Centrist group in House 'will never' meet with Freedom Caucus

[Maj. Bill Martin]

And how did that compromise work out in the long run?

The slave trade ended in 1808, so I'd say it worked out pretty well. 

But I'm now a bit unclear as to your point.  I thought you were making the point that the Founders were men of principle who didn't compromise, and that's why you quoted the quoted the Declaration.  I'm pointing out that those exact same men, for the most part, showed a perfect willingness to compromise on the issue of slavery.  And if they were willing to wait 20 years to end something as horrible as shoving human beings into boats like cattle, and taking them half a world away against their will, then maybe repealing a health care bill over the course of a few years shouldn't cause a crisis of conscience.

[Cyber Liberty]

Here's how compromising works, in the long run, illustrated by a delicious cake:

http://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/2013/11/08/cake-and-compromise-illustrated-guide-to-gun-control/

[Smokin Joe]

By that definition, the issue was lost long before the ACA.  State governments have been regulating insurance for most of the last century.  Medicare, Medicaid, the FDA, the licensing of doctors and drugs, the requirement that public hospitals treat everyone....these were all things that pre-existed the ACA by decades.  And if "how much" doesn't matter, then we shouldn't even bother.  The battle was already lost, so who cares if we repeal the ACA anyway?

The States, and the people retain that right, and that is an issue for the several states to decide individually. The Federal Government does not have that power:

Amendment X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The seminal argument remains one of Federal usurpation of power.

But obviously, how much really does matter a lot.  We're talking about the effect of policies on the lives of citizens, not simply as some abstract philosophical principle, and of course the magnitude of any given change is going to have an effect on the lives of citizens.  To dismiss the "how much" question is to reduce the entire issue to one of theoretical ideological purity, rather than on how it actually effects the lives of people.

It is the turd in the punchbowl. How much is too much? The correct answer is any present is too much. Once the punch has been polluted, how much is mainly irrelevant, it has been rendered unfit for human consumption. The only correct answer is "none".

It's like saying there's no difference between an 80% income tax rate, and a 1% tax rate, because either way, you've already lost "the issue" of taxes based on income.  We live in a real world, not in some game where "winning" and "losing" are the only two possible results.

See above. When the correct answer is "zero", even 1% is too much.

[Smokin Joe]

I think this actually proves my point.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be guided by principles, or ever cease striving to achieve that end.   We absolutely should do both.  But being guided by principle in your actions does not mean a rigid insistence on immediate, 100% compliance with that principle, or nothing else.  If it did, the Constitution would not have granted 20 more years of the slave trade.

This particular usurpation may have become effective over time, but it was passed at once. It can be repealed the same way. The only ones not enslaved by this legislation are those who passed it and their staffs. "Equal", indeed.

[Smokin Joe]

"Quia parvus error in principio magnus est in fine."

Veritas!

[INVAR]

But I'm now a bit unclear as to your point.  I thought you were making the point that the Founders were men of principle who didn't compromise, and that's why you quoted the quoted the Declaration.  I'm pointing out that those exact same men, for the most part, showed a perfect willingness to compromise on the issue of slavery. 

Red herring.  Slavery was not the principle the Founders were standing on.  Liberty was the principle and tyranny was the Object they sought to abolish in the Colonies by Independence.

The Founders did not compromise on the fundamental principles of liberty and Independence once it became clear that the Crown intended to impose tyranny.  Compromises that were made, were made in the direction of Independence.

Your entire premise argues from a conceded principle that tyranny (The government imposing that which it usurped authority to impose) is somehow something we must compromise with in order to keep what liberty is left.

The moment you concede a principle in order to make a compromise, it is no longer a principle that governs.  It has no value. You threw it away.

[Doug Loss]

The slave trade ended in 1808, so I'd say it worked out pretty well. 

But I'm now a bit unclear as to your point.  I thought you were making the point that the Founders were men of principle who didn't compromise, and that's why you quoted the quoted the Declaration.  I'm pointing out that those exact same men, for the most part, showed a perfect willingness to compromise on the issue of slavery.  And if they were willing to wait 20 years to end something as horrible as shoving human beings into boats like cattle, and taking them half a world away against their will, then maybe repealing a health care bill over the course of a shouldn't cause a crisis of conscience.

You seem to misunderstand the meaning of the term, "compromise."  It doesn't mean, "shut up and take whatever we throw on the table."  If the proposing side wants true compromise, it has to move toward the other side just as much as that side has to move.  Happy to educate you.

