Willy Timberman not so in love with a strong central government that he could see the reality of our situation; would that not be something?

Instead, he must pretend that I represent all the evil in the world. Well, Timberman never explains all the evil we see around us that just happens to be caused by this government. What will stop the mindless bureaucrats from wreaking havoc on the population? Will Obama all by himself?

Give it up Timberman, you and the wanker have been hurling insults for over a year and never answered even one policy problem yet. Hell, you now deny that you once claimed the Post Office was needed.

Straight and simple question; do we need a federal Post Office?

Bush likes to talk about appeasement.

It sure seems that these "Blue dogs", who we call "Bush Dogs" for obvious reasons, deserve a new name: "Appeasement Dems".

They trade the Constitution for Bush/Cheney and the telecoms but get nothing in return.

Oh, wait.. they get legalized bribes from telecom lobbyists. Still appeasement dogs in my mind, though.

Having had substantial experience as both an eBay buyer and seller, I'll field the Post Office question.

In my view, the U.S.Post Office fulfills the function of a "benchmark"- providing a common standard of delivery for all U.S. residents. Everyone in the USA pays the same amount for a first class mail stamp that can deliver their mail from coast to coast, or even from Key West to Hawaii. Everyone in the USA is served by a local post office in their local ZIP code, somewhere. As far as I know, all post offices are open a minimum of 5 days a week; many are open 6 days a week; some are open 7 days a week.

Privatize the postal services, and all of those standards and more become subject to "market conditions"- i.e., no requirement that a mail/parcel service have outlets or routes in "unprofitable" areas like rural countryside, or the wide open spaces of sparsely populated counties in Western states. Alternatively, it might conceivably cost more for residents of those areas to post letters. It's also possible that other types of "tiered" service would come into existence, to replace what was formerly a common standard of letter delivery. Like "Base rate A", which would provide mail delivery once weekly; "base rate B", for thrice weekly; "base rate C", for daily delivery.

Whoopee! More of that "consumer choice"- which in this case means the headache of having to research all of the options and experiment to see which one might provide some marginal advantage over another on a cost-benefit basis. Not as bad as the present medical insurance/health care scam, to be sure...but all I really want is what I have in the first place- to get my mail 5/6 days a week, and to be able to send a letter anywhere in the US for the same price! I already have that. I am not a dissatisfied customer.

In terms of postal security, the "free market competition" aspect that gets so lauded in theory would entail providing access to mailboxes and letter boxes to several different delivery services, that's presently only granted to one assigned postal carrier, with all sorts of potential complications in terms of increased risks of lost, misplaced, and stolen mail- unless the privatization entailed something like private companies bidding for local zone monopolies, an even bigger can of worms in terms of the logistics of mail delivery. Either way, the waste of resources inherent in the duplication of services would be massive.

I'll stop there, for now.

My own personal experience with the US post office is that their service is overwhelmingly first-rate. I've received and sent over 1000 packages with them in the past 10 years or so, with ZERO LOSSES. There was one close call, and some minor delays, fewer than five, I'd say. Often, their Priority Mail service was shockingly efficient. I've always been well-served by the counter personnel in the various locations I've patronized, even when I had special requests. I know that the rates for parcel service have gone up several times over the past few years- well, to be honest, they were giving us too much of a break! They've recently gone to zone delivery, like FedEx and UPS use, a move that makes good sense.

It's also important to note that the Post Office is NOT a monopoly, in terms of parcel service. Their rates ARE quite competitive with the private delivery services- and very often, the best option. Furthermore, USPS utilizes FEdEx as a contract carrier for much of their air freight delivery- a public-private partnership that works to the benefit of both of them, and to service consumers like myself.

For me, the US postal service is excellent, and the rates are reasonable. It would be whiny, spoiled pique for me to complain...yeah, there are sometimes lines at the post office. There are lines at the grocery store, too.

As for the oft-voiced complaint that the USPS "losing money every year"- well, find me the numbers on a per capita basis per taxpayer. Although I'm willing to be surprised or even shocked, my hunch is that the figure is chump change. What Americans receive in return is ample compensation- a high standard of letter delivery that's provided in common to all citizens for the same rate, as a mandated responsibility of the national government. Do without that at your peril. Once it's gone, it would be the devil to re-implement.

I've said it before, I'm sympathetic to some Libertarian proposals. Not this one, though. Privatizing the post office smacks of cloud-castle dogmatism that doesn't accord with my practical experience.