Janine Jackson interviewed the Daily Poster‘s Andrew Perez about the filibuster for the June 18, 2021, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.
Janine Jackson: US citizens overwhelmingly and unsurprisingly want healthcare, jobs with livable wages, more equitable taxes on wealth, and everyone’s right to vote protected. The US is a nominal democracy, and majorities of the electorate support these things, and the party that promised these things controls the presidency, the House of Representatives and the Senate. And yet here we still are.
I will surprise no one by saying that one important thing standing between people’s needs (and elected Democrats’ mandate) and a better future for millions is the filibuster, the senatorial rule that allows a minority of senators to extend debate on legislation indefinitely, unless the majority party can put together 60 votes.
Just because a word is invoked frequently or fervently in news media doesn’t mean they’re explaining it meaningfully, and this is an issue where Americans’ ignorance abets devastatingly important political obfuscation—hobbling our ability to enact changes that we want and need and have called for.
So here to help us understand the filibuster and the role it’s playing now is Andrew Perez. Andrew Perez covers money and influence as senior editor and reporter at the Daily Poster. He joins us now by phone from Maine. Welcome to CounterSpin, Andrew Perez.
Andrew Perez: Thanks so much for having me.
JJ: At FAIR, we’re not about blaming the people. You might remember your high school civics class, and you might read the Times or the Washington Post every day, and you can still be misinformed or underinformed about, in this case, what the filibuster is and what it does.
So just to start somewhere, I think many people (of a certain age, but even beyond that) think about Jimmy Stewart, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and he’s talking himself hoarse on the Senate floor in a fight against corruption and cronyism.
Deadline ran a piece recently, noting that even when that movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, came out in 1939, the filibuster already had a history associated with blocking civil rights legislation, and particularly Southern senators filibustering a bill against lynching—a bill that huge numbers of the public supported. So if we’re talking emblems of the history of the filibuster, maybe less Jimmy Stewart, more Strom Thurmond, would you say?
Andrew Perez: Yeah, today, as it stands, the majority party in the Senate is required to find 60 votes to end debate on any legislation; Congress, or the Senate, has definitely limited the power of the majority to actually enact their agenda. The minority party doesn’t have to marshal all these votes on the floor; they don’t have to marshal people to talk indefinitely to try to filibuster a piece of legislation. Instead, what basically happens is the process will just continue; no legislation can advance unless the majority party can together marshal 60 votes on the Senate floor.
JJ: So they don’t have to talk until they’re hoarse; they just have to say, “We’re agin it.”
AP: Yeah, the onus is really on the majority party to produce their votes, rather than on the minority party to stand there on the floor to talk their faces off. Yes, the onus is completely on the majority party at this point.
JJ: It’s interesting: It’s seen as “protecting the minority,” that’s one sort of thing that you hear. And then it’s also, maybe even more frequently, talked about as “preserving bipartisan collegiality,” or, said differently, “forcing Democrats and Republicans to work together.” But is that what it is? It seems like, at this point, it’s really more cynical and even more sinister than that.
AP: Yeah. Some people like to think that the Senate is just intrinsically supposed to be this cooling saucer—the way the founders intended—but, yeah, there hasn’t been much collegiality between the parties for quite a while.
And I guess it could work in theory, where there’s some give and take on legislation. But one of the primary issues here is that there’s not any kind of agreement between Democrats and Republicans on the type of legislation, or what the broader issues are that Congress should be addressing. It’s not like, “OK, we’re going to take a certain issue, and let’s hear your side of it and let’s hear our side of it.” The issue is more that Republicans just are never going to agree to pass any kind of priority agenda items from Democrats, even if it was a watered-down version.
And I think we’ve seen that a lot. A pretty classic example of it is the Affordable Care Act debate under President Obama: Democrats proposed legislation that is actually fairly conservative. The Affordable Care Act was basically an outgrowth of a Heritage Foundation idea years ago. Mitt Romney had passed legislation as the governor of Massachusetts, enacting the first test case for that type of legislation.