[Smokin Joe]

The slave trade ended in 1808, so I'd say it worked out pretty well. 

But I'm now a bit unclear as to your point.  I thought you were making the point that the Founders were men of principle who didn't compromise, and that's why you quoted the quoted the Declaration.  I'm pointing out that those exact same men, for the most part, showed a perfect willingness to compromise on the issue of slavery.  And if they were willing to wait 20 years to end something as horrible as shoving human beings into boats like cattle, and taking them half a world away against their will, then maybe repealing a health care bill over the course of a shouldn't cause a crisis of conscience.

From:
http://www.tracingcenter.org/resources/background/northern-involvement-in-the-slave-trade/

A central fact obscured by post-Civil War mythologies is that the northern U.S. states were deeply implicated in slavery and the slave trade right up to the war.The slave trade in particular was dominated by the northern maritime industry. Rhode Island alone was responsible for half of all U.S. slave voyages. James DeWolf and his family may have been the biggest slave traders  in U.S. history, but there were many others involved. For example, members of the Brown family of Providence, some of whom were prominent in the slave trade, gave substantial gifts to Rhode Island College, which was later renamed Brown University.

While local townspeople thought of the DeWolfs and other prominent families primarily as general merchants, distillers and traders who supported ship-building, warehousing, insurance and other trades and businesses, it was common knowledge that one source of this business was the cheap labor and huge profits reaped from trafficking in human beings.

The North also imported slaves, as well as transporting and selling them in the south and abroad. While the majority of enslaved Africans arrived in southern ports–Charleston, South Carolina was the largest market for slave traders, including the DeWolfs—most large colonial ports served as points of entry, and Africans were sold in northern ports including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island.

The southern coastal states from Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia and Maryland were therefore home to the vast majority of enslaved persons. But there were slaves in each of the thirteen original colonies, and slavery was legal in the north for over two hundred years. While the northern states gradually began abolishing slavery by law starting in the 1780s, many northern states did not act against slavery until well into the 19th century, and their laws generally provided only for gradual abolition, allowing slave owners to keep their existing slaves and often their children. As a result, New Jersey, for instance, still had thousands of persons legally enslaved in the 1830s, and did not finally abolish slavery by law until 1846. As late as the outbreak of the Civil War, in fact, there were northern slaves listed on the federal census.

More at the link.

[r9etb]

Red herring.  Slavery was not the principle the Founders were standing on.  Liberty was the principle and tyranny was the Object they sought to abolish in the Colonies by Independence.
.
.
.
The moment you concede a principle in order to make a compromise, it is no longer a principle that governs.  It has no value. You threw it away.

Indeed.  As when you concede a principle on, say, liberty -- such as the liberty of the enslaved.  Seriously, man, do you even read your own stuff?

[Bigun]

Last night I was present at of a small meeting with Ted Cruz and about 30 conservative leaders from around the state, and I've been trying to formulate what exactly to report back. Obviously we touched on a lot of important topics, but what was the overall message?

Honestly, it was bleak at moments. Some of the candid conversations Ted shared confirmed what we all know...most legislators frankly couldn't care less about the people or right vs wrong. Negativity breeds quickly, and a couple leaders began to do nothing but complain and point fingers. Nothing gets under my skin faster than that sort of defeatist attitude. I was about to lose it...until Ted broke in. He said all he knows to do is to "get up every day and keep fighting." Awww, I love that! Trump is a wild card; we don't know which battles we will win, but we stay in the game and use positive influence to massage things in our direction. NE Tarrant Tea Party is successful because we had a rule from the get-go...all speakers must leave us with a plan of action. We don't have gripe fests or pity parties. We identify the problem and motivate people to work towards the solution. Ted had 4 markers to determine if this will be a successful term with Trump: deal with Obamacare, instate Gorsuch, and get regulations and tax reform. He has regular conversations with Trump, and I will continue to pray that Trump has the wisdom to discern who his wisest advisors are.

[INVAR]

Indeed.  As when you concede a principle on, say, liberty -- such as the liberty of the enslaved.  Seriously, man, do you even read your own stuff?

Liberty of the slaves was not the issue.  Retaining liberty as a free people via separation from the Crown when it became clear that the Colonists Rights as Englishmen no longer existed - WAS the issue.

THAT was the fundamental principle.  Dumping slavery as a proof text that the Founders compromised with the tyranny of the Crown in order to gain liberty is ludicrous.

Slavery was a separate issue we paid for in blood almost a century later.

