Balkinization: On House Republicans as "terrorists"

On House Republicans as "terrorists"

Sandy Levinson

Everyone should check out Mike Lukovich's cartoon. [THE CARTOON I AM REFERRING TO WAS PUBLISHED ON SEPTEMBER 19. IF YOU CLICK TO THE HYPERLINK, YOU'LL FIND HIS CURRENT CARTOON, AND YOU CAN EASILY CLICK BACK TO GET THE ONE FROM THE 19TH.] But, as I continue to insist, these "terrorists" are enabled by a defective political system created by the Constitution (or by Congress as when it required, beginning in 1842, the exclusive reliance on single-member districts, which is the foundation, of course, of gerrymandering. And, for those who accurately point out that one doesn't need to gerrymander in order to pack Democrats together in urban districts, the problem is our total lack of a mechanism for proportional representation. The best formal election systems in the world are Germany's and New Zealand's (modeled on Germany), but, of course, it would violate the tenets of American exceptionalism to believe that we had anything at all to learn from anyone outside our borders. No doubt many we'll be shouting "USA! WE'RE NO. 1" as we go over a fiscal cliff or simply bake to death because nothing, according to House Republicans, is more important (besides defunding Obamacare, of course) than the Keystone Pipeline (because, of course, global warming is a fraud dreamed up by pointy-headed scientists who don't believe in a benevolent God who wouldn't dream of inflicting any harm on even the stupidest human beings).

There's no real point in allowing comments on this. I'm not saying anything new, and there is no point in eliciting the usual rants (or even nods of approval). There will be other occasions for more substantive discussions.

UPDATE: I note that Nancy Pelosi has described House Republicans as “legislative arsonists. They’re there to burn down what we should be building up in terms of investments in education and scientific research and all that it is that make our country great and competitive.” I think that she is using the wrong analogy. An arsonist is a sociopath who really likes looking at fires. I assume that relatively few of the Republicans fit that definition. The mad-dog Republican terrorists would, I assume, prefer not to set the town afire, but they insist on receiving their ransom before releasing their hostages (i.e., all of us).

Posted 10:24 AM by Sandy Levinson [link]