And there were zero Republican votes for it at all, no matter how watered down the bill got. Democrats didn’t include ideas like a public health insurance option or Medicare expansion—stuff we’re still talking about today.
JJ: Right.
AP: Those were on the table back in 2009 and 2010, and Democrats didn’t include any of them—and there were zero Republican votes for the bill.
JJ: And now we have Mitch McConnell saying that he’s “100%” focused on “stopping” Joe Biden’s administration; very similar to what he said under Obama. So it sounds weird when you then turn to Joe Manchin, who says, “Well, we can’t give up on working together.” It just seems like one of these things is not like the other.
AP: Yeah, there was a great story yesterday at the Intercept from Lee Fang about how Joe Manchin is looking to preserve the filibuster, and basically begging big donors to help put pressure on other Democrats—and Republicans—to try to get the parties to work together, just a shred, so that he can preserve the filibuster.
There was talk that he wanted them to lean on a specific senator, Roy Blunt from Missouri (who’s going to be retiring), basically try to pressure him to support a January 6 commission, so the parties will agree to investigate whatever happened at the Capitol insurrection a few months ago. And the reason for that was—he basically intimated they should dangle a job offer to Roy Blunt, so that he would support the January 6 commission, and then progressives and even more establishment Democratic senators would just lay off the gas a little bit on the need to end the filibuster, because it would be proof that, in some ways, the parties still could work together, if big business could buy off one Republican senator to support an investigation.
JJ: Boy, and you wonder why folks are turned off electoral politics, which maybe we’ll get to in a second.
But I just, in terms of point of information: Democrats, if they wanted to, could end the filibuster tomorrow, is that right? And there are reasons that they should want to not kick it down the road; there are reasons that if they really do want to put through their agenda, or what we understand to be their agenda, that now is a whole lot better than later.
AP: Yeah, definitely. So, yeah, Democrats can nuke the filibuster if they find 50 votes plus the vote from Kamala Harris as vice president. They can nuke the filibuster whenever they want. They could attempt to do that on the Senate floor.
And, yeah, there’s very good reasons to do it now, which is that Democrats right now—even though they have a very small Senate majority—they control both houses of Congress and the presidency, which means that they can actually enact whatever they want, in that case, without Republican input.
And not to sound too partisan, but I think it’s understood at this point: Republicans are not going to support any of Joe Biden’s agenda.
JJ: They’ve said it.
AP: Yeah, they’ve been pretty open about it. And there’s just a million different things that now is the time to pass. For instance, we haven’t had a minimum wage increase in 12 years; it just was never passed during the Obama administration. And the reason, in part, was because Democrats didn’t start talking about it until after they lost control of the House. And Republican Speaker John Boehner obstructed the agenda and wouldn’t have it.
So, yeah, now is the time that Democrats actually have full power to pass Joe Biden’s agenda, whether it’s one I like or whether it’s one that’s weak and moderate, what have you.
JJ: Yeah.
AP: It’s the only time any of that’s going to happen, because [there’s a] very good chance that Democrats lose control of the Senate soon. And, in fact, they could lose control of the Senate next November, but that could also happen literally any day, because they have a 50/50 majority there and a whole bunch of old, old senators.
JJ: Yeah, not to put too fine a point on it; it just is one health event away from a shift there.
AP: Mmm-mm.
JJ: Politicians love to split the difference; media love to do that triangulation as well, and meet in the middle somehow. And we’re hearing a lot about tweaks or modifications to the filibuster, or maybe a greater reliance on reconciliation? What’s your sense about tweaking versus eliminating? Is there a danger in fiddling around with details on the filibuster, rather than going big?
AP: Yeah. Joe Manchin is talking now, according to that Intercept piece, one of the ideas is like, “What if you only required 55 votes for cloture?” Well, that’s not going to do anything, right? Democrats don’t have 60 votes for anything; they don’t have 55 votes for anything.