[INVAR]

Last night I was present at of a small meeting with Ted Cruz and about 30 conservative leaders from around the state, and I've been trying to formulate what exactly to report back. Obviously we touched on a lot of important topics, but what was the overall message?

Honestly, it was bleak at moments. Some of the candid conversations Ted shared confirmed what we all know...most legislators frankly couldn't care less about the people or right vs wrong. Negativity breeds quickly, and a couple leaders began to do nothing but complain and point fingers. Nothing gets under my skin faster than that sort of defeatist attitude. I was about to lose it...until Ted broke in. He said all he knows to do is to "get up every day and keep fighting." Awww, I love that! Trump is a wild card; we don't know which battles we will win, but we stay in the game and use positive influence to massage things in our direction. NE Tarrant Tea Party is successful because we had a rule from the get-go...all speakers must leave us with a plan of action. We don't have gripe fests or pity parties. We identify the problem and motivate people to work towards the solution. Ted had 4 markers to determine if this will be a successful term with Trump: deal with Obamacare, instate Gorsuch, and get regulations and tax reform. He has regular conversations with Trump, and I will continue to pray that Trump has the wisdom to discern who his wisest advisors are.

Did Cruz discuss compromising his position on repealing ObamaCare in order to provide government-mandated health insurance for everyone?  That seems to be the starting point for any discussion about 'moving the ball down the field'.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

This particular usurpation may have become effective over time, but it was passed at once.

That's actually not correct.  The Constitution did not say "the slave trade will end in 20 years," which is what you are arguing here.   What it actually said was:

"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight,"

In other words, the Constitution prohibited Congress from even trying to pass a law to limit the slave trade for 20 years.  At the end of that 20 years, Congress would then be permitted to pass a law limit the slave trade, but there was absolutely no guarantee that would actually happen.  In other words, the Constitution not only punted the issue of the slave trade - it actually prohibited future Congress from even considering the issue.  It was actually worse than if the Constitution had said absolutely nothing about the slave trade.

That's a pretty heavy moral compromise for those who opposed the slave trade on grounds of principle -- and there were many of them.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

You seem to misunderstand the meaning of the term, "compromise."  It doesn't mean, "shut up and take whatever we throw on the table."  If the proposing side wants true compromise, it has to move toward the other side just as much as that side has to move.  Happy to educate you.

The both have moved.  Just not enough.

[INVAR]

The federal Beast has no role, authority or right to nationalize an industry and mandate all citizens must purchase and carry a product and service that they, themselves set the criteria for simply to live unmolested.  That is tyranny.  That is a principle that is not able to be compromised, surrendered or worked with.  Otherwise we have just green-lit Fascism as our form of government.

Obamacare was imposed via corruption, stealth, lies and "passed" in the middle of the night without a single representative reading the bill, with a SCOTUS sleight-of-hand to make it 'legal'.  It nationalized 1/7 of the economy and handed government the authority over every aspect of our lives should they decide to regulate everything from diet to lifestyle in order to streamline costs.

Full repeal and ENDING that tyranny is imperative.  The longer it remains, the more permanent it becomes:

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear.  Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!" - Ronald Reagan

But we are being lectured that we have to compromise in order to "fight" and move the ball down the field for the goal of retaining half a loaf of liberty instead of none.

Compromising with tyranny is not an option.

Leaving any part of Obamacare in place, means we have ceded and surrendered to the Beast, the right for government to direct our health care, and mandate what we must purchase and what we are prohibited from purchase or possession - simply to live and exist in this country.  Once that precedent is cemented as an authority the feds have - you can bank on the fact that they will mandate and force us to purchase other items, services and programs they nationalize and set the criteria for in the future.  Then we will be forced to provide subsidy for others to meet those mandates, simply to exist or face punishment (or "shared Responsibility Payments").

Simply renaming it while softening the mandates and other hard aspects for the short term as a compromise, is not acceptable.  The federal Beast has no authority to run health insurance or health care.  Period.

This principe is immovable and non-negotiable: We are opposed to any government control and nationalization of health care or any industry and practice in the private sector. 

That is a power only the greatest tyrannies and despotisms possessed over their subjects.

Compromise is surrender.

The votes may not be there for full repeal, but compromise by agreeing to leave any part of nationalized health care intact is ceding to the Feds, authority it did not have in the first place and signs the GOP over as co-authors and saviors of ObamaCare.

[Hoodat]

Compromising with tyranny is not an option.

