02-09-2021, 09:54 PM
Haha.
I appreciate the analogy, dfrecore. I am kind of not thinking about this in terms of a right vs. wrong situation. I am thinking about it strategically in terms of achieving objectives or achieving partial objectives. I will use the issue of gay marriage as an example. We started in the 80s and 90s with no gay marriage and those opposed passing state constitutional amendments solidifying the idea of marriage between one man and one woman.
At that point, the possibility of gay civil unions was presented. These gave most of the rights of marriage to gay couples, but didn't call it marriage. Those opposed to gay marriage should have taken that option and ran with it. My guess is if that strategy was pursued, we would not have gay marriage today. That strategy was not pursued and those opposed to gay marriage lost everything as the issue moved. The hard-edged approach was not effective and actually lost ground for those opposed to gay marriage.
I think that Biden is a guy who can and will listen to Republicans if he can. It would have been good in this situation for there to be some limits on the size of the stimulus package. We really can't just keep writing checks. However, the Republicans did lose in the last election cycle and their ability to limit the size of the package was not really great. But I think negotiating for that principle would have been good strategy so that the principle could have been expanded later. Sometimes you negotiate for a very small contract provision so that you can make it bigger later. Now the precedent is that Republicans aren't serious participants in negotiations and it will be harder to make deals later.
I appreciate the analogy, dfrecore. I am kind of not thinking about this in terms of a right vs. wrong situation. I am thinking about it strategically in terms of achieving objectives or achieving partial objectives. I will use the issue of gay marriage as an example. We started in the 80s and 90s with no gay marriage and those opposed passing state constitutional amendments solidifying the idea of marriage between one man and one woman.
At that point, the possibility of gay civil unions was presented. These gave most of the rights of marriage to gay couples, but didn't call it marriage. Those opposed to gay marriage should have taken that option and ran with it. My guess is if that strategy was pursued, we would not have gay marriage today. That strategy was not pursued and those opposed to gay marriage lost everything as the issue moved. The hard-edged approach was not effective and actually lost ground for those opposed to gay marriage.
I think that Biden is a guy who can and will listen to Republicans if he can. It would have been good in this situation for there to be some limits on the size of the stimulus package. We really can't just keep writing checks. However, the Republicans did lose in the last election cycle and their ability to limit the size of the package was not really great. But I think negotiating for that principle would have been good strategy so that the principle could have been expanded later. Sometimes you negotiate for a very small contract provision so that you can make it bigger later. Now the precedent is that Republicans aren't serious participants in negotiations and it will be harder to make deals later.
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