Comments on: House Democrats Stage Sit-In

By: Mr. BD

Mr. BD — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 20:46:34 +0000

Alot of people are complaining about the way they handLED it. Regardless though somebody had to do something. Like DJ said congress will sit around and do nothing but have a minute of silence. But that doesn't do anything. Silent time is over. I'm glad to see my party take drastic measures into their own hand.

By: Truthiz1

Truthiz1 — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 13:26:28 +0000

TAC Reader:
There has been a lot of pent-up frustration among us Progressives regarding how stuck the gun issue has been. The House of Representatives only offers so many ways to raise an issue when one is in the minority. I’ve been watching for a lot of the day, and it’s all about as classy as it can be for it is. I agree with this tactic for this occasion, but obviously it’s not a card that should be played often by either side. Technology will allow it to be a card from now on. [….]

TAC Reader:
This is what happens when the House leadership allows how many dozen completely futile votes to the Affordable Care Act (talk about cheap, if somewhat more polite, theatrics!) but will not allow a vote on legislation that I would guess is supported by 80% or more of the public because of its subservience to the NRA.

Of all the things I find “profoundly disturbing” about what goes on in the House and Senate, this does not crack the top 10.

Let’s see what happens if the effort by Susan Collins to craft compromise gun control legislation succeeds in the Senate. Will the leadership in the House kill it simply by refusing to bring it up for a vote? Now that I would find profoundly disturbing. [….]

By: Truthiz1

Truthiz1 — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 13:17:23 +0000

Rod Dreher, TAC writer:
{Republicans} had better not give in. Look, on gun control matters, I am generally — generally — more sympathetic to Democrats than to Republicans. But this mob insurrection on the House floor is profoundly unsettling. I have not looked closely at the legislation, so it is entirely possible that I might support the Democratic proposal. But to attempt to get one’s way by showing utter contempt for rules of the House? No. No, no, no. Their passion does not justify their behavior. […..]

TAC Reader:
No, Rod, what’s obscene is that after all the slaughter in this country, Democrats had to resort to a filibuster in the Senate just to get the mildest of gun-control bills to a vote, where the various bills were shot down by Republicans.

We have a congressional majority that utterly has prostituted itself to the NRA, as well as to a party base that philosophically is closer to paranoid anarchy than it is anything that resembles historical Republicanism.

And in the House, these same forces likewise prevent the mildest of gun-control measures from coming to a vote. This after incessant slaughter from sea to bloody sea.

You consider the House rules worth a flying flip when the majority party won’t even allow debate on a bill to deny those on terrorist watch lists the ability to buy assault rifles? I suppose, on the same grounds of procedure and decorum, that you also would have excoriated those who participated in lunch-counter sit-ins.

What would you have had Southern blacks do in 1961? Obey the whites-only signs, which the law not only permitted but demanded? Work through proper channels to open up lunch counters to patrons of all races — perhaps by organizing a petition drive or by voting the segregationists out of office?

Oh, wait. Blacks couldn’t vote in the South in 1961. And they wouldn’t be able to until those liberal Yankees in Congress shoved the Voting Rights Act down Southern throats in 1965.

Dude by the name of John Lewis had a lot to do with all that . . . by organizing mass civil disobedience of unjust Southern laws and time-honored Southern procedures.

It would be nice, just once, to see folks who care so much about being “pro-life” give these Democrats credit for at least standing against this one aspect of America’s “culture of death,” no matter how inconsistent that opposition might be with their support of legal abortion. Or is it that important to protect Americans’ constitutional right to own any kind of weapon short of RPG launchers and mortars, because killing people once they get out of the womb is a sacred part of our way of life?

And logically, why draw the line at RPGs, mortars and fully automatic pistols and rifles if it’s true that the Second Amendment guarantees the First? After all, a good guy with a howitzer. . . .[…..]

By: Truthiz1

Truthiz1 — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 12:50:40 +0000

Thank you DJ. Your opening paragraph says it all:

House Democrats are mad as hell and they’re not gonna take it anymore. They’re tired of innocent men, women and even little children being shot to death at the hands of guns. They’re tired of routine “moments of silence” in honor of the dead, before going right back to business as usual. They’re tired of ineffective gun laws allowing assault weapons to make it into the hands of ordinary civilians — and they’re staging a sit-in to prove it! […..]

Well it's about d*mn time!

For far too long Pres. Obama and the Dem leadership has allowed Our country to be held hostage by a Republican leadership (and their right-wing cohorts) who have sold their soul to the highest bidder …and has done/and continues to do Our country a great deal of damage.

To not even allow a vote on common-sense gun-control measures…in light of ALL of the gun-related deaths that increases by the hour in this country…is, IMO, pure evil. And I do not engage in hyperbole here. The truth is, except in rare instances when I feel it is absolutely appropriate, I refrain from using the term "evil."

What will be the results of this sit-in? Who knows? But I do know this…(paraphrasing Edmund Burke)…….

"All that is needed for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing."

Finally, the Dems are doing something. And yes…..it IS "a sight to behold."