10-14-2011, 01:39 AM
Ted King wrote:
Well, there is this thing called a Senate filibuster as an example of "the political process keeps them". But I sense that more of our disagreement is semantic - what is rational? I get the sense that I tend to tilt much more heavily toward the "logical" orientation of its potential meanings and you more to the "reasoning" orientation. Language is a dynamic thing, so I'm not going to say your use is wrong, but my inclination is to think that the way you want to use the word "rational" is a little too loosy-goosy for me. :-)
Okay. My notion of what is rational is less strictly tied to formal logic and more broadly extends from notions of reasonableness. That is, the capacity to make sense of something when viewed in its totality, rather than merely when evaluated in discrete parts.
No matter the case, reality is distorted from both the Democratic and Republican positions as regards Medicare. So, we can quibble about my choice of the word 'rational' in my initial post, but that obscures the lack of reasonable coherence to be found in the positions and actions of either side, which was really the core of my point.
What you said best applies to both sides in practice: "Don't try to make sense of it. It will just make your head hurt." I don't CARE whether the Democrats make a more cogent argument on paper, if they then never follow through on it. To me, that's just as unreasonable as never making sense in the first place. It might even be more irrational. It's certainly just as useless.