Leaving any part of Obamacare in place, means we have ceded and surrendered to the Beast, the right for government to direct our health care, and mandate what we must purchase and what we are prohibited from purchase or possession - simply to live and exist in this country.  Once that precedent is cemented as an authority the feds have - you can bank on the fact that they will mandate and force us to purchase other items, services and programs they nationalize and set the criteria for in the future.  Then we will be forced to provide subsidy for others to meet those mandates, simply to exist or face punishment (or "shared Responsibility Payments").

Simply renaming it while softening the mandates and other hard aspects for the short term as a compromise, is not acceptable.  The federal Beast has no authority to run health insurance or health care.  Period.

This principe is immovable and non-negotiable: We are opposed to any government control and nationalization of health care or any industry and practice in the private sector. 

That is a power only the greatest tyrannies and despotisms possessed over their subjects.

Hear hear !

[skeeter]

The federal Beast has no role, authority or right to nationalize an industry and mandate all citizens must purchase and carry a product and service that they, themselves set the criteria for simply to live unmolested.  That is tyranny.  That is a principle that is not able to be compromised, surrendered or worked with.  Otherwise we have just green-lit Fascism as our form of government.

Obamacare was imposed via corruption, stealth, lies and "passed" in the middle of the night without a single representative reading the bill, with a SCOTUS sleight-of-hand to make it 'legal'.  It nationalized 1/7 of the economy and handed government the authority over every aspect of our lives should they decide to regulate everything from diet to lifestyle in order to streamline costs.

Full repeal and ENDING that tyranny is imperative.  The longer it remains, the more permanent it becomes:

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear.  Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!" - Ronald Reagan

But we are being lectured that we have to compromise in order to "fight" and move the ball down the field for the goal of retaining half a loaf of liberty instead of none.

Compromising with tyranny is not an option.

Leaving any part of Obamacare in place, means we have ceded and surrendered to the Beast, the right for government to direct our health care, and mandate what we must purchase and what we are prohibited from purchase or possession - simply to live and exist in this country.  Once that precedent is cemented as an authority the feds have - you can bank on the fact that they will mandate and force us to purchase other items, services and programs they nationalize and set the criteria for in the future.  Then we will be forced to provide subsidy for others to meet those mandates, simply to exist or face punishment (or "shared Responsibility Payments").

Simply renaming it while softening the mandates and other hard aspects for the short term as a compromise, is not acceptable.  The federal Beast has no authority to run health insurance or health care.  Period.

This principe is immovable and non-negotiable: We are opposed to any government control and nationalization of health care or any industry and practice in the private sector. 

That is a power only the greatest tyrannies and despotisms possessed over their subjects.

Compromise is surrender.

The votes may not be there for full repeal, but compromise by agreeing to leave any part of nationalized health care intact is ceding to the Feds, authority it did not have in the first place and signs the GOP over as co-authors and saviors of ObamaCare.

You're right. After all of these decades its time to stop passively enabling the tyranny.

[r9etb]

Liberty of the slaves was not the issue.  Retaining liberty as a free people via separation from the Crown when it became clear that the Colonists Rights as Englishmen no longer existed - WAS the issue.

Ah, I see.  "Liberty for me, but not for thee."  So, really, not ALL men are created equal, just the English ones.....

Slavery is a perfect example of how even the greatest can and do compromise on principle. 

Many of the Founders compromised their principles even to themselves -- Jefferson, for example.  You perhaps were unaware that his original draft of the Declaration contained the following passage:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.  This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain.  Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.  And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed again the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another. - See more at: http://www.blackpast.org/primary/declaration-independence-and-debate-over-slavery#sthash.apRhIjSn.dpuf

The passage was deleted -- a compromise made to ensure the adoption of the larger Declaration.  "Decades later Jefferson blamed the removal of the passage on delegates from South Carolina and Georgia and Northern delegates who represented merchants who were at the time actively involved in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade."

Jefferson, a slave-owner himself, was also a man who advocated for its abolition.  "But Jefferson always maintained that the decision to emancipate slaves would have to be part of a democratic process; abolition would be stymied until slaveowners consented to free their human property together in a large-scale act of emancipation.  To Jefferson, it was anti-democratic and contrary to the principles of the American Revolution for the federal government to enact abolition or for only a few planters to free their slaves."  (see: https://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/thomas-jefferson-and-slavery)

Another compromise -- even for such a universal principle it was up to the voters to make it happen.

[Jazzhead]

You're right. After all of these decades its time to stop passively enabling the tyranny.

So we leave it in place?   Just to gain the satisfaction of adhering to "principle" and refusing to "compromise"?