And then maybe you return to the talking filibuster, the whole Mr. Smith Goes to Washington thing.
JJ: Yeah.
AP: That’s, again, a similar issue; you need to functionally change how this works.
Andrew Perez: “If Democrats just continue fiddling around and not accomplishing anything, it increases the likelihood that Republicans control the Senate next cycle.”
I think there’s some concern with removing the guardrails from governing here, right, like, “What if Republicans are then able to impose their will, if they are then able to legislate however they see fit in a few years?” But if Democrats just continue fiddling around and not accomplishing anything, it increases the likelihood that Republicans control the Senate next cycle. It just does.
I think the party probably thinks that they’ve done a good job already during the Joe Biden administration, because they passed a single Covid-19 stimulus bill. That’s not going to carry people until next year; a lot of the benefits sunset fairly soon, including the unemployment provisions, the federal expanded unemployment benefits. And the other thing about it is, 25 states that are led by Republicans have actually already cancelled those unemployment benefits; they’re already ending this month and next month, instead of end of September.
So I think the economic impact of that legislation is getting affected already, and it wasn’t designed to carry the party for that long. Some of the stuff in there, they’re already trying to extend. I don’t think they’ll be rewarded if they just rest on their laurels from here on out, or pass another one or two big bills in the next two years. It’s just not a realistic approach to governance.
JJ: No, and doesn’t meet the occasion; far too many people are hurting.
AP: Mmm-mm.
JJ: Let me ask you, finally, about media: Back in 2009, FAIR’s Jim Naureckas was writing about how reporters at, for example, the Washington Post, used to make an effort to explain the filibuster. When they talked about it, they would say, “It might be harder to get 60 votes to cut off a filibuster”; they would tie that in there. And then along the years, it got dropped into a kind of shorthand. And then they began referring to just “the 60 votes most legislation requires,” so they got less and less clear, in terms of pointing out to readers what was going on.
And then, finally, everything Democrats promise is virtually contentless, it’s like shadowboxing, if they aren’t going to do the thing that will allow it to actually happen. And you’ve written about this; you suggested back in March that talking about new gun legislation, for example, if we don’t eliminate the filibuster, well, that’s just “meaningless,” and it “should be treated as such.”
And I just wonder, if media don’t connect Democratic promises to a failure to activate the mechanisms for making them happen, it just seems like they’re doing the public a serious disservice.
AP: Yeah, I think media cover a lot of the day-to-day, what goes on in Washington, what people are saying, like this new legislation just dropped, and maybe at the bottom, it might say, “There’s not a lot of chance that this will actually become law, because Democrats won’t be able to find 60 votes for this.”
JJ: Right.
AP: And I do think it does people a disservice, because this is an overriding issue; the filibuster functions as a general block on on all legislation.
So it was big news a couple of weeks ago when Joe Manchin endorsed the PRO Act, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which is a pretty sweeping package of labor reforms, and would be a really, really beneficial thing for this country; it would give people potentially a lot more power in the workplace, in a way that we haven’t seen in years. And the thing about it is, he might have co-signed the legislation, but it is not going to happen right now unless he is willing to end the filibuster. It’s just…. Talking about it is insulting to workers.
And it’s the same issue with new gun laws, with new gun rules. It’s just not going to happen right now in this Senate. So that, after every mass shooting, to be like, “Well, we need new gun laws.” That’s true, yes, but you guys are also the same people functionally blocking it, because you’re insisting on a threshold that you know you can’t meet.
I think it’s very insulting to people. Look at what happened this year: There was a huge groundswell that took place in Georgia, where people organized like hell to flip two Senate seats to give Democrats this majority, so that Joe Biden could pass an agenda into law. And right now it’s June, and they’ve passed one bill; it’s just your one major bill.
There’s a fundamental disconnect between what the party says, and then how it actually governs in power. And it’s not a new issue, but it’s one that I think is just really, really hard to get around.
