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Comment by jackolas | Hacker News Reader

It was shocking to see republicans switching votes in the final minutes, I was surprised no one could mention on CSPAN if the remaining 10 congresspeople were gone...

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This has never really been a partisan issue. This is a bill proposed by the Republican leadership at the behest of the Obama administration (who wanted to see an extension through the next election).

But so-called Republicans like Rand and Ron Paul hold beliefs that are even further from the Patriot Act than liberal ideals are (in that libertarians believe is as little government as possible while liberals believe in a larger government).

This Congress is one where you certainly can't just add up the Ds on one side and the Rs on the other and expect to have a picture of how votes will go down. Both parties are experiencing significant fracturing internally. Republicans are fracturing along social conservative, fiscal don't-really-care vs. fiscal conservative, social don't-really-care and Democrats are splitting along moderates vs. hard-left lines, and on both sides the non-ideologues are all finger-to-the-wind trying to figure out which side will get them more votes next election. Expect more chaos from those folk over the next few weeks/months.

A lot of the political hatin' going on lately is predicated on very simplified propaganda-based models of what is actually going on lately; does the idea that the Tea Party and the Democrats could actually agree on some points like this blow your mind, or was it obvious to you in advance this could happen? If the former your models need tweaking, this outcome should not have been a surprise to anyone who was paying attention.

Add to this the fact that this vote _doesn't matter_ in the sense that deciding to turn it down isn't a final decision. This actually makes it easier for someone to vote against it for purposes of political expediency, knowing it won't affect the outcome as much. Voting in this meant much more jockeying for position.

As an irrelevant aside, I disagree with your present tense. Fractures are always existent within both Republican and Democratic parties; few congresses have been a matter of adding up the Ds and Rs except for on the few issues most bitterly fought over by D and R. In general these sub-divisions are the nature of the political beast.

"(in that libertarians believe is as little government as possible while liberals believe in a larger government)."

Oh please, liberals don't want larger government in everything, just fiscal issues. They are as socially liberal as the libertarians in congress like Ron Paul.

The mechanics of the classic liberal are still widely different at the extremes. For example, a rather 'lefty' area may decide to invest in a large social project to increase awareness about a particular issue whereas a Ron Paul libertarian would see that as government waste.

Of course, most people (including myself) lie somewhere in between.

>They are as socially liberal as the libertarians in congress like Ron Paul.

I think you have been misinformed.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/11/sorry_four_loko_chuck_s...

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