That's ridiculous; no, more to the point, it's selfish.    Lots of folks are suffering because of ObamaCare (some are being helped).   But it needs to be fixed.   What you call "principle"  I call an abdication of responsibility.   We are not backbenchers anymore.   You indulge in your luxuries;  the business of governing includes compromise when necessary,  because it is the people our legislators serve.     

[EC]

You really do like that word selfish, don't you. Guess what? I am. My people first, that's my rule. The rest of the world can stand in line, or better still look out for their own.

People are hurting under Obamacare? No matter WHAT is done, someone's dear old Mom is gonna get shafted. That's how it is.

[the_doc]

Hear hear !

I would go on to offer my own endorsement of INVAR's warning about our long history of compromising with political tyrants by saying that our repeated compromises have already turned America into what Levin calls a "post-Constitutional society."  Someone on this thread, perhaps even me, needs to point out very clearly that the Obama's ACA was Constitutionally illegal--no matter what the SCOTUS ruled.

We should not keep saying that the SCOTUS ruling makes it legal--i.e. by a sort of Constitutional definition.  Black does not become white just because some usurper of our freedoms declares that black is white or that white is black.  The SCOTUS ruling concerning Obamacare was in itself illegal.         

One ought to wonder what kind of pizza John Robert likes. 

By the same token, the immigration ruling by Derrick Watson (and other federal judges) was not merely wrong but patently illegal.   Watson had no legal authority to make his legal ruling. 

Granted, our Constitution has left us in a nasty box of legalism.  Ideologically corrupt judges are not easy to deal with, but we'd better remember what Thomas Jefferson called "the greatest threat to a Constitutional Republic."  He said it would be activist judges.

The only Constitutional recourse we have at this time is to use the very real authority of the Legislative branch to overrule (in effect) the SCOTUS by repealing Obamacare--lock, stock, and barrel.  And we should go on to hold an Article V Convention of States to find a way to stop the greased-pig crooks (Dems and RINOs) from implementing wickedly anti-Constitutional nonsense--including even "slightly" unconstitutional nonsense.  And I would personally vote for opening a serious investigation of Obama's right even to make the appointments that he made during his tenure in the Presidency.     
 

[skeeter]

So we leave it in place?   Just to gain the satisfaction of adhering to "principle" and refusing to "compromise"?

That's ridiculous; no, more to the point, it's selfish.    Lots of folks are suffering because of ObamaCare (some are being helped).   But it needs to be fixed.   What you call "principle"  I call an abdication of responsibility.   We are not backbenchers anymore.   You indulge in your luxuries;  the business of governing includes compromise when necessary,  because it is the people our legislators serve.     

Just so we're clear, I believe you are a statist and my opponent, not my ally.

[INVAR]

Ah, I see.  "Liberty for me, but not for thee."  So, really, not ALL men are created equal, just the English ones.....

Slavery is a perfect example of how even the greatest can and do compromise on principle...

Another compromise -- even for such a universal principle it was up to the voters to make it happen.

Tell you what, YOU go ahead and keep compromising your principles for an empty promise of less tyranny, and see where that gets you and your posterity.  May your chains rest lightly upon you and yours.

I refuse to surrender any more principles.  Done.  Finished.  I've seen where doing so leads.   So I will no longer compromise.  I will not support anyone who advocates compromise with tyranny.   I will continue to advocate others not to compromise or surrender essential liberty. 

I will continue to do so, even if I am the only one left in the nation who refuses to surrender those principles and end up suffering for it.

So you and yours will eat the fruit of your way.  I won't take a bite of the bitter harvest you are sowing for yourself.  I will no longer partake in sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

[Jazzhead]

Just so we're clear, I believe you are a statist and my opponent, not my ally.

We're both Republicans.   Deal with it. 

[r9etb]

Tell you what, YOU go ahead and keep compromising your principles for an empty promise of less tyranny, and see where that gets you and your posterity.  May your chains rest lightly upon you and yours.

I refuse to surrender any more principles.  Done.  Finished.  I've seen where doing so leads.   So I will no longer compromise.  I will not support anyone who advocates compromise with tyranny.   I will continue to advocate others not to compromise or surrender essential liberty. 

I will continue to do so, even if I am the only one left in the nation who refuses to surrender those principles and end up suffering for it.

So you and yours will eat the fruit of your way.  I won't take a bite of the bitter harvest you are sowing for yourself.  I will no longer partake in sowing the seeds of our own destruction.

The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector....