Yes, I'm willing to compromise with the revolting Teabaggers -- here's my proposal

by Ken

It must have been in response to my pass-along of Andy Borowitz's bulletin "Hostage-Takers Call Comparisons to Tea Party 'Hurtful'" the oher day that our colleague Noah wrote,

I've often thought that Obama should just say "We don't negotiate with terrorists" since that's what republicans are. I just don't see much distinction, except that maybe those who are usually called terrorists are more humane whereas republicans want their victims to die slowly of starvation, cancer, pollution, etc.

This has certainly been my position, and as regards the thorny question of how we get out of what the far-right-wing buttwipes got us into, I've been thinking along the lines of first offering the Teabaggers and Teabagger-symps the opportunity to do the right thing, making use of their Second Amendment killing device of choice (giving the people who gave us "self-deporting" a chance to experience self-exterminating), then according them trials using Right-Wing Due Process, which is to say lasting up to five minutes apiece, as a prelude to their executions -- by guillotine, perhaps? Or maybe in giant bonfires staged all over the country, with the government providing citizens with marshmallows for toasting during the festivities?

(Even under Right-Wing Due Process principles I imagine an insanity defense would have to be allowed, which seems kind of a giveaway to folks who seem to have spent their public life building up just such a dossier.)

I know their are commentators on our side of the political spectrum, and even many in the famous Center, who think the Republicans are getting their comeuppance via their dreadful current poll numbers, once again I have to disagree. Yes, I believe they will pay a price, but the price is the tiniest fraction of the bill they have due for their efforts to bring down the government in the name of their own ignorance, insanity, and predatory thuggishness.

Naturally, then, I was pleased to see this blogpost by Robert Reich over the weekend:

Why Giving Republican Bullies a Bloody Nose Isn't Enough


SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2013

Now is the time to lance the boil of Republican extremism once and for all.

Since Barack Obama became president, the extremists who have taken over the Republican Party have escalated their demands every time he's caved, using the entire government of the United States as their bargaining chit.

In 2010 he agreed to extend all of the Bush tax cuts through the end of 2012. Were they satisfied? Of course not.

In the summer of 2011, goaded by an influx of Tea Partiers, they demanded huge spending cuts in return for raising the debt ceiling. In response, the President offered an overly-generous $4 trillion "Grand Bargain," including cuts in Social Security and Medicare and whopping cuts in domestic spending (bringing it to its lowest level as a share of gross domestic product in over half a century).

Were Republicans content? No. When they demanded more, Obama agreed to a Super Committee to find bigger cuts, and if the Super Committee failed, a "sequester" that would automatically and indiscriminately slice everything in the federal budget except Social Security and Medicare.

Not even Obama's re-election put a damper on their increasing demands. By the end of 2012, they insisted that the Bush tax cuts be permanently extended or the nation would go over the "fiscal cliff." Once again, Obama caved, agreeing to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts for incomes up to $400,000.

Early this year, after the sequester went into effect, Republicans demanded even bigger spending cuts. Obama offered more cuts in Medicare and a "chained CPI" to reduce Social Security payments, in exchange for Republican concessions on taxes.

Refusing the offer, and seemingly delirious with their power to hold the nation hostage, they demanded that the Affordable Care Act be repealed as a condition for funding the government and again raising the debt ceiling.

This time, though, Obama didn't cave -- at least, not yet.

The government is shuttered and the nation is on the verge of defaulting on its debts. But public opinion has turned sharply against the Republican Party. And the GOP's corporate and Wall Street backers are threatening to de-fund it.

Suddenly the Republicans are acting like the school-yard bully who terrorized the playground but finally got punched in the face. They're in shock. They're humiliated. They're trying to come up with ways of saving face.

With bloodied nose, House Republicans are running home. They've abruptly turned negotiations over to their Senate colleagues.

And just as suddenly, their demand to repeal or delay the Affordable Care Act has vanished. (An email from the group Tea Party Express says: "Are you like us wondering where the fight against Obamacare went?") At a lunch meeting in the Capitol, Senator John McCain asked a roomful of Republican senators if they still believed it was possible to reverse parts of the program. According to someone briefed on the meeting, no one raised a hand — not even Ted Cruz.

It appears that negotiations over the federal budget deficit are about to begin once again, and presumably Senate Republicans will insist that Obama and the Democrats give way on taxes and spending in exchange for reopening the government and raising the debt ceiling for at least another year.

But keeping the government running and paying the nation's bills should never have been bargaining chits in the first place, and the President and Democrats shouldn't begin to negotiate over future budgets until they're taken off the table.

The question is how thoroughly President Obama has learned that extortionist demands escalate if you give in to them.

AMAZINGLY, THOUGH, I'M WILLING TO COMPROMISE!

Hey, it's a sobering (and scary) thing to be lectured about the importance of compromise by people whose idea of compromise when they attempt it is to allow you to accede to their demands -- or perhaps a heightened version of them. (Have you ever noticed how right-wingers respond to rejection of their demands by raising them?).

So here's what I've got in mind for the compromise. You remember all those Teabagger disposals? My original plan called for sending them off with cheery signs that read:

ROT IN HELL, STINKING TEABAGGERS

Under my compromise plan, the signs will instead read:

HAVE A HOT TIME IN HELL, TEABAGGING PEEPS

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