JJ: We’ve been speaking with Andrew Perez; he’s senior editor and reporter at the Daily Poster; they’re online at DailyPoster.com. Andrew Perez, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
AP: Thank you.
Why was there no mention of the Democrats’ use of the filibuster during Trump’s tenure? Clear bias by “FAIR.”
The Dems used it 300+ times.
https://www.westernjournal.com/david-harsanyi-democrats-used-filibuster-314-times-trump-now-want-abolish/
This article was about the filibuster’s effect of preventing legislation. The Dems used it to delay Trump nominees.
Not possible. The filibuster cannot be used to block nominations. https://reason.com/volokh/2018/07/09/the-mythical-history-of-nomination-filib/
That’s not quite what that article says.
It is indeed possible to block or at least slow down nominations using a filibuster– or at least a filibuster-like process– I guess it could depend on how one defines the term.
“During Trump’s presidency, McConnell and the Senate GOP have held time-sapping roll call votes to break a filibuster and end debate on nominees a whopping 314 times, according to Senate tallies.”
— https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/08/senate-record-breaking-gridlocktrump-303811
Whether one labels that tactic as “filibustering” or not kinda depends on how narrowly you wanna define the term.
So, by your own words, Democrats filibustered 314 times. They tried to stop what Republicans were elected to do. Suddenly, Democrats hate filibusters?
Frankly, I don’t consider filibustering a nomination the same as filibustering a bill. I don’t want any of the Democrat bills that are being proposed. I’m glad the filibuster is in place. As I’m sure you were glad when Republicans were in power. The fewer the number of bills passed (by either side), the better off we are as a nation. We pass 75k pages of new laws each year. Liberty uber ales.
Liberty is on our coins. It is what Americans used to strive for. Now the left wants equality of outcome. Those two ideas are opposed.
Dear Congress:
I just read a Ralph Nader piece and how amazing to learn that Congress gets paid with so little work getting done. And so many vacations too. MAYBE CONGRESS SHOULD HAVE AN HOURLY RATE. YOU KNOW, NO WORK NO PAY? And too, what is that Marjorie Taylor Greene doing with her free money—although I suppose harassing people she doesn’t like gives her something to do. WHY does anyone in Congress get paid for not doing much work at all? And MITCH, besides acting as a roadblock for any sort of work FOR THE PEOPLE—what is it that you do?
“I think it’s very insulting to people. Look at what happened this year: There was a huge groundswell that took place in Georgia, where people organized like hell to flip two Senate seats to give Democrats this majority, so that Joe Biden could pass an agenda into law.”
Definitely. I imagine Democrats were panicking when those seats flipped, as they were planning on using a minority in the Senate as the “reason” they won’t be doing jack to help people the next 2-4 years. Those mean Senate obstructionist Republicans!!
That was unexpected, so they have to go to the backup of Sinema-Manchin-filibuster. Which is a bit too obvious, maybe even to “team Dem” partisans.
They’re definitely hoping to lose the Senate (at least) in ’22, so they don’t have to make such blatant excuses for doing nothing. And they can ramp up the donation machine again telling everyone the very Democracy-at-stake have-to-stop-the-fascist-Republicans blah blah give us and our corporate buddies money. And make the media shills like Maddow the public voice again.
I’m not sure there’s ever been as useless a party as the current (and maybe back to ’08 and prior) Democrats, since they actively prefer being useless rather than being expected to improve the lot of the commoners. They’re the literal definition of conservatives. Love the status quo, hate the idea or responsibility for change. They’re parasites.
I got tired of hearing the Dems not even introducing good legislation back in the early 90’s and early Obama era because they would always parrot the excuse that ‘Oh we don’t have enough votes to override a potential filibuster’. I believed back then, and still believe now, that IF they just went ahead and MADE the Repubs filibuster and bring the government to a halt, that it would ultimately backfire on the R’s, much like their government shutdown did back in 94(?). Call their bluff, and when things start going to hell and closing down, just point the TV cameras at the R’s on the Senate floor reading from cookbooks or television listings or whatever filler their using to hold the floor. Until they do that, I have to agree with Hippo Dave above that effectively the Dems are just a dance partner in a kayfabe situation.
Exactly what was going on my mind too, a few decades ago.
I also [for decades of being a naive person] wanted that bluff called. Make those filibusterers actually do that. I feel you. But bipartisan-wise–the filibuster is just now another lame-ass performance. Gone are days of bringing a bucket to piss in.
And these people take a summer vacation “not-in-session” and a winter session and etc. And not much can thwart their vacation time. I seem to remember some of them declining to keep working during last year when a pandemic might about to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Apparently there is a Constitutional, or maybe a Parliamanterian insistence that US leaders take a vacation, whether during a Pandemic, or Gross Inequality, or Nuclear War…gotta give these “representatives” 26 weeks vacation every year, and if not– they’ll be so–so put out. The idea of working 2080 hours a year on a job is INSANE.
And I forget to mention the other sweet obstruction excuse: “The Parliamentarian”.
Maybe in a few months there’ll be a wondrous bill to save 20,000,000 struggling people from being kicked out of their homes, after a year of no income due to a fucking Pandemic, but Biden and the Democrats might go: “oh, but the House sergeant-at-arms decided that this was not available to be voted upon.”
On this day Mike Gravel dies.
P.S. I apologize for turning this into partisan politics, instead of sober noting of shitty media. But Julie Hollar and the other insane Trump-Derangement-Syndrome hires and employees force a rational and objective response.
FAIR, featuring Julie Hollar [and any editor who allowed this to go on], is it’s own destroyer.
Who now is the FAIR editor btw–Betsy Reed?
May as well be.
Professional editors get a grip on their writers who stray off the objective, non-partisan field, for YEARS.
Final p.s. I think Julie Hollar is a good reporter, and excellent writer. But she belongs somewhere else. “fairness and accuracy” is not her milieu, considering her overriding love of the Democratic Party, and etc…
Julie Hollar is stunted here, and also sucks here and there should be a pleasant parting of ways, imo.
Not sure why the hire or the website now, really…
@Tim:
You took this article to task for not mentioning Democratic filibusters. I was only pointing out that there’s a big difference between filibustering nominations and filibustering legislation and that this particular article only addresses filibusters of legislation.
So you want Congress to do nothing at all because 75K pages is too much. Yeah… Makes a lot of sense. Microsoft, Google, and Apple put out trillions of lines of code to update their OS’s multiple times every year. I’m sure you never update anything because of “liberty”. [jerk-off motion]
You ought to get a room. You seem to motion that alot.
FWIW, they don’t put out trillions of lines of code multiple times a year. Those lines of code aren’t pages of law. I’ll let you figure out the difference.
You break laws every day. You just don’t know which ones. The government has stripped away your rights and you don’t even know/care. Many laws are just passed to make a person feel good (hate crimes – we already have laws against murder. We really need to add 5 more years? Gun laws – we don’t enforce the current laws. The very definition of a criminal is a person that breaks a law. Passing a new one won’t eliminate one death. They just make Democrats feel good. Those laws are to make law abiding Republicans law breakers. There are 10s of thousands of laws that you probably break. Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime). Eventually, those laws will be used against you. You’re just too naïve to know it.
Yeah, I make that motion a lot. Usually in response to your bullshit. There’s a connection.
Bullshit that I’m breaking 10’s of thousands of federal laws. I’m willing to bet that upwards of 90% the these alleged 75K pages of law don’t apply to either you or me, Mr. Paranoid. And the whole premise that “there’s a lot of laws– that’s bad!” is inherently flawed. Yeah, there’s a lot of laws: modern life is fucking complicated; you can’t build or operate a nuclear reactor using 10 pages of operating instructions, and it’s ridiculous to think that there should be some page limit or something to structure modern society.
Who do they apply to? Corporations are owned by people. When you fine a company, you fine the owners. When you shut down a company, you punish the owners. Prison sentences aren’t for the company, they’re for the owners. You lefties never understand simple economics.
Let’s go with your 10% thought. 7500 PAGES every year. Let’s say you aren’t breaking 10s of thousands. Let’s say you’re only breaking 10. You still want laws in place where you can pay large fines or be imprisoned for things you don’t know about? You do the wrong thing on one day, some stupid lawyer can look into your life, find some esoteric law and punish you. That’s the type of world you want to live in?
I’ll do what you do, pick the small item in what is typed and attack it. How many nuclear plants are there in the US? 98. You believe it takes 68k of pages each year to regulate 98 plants?
You tell me who they apply to. You’re the one asserting it’s some fucking tragedy that there’s a lot of laws out there, so you provide the evidence of it. Yeah, my local dry cleaner probably has to follow a bunch of rules and regulations that change from time to time as technology changes and whatnot; but just because I pay him to clean my clean stuff doesn’t mean they apply to me– I don’t have to know the current approved use and disposal of cyclohexane to be his customer.
What happened to the party of personal responsibility? You don’t wanna violate the law, then find out what laws apply to you– it ain’t real hard to do and you can hire people to do it for you. You break the law, you take your lumps. I thought that’s what Republicans stood for. Or does that thinking only apply to laws that throw brown people into jails?
You do realize that these alleged 75K pages of yours doesn’t mean 75K laws, right? It could be 3 laws. It could 500. Again, what laws do you think you and I are breaking here that we don’t even know about?
I dunno how many pages it takes to operate and regulate a nuclear plant; I just know that you’re a moron if you look at the operations manual of one and think it’s a good idea to cut thousands of pages out of it.
John, you are a moron. Who has time to read 75k pages x 20 years of laws. You’re an idiot. I’m amazed out how truly stupid you are. What do you do with that can of WD40? You throw it away. Don’t tell me you’ve found the place to take it to and paid the fee. What did you do with your extra paint? Your extra drugs? I am amazed at how truly stupid you are.
Can’t have an argument with a lefty without being called a racist. Even when the topic has nothing to do with race.
John can’t think of anything else, so he tosses out the hail Mary – race. Let’s see if that works.
Do your own work on how many laws are passed each year. You can’t do a simple search?
@Tim: You don’t have to read every single page of every law written every year in order to avoid violating the law. And you think I’m stupid? Even tax attorneys and accountants don’t sit down and re-read the tax code from the beginning every single year. You’re making this sound like some horrible burden for every man, woman, and child out there while the reality is that you still have no idea how few federal laws actually apply to the average Joe– and if you do have some idea, I’m reasonably sure you pulled it outta yer ass and you sure as Hell haven’t ventured a guess here. So, I put it to you: How many of these alleged gazillions of laws that Congress passes every year actually apply to the average American out there? Beyond the Tax Code, I’m struggling to think of any other federal law I have to devote time and energy to complying with.
By the way: It’s not illegal federally to throw away aerosol spray cans and expired medications. It’s not illegal in the vast majority of jurisdictions and, to the extent that it is illegal, it’s made that way by state laws and local ordinances.
And, again, why does the thinking of “you gotta take responsibility for yourself and if you’re a criminal, then tough shit” not apply here? Seems like that’s a pretty popular rejoinder of the Republican Party when it comes to a LOT of things. Why not here? Seems like the same logic oughta apply.
One helluva commentary on me arguing with such an idiot.
Laws apply to people and corporations. Corporations are owned by people. Therefore ALL laws apply to people.
Who said aerosol cans? I said WD40. That compound cannot be just thrown away. What? A law you didn’t know about that you’ve broken. I’m shocked.
Attorney’s don’t read laws until they want to defend or prosecute. It’s the prosecute side that is problematic. If they want to apply pressure, they’ll find a law you unknowingly broke (because nobody has the time to read all of those laws). Then the coercion starts.
The reason it doesn’t apply here is because there are too many laws for a person to know about. How dense are you? I’ve already stated that.
Look, dipshit: Laws applying to people and laws affecting people are not the same thing. The banking and commercial instruments laws may well affect me, but they apply to banks and the like, therefore, banks and the like are the ones who have to devote resources to complying with them; as far as I’m concerned, I don’t need to worry about them. So, again, I ask: Which federal laws do I actually have to spend time and energy worrying about being in compliance with? Because, aside from the Tax Code, I can’t think of anything.
It’s also not a violation of federal law to throw away a consumer can of WD-40. If you think it is, then find me the citation to the statute. State and local governments control how illegal it is to process/recycle consumer waste.
Yeah, you’ve said repeatedly that there’s too many laws to know about and you’ve said repeatedly that this is some sorta tragedy. What you haven’t done is backed up that assertion with anything other than repetition. Repeated bullshit is still bullshit. Back it up with some kinda facts or fuck off. How much does the average Joe gotta worry about the newest amendments to the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020?
Who talked about laws that affect people, dolt?
If you own a company or run a company, then laws that apply to that firm directly apply to you. You really need that explained to you?
You disposed of a WD40 can improperly? You broke a federal law.
Here is a very simple one that affects millions of people with fines and sanctions (READ): https://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2014/01/29/epas-wood-burning-stove-ban-has-chilling-consequences-for-many-rural-people/?sh=21292c247ee0
Just because you are naive, doesn’t mean the rest of us are.
This was the first I came across. There are thousands of laws.
You talked about laws affecting people: “Corporations are owned by people. When you fine a company, you fine the owners. When you shut down a company, you punish the owners. Prison sentences aren’t for the company, they’re for the owners. You lefties never understand simple economics.” Those are your words. You’re talking about effects. People are affected by laws. Sure. No argument there. And I’m affected if a business I patronize has to comply with laws, but the vast majority of these laws simply don’t apply to me inasmuch as I don’t need to devote time and energy into complying with them– hence my example above that I don’t need to know the current rules and regulations regarding cyclohexane just because I take my suits to my dry cleaner.
What federal law did I break with WD-40? Cite it. Put up or shut up, asshole.
And your “references” are fucking laughable sub-clickbait articles, fer fuck’s sake. I was half-expecting one of them to be “Doctors recommend you throw out this vegetable!” and “How these celebrities look now will shock you!” Out of all of them, the only one that arguably gets close to your point is the freedomworks.org one. But if you look into the ones they point out, it’s not really as ridiculous as they make it seem: it should come as no surprise that starting a fight in a national forest is a crime; it should come as no surprise that selling mislabeled goods is a crime, etc. Again, I’m failing to see how I or anyone I know is so overburdened with this. And I know people who own businesses; they devote the time and resources needed to ensure compliance (and I’m sure they’d rather not have to do it as much as they do) but it’s not like they have to sit down with the US Code and the Code of Federal Regulations every Jan. 1st and start reading at page 1. You’re making this sound like some kinda onerous sisyphean task and it’s just not.
I’m not going to research any more for you. You stated that the laws were just for corporations. I showed numerous laws that apply to you. It’s time for you to admit you’re wrong
Just a small sample since you’re too lazy to do your own research:
https://www.mic.com/articles/86797/8-ways-we-regularly-commit-felonies-without-realizing-it
https://bestlifeonline.com/crimes-everyone-has-done/
https://www.askmen.com/top_10/entertainment/10-laws-everyone-breaks_6.html
https://www.freedomworks.org/content/19-ridiculous-federal-criminal-laws-and-regulations
https://theweek.com/articles/894138/case-fewer-laws
https://legalbeagle.com/6293417-federal-mail-not-addressed-you.html
https://www.fws.gov/midwest/eagle/History/protections.html
@Tim: “You stated that the laws were just for corporations.” I did? I’m not seeing that. In fact, according to CTRL+F, this is the only time I’ve used the word. Well, nice straw man you built; have fun knocking it down.
What I have said is that the vast majority of laws don’t apply (insofar as “apply to” means requiring time and resources to comply with) to the average joe out there. And even the people who own businesses and corporations only have to deal with the ones that specifically apply to their industry. My dry cleaner doesn’t need to know every regulation promulgated under the Northern Mariana Islands Economic Expansion Act; you’re harping on this like he does.
You’re such a weasel. All of your examples were a defense in laws because they affect corporations and now you’re trying to get out of that after I show you examples that affect us all. You’re playing a game of semantics.
All laws affect us all. When a company has to hire attorneys and accountants to keep up with the laws, who pays for those people? The consumer. Did you sleep through economics? When those corporations are fined, who pays those fines? The consumer.
The previous paragraph just goes to your lame argument. My argument of laws affecting everyday citizens was true as I pointed out in all of the links.
Yes, all laws affect us all. I never argued otherwise.
But the vast majority of laws don’t apply– again, insofar as apply to means having to expend time and resources to comply with– to most people out there. In fact, I wrote this earlier: ” You’re talking about effects. People are affected by laws. Sure. No argument there.”
When the feds produce 75k PAGES of laws, you don’t need a majority of them to impact the average citizen. Even a small minority will affect us. Why would you possibly want more laws? We have enough. Even Janine was complaining about new laws (ones that affected the left). She just isn’t honest enough to state that those that are against her opposition are also too many. I’m pro liberty. Only socialists and communists like more laws.
Why? Because society and modern life is incredibly complicated and if we’re gonna function effectively, we need lots of laws and lots of pages of laws. You can’t have a modern society using only the 10 commandment. Right now, there’s a lot of problems that could be addressed (or at least attempt to be addressed) with legislation. With the fillibuster as it currently works, there’s no attempt that can be made.
You GOP types are usually way on board with criminalizing all sorts of shit. Y’all certainly are going ape-shit with new laws making it a shit-ton harder to vote all over the country where you don’t like urban populations voting. How do you square that position with the one you’re parroting here?
What are conservatives interested in criminalizing besides drugs?
There really aren’t too many new things that the Bible laws don’t cover. The problem is that while you may have read the Bible, you haven’t studied it. You have no idea what is meant.
Theft is theft. Murder is murder. You’d probably like a very lax moral code (because it has only led to great improvements in society).
We are at the crux. You like laws. You believe laws will fix all of society. You believe you can create a better society with more laws. I believe you create a better society with better morals. You think government can fix problems. I think only the individual can fix their own problems. With black out of wedlock birthrate nearing 80%, we can see what that does to their society. You think whites are the problem of their 48% murder rate. I think it’s lack of fathers and lack of families. Lack of morals. No doubt, the guns didn’t shoot the people. It was a person who did it. We have laws to prevent this. More laws won’t help. Have you never thought why? You’re the one who likes laws. Why won’t more laws stop HALF of all murder committed by 13% of our population? What else is going on? Racism? There are laws against that. Why aren’t blacks who move here from Africa part of that murder rate? Why do blacks move here if it’s so racist? Are they really stupid? No Jews moved to Nazi Germany. You want more laws against racism or against guns? You cannot be that stupid. There is a lurking variable. It isn’t racism. It’s families. It’s lack of morals. Why do the few blacks that live in my neighborhood succeed? Obviously they are experiencing the same amount of racism. Who is more likely to succeed a black teen raised by a black family headed by a father or a white teen raised by a single mother. I’ll put my money on the black family all day long. How is that racist? It isn’t. It’s pro family. Are you going to create a law to help with that?
Yes, I prefer voting on election day with a paper ballot and you show an ID. There is no racism there. There is also little chance of cheating there as well. It worked for 240 years. It is just fine. If you want a day where everyone can take off to ensure they can vote. Fine.