I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with the copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay.
In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”
I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, “I would prefer not to.”
“Prefer not to,” echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. “What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here—take it,” and I thrust it towards him.
“I would prefer not to,” said he.
Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener“
Reacting to Boehner’s announcement that there will be no House vote today, Charles Pierce dubbed him Bartleby the Speaker. A good excuse to reread probably the best short story ever set in a law office (certainly a contender).
Or Oz the Speaker: “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain,” and also, please,”Pay no attention to this man before the camera,” or to my Republican colleages in the House, or that Black man in the White House — the one with balls the size of coconuts — who, in this second term, is showing no sign of weakness.
“Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small.”
I like that.
Boehner lacks Bartleby’s quiet dignity. I don’t believe the analogy is apt.
I’ll have to agree that there is neither quiet nor dignity to Rep. Boehner.
NMC, Boehner certainly is not a perfect person, but in the dignity department he has about 10 times more than Harry Reid.
To hear the hyperventilation on the right and the gloating on the left you would think this vote is the greatest defeat the GOP has ever suffered. Well please don’t throw me in that briar patch!
The Bush tax cuts have been locked in for all but a small sliver of society, and those who will pay higher taxes make enough that they can hire accountants to avoid the extra bite. The GOP missed its chance a few years ago to raise the estate tax exclusion to $25 million, which it could have done, but now it’s a $5 million exclusion with a 40 percent tax rate for everything over. Again, a much higher exclusion and lower rate than when Bush took office. New Taxes are now effectively off the table.
The bill effectively raised spending instead of cutting it, but the debt ceiling vote is coming up in two months and the Republicans will get their chance then to insist on real spending cuts. I think the GOP is right to be upset that we didn’t get any spending cuts, but other than that we really don’t have anything to complain about.
Gotta give your buddy Boehner credit for spending cuts for Sandy victims. Bright guy, that Boehner.
House Republicans did this is 2005 also, demanding that Katrina relief be offset by cuts in Medicaid and other poverty programs, although no offsets were required for the tax cuts, wars, etc.
Congressional Record, Nov. 17, 2005, Page H10544
Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in south Mississippi tonight, the people who have electricity, who might be at a VFW hall or a parish church hall, who are living in two- and three-man igloo tents waiting for Congress to do something, have absolutely got to think this place has lost their minds. The same Congress that voted to give the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans tax breaks every time. Every time. Without an offset. Out of the goodness of their hearts? No, to help their big contributors.
Who is kidding who? The same Americans that are spending 4 to $6 billion a month in Iraq where, by the way, 4,000 Mississippians are fighting tonight, 15 have already come home dead, a dozen more have been to Walter Reed, who never asked the Iraqis for an offset are suddenly saying in the name of the poor folks in Mississippi who lost their houses, poor folks in New Orleans whose houses were flooded, we can’t do this unless we have to hurt some other Americans to help some Americans? Suddenly after taking care of those who had the most, we have got to hurt the least. To help the folks in Mississippi?
Folks, this is insane. I have sat here. I remember the vote. May 9, 2001. I remember a President who said he could cut taxes, increase spending and pay down the debt. We are $2.4 trillion deeper in debt than that night. I did not vote for that. Almost all of you did. I did not vote to tell the folks who make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, you deserve a tax break. You did. I voted for offsets for the war in Iraq because, yes, we went to war. My goodness, kids from Mississippi are dying there. I have got a kid who lost both legs volunteering in my office to answer the phone to help folks who were hurt in Katrina. Mississippi has paid their dues. Why should they have to pay their dues twice?
This is an emergency. The one time you borrow money is when you go to war and for an emergency. And so, now you have to have an offset? Don’t tell me you are being fiscally responsible. I sat here for 5 years and watched you take a budget surplus and run it into $2.5 trillion of new debt. So let’s put these things in perspective. Yes, I was told the Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction and they are getting ready to use them.
Yes, I was told that you could cut taxes, increase spending and balance the budget. But this is the cruelest lie of all, that the only way you can help the people who have lost everything is by hurting somebody else.
Political blogging is getting more difficult, because the Republicans have declared themselves the party in support of tax cuts for the rich and massacred children on the schoolroom floor.
I can’t really take much interest in those people and their so-called thoughts.
Voting Republican in 2012 is not materially different from voting Nazi in 1933. Worse, actually: no one had seen the Nazis govern.
Anderson: Touché.
Anderson:
1. Godwin’s law.
2. We’ve seen what a “soak the rich” policy has done in France. The rich are leaving. Great Britain jacked up taxes on “millionaires” and the number of “millionaires” plummeted. They either moved or arranged to make less money or see to it that their money was not taxable.
3. I would point out that people who voted “Nazi” in 1933 were overwhelming anti-business. The National Socialist movement was exactly what its name suggests. After Hitler came to power he curried favor with selected businessmen and purged the more socialist/communist members of the party. So as a practical matter, of the appeals that were made in this election, the economic appeals of the Democrats were far more likely to appeal to the National Socialist of 1933 than those of Republicans.
4. Since we are on the subject of the Nazis, how do you think it might of worked out for the Jews and others if Germany was an armed society like America is today? Or if the peasants of the Ukraine had been armed to the teeth when Joe Stalin stole their grain and starved them to death? Or all the poor Africans who are being slaughtered by gangs. I personally do not believe these mass genocides could or would take place in a massively armed society such as Switzerland or the United States.
5. I do not know a single person who supports the massacre of children. I know people who oppose genocide, who oppose the possibility of dictatorial government, who oppose home invasions and being a victim of violent crime, as well as people who like to hunt and shoot for sport.
GLOWING RED: Gun Lovin’ Old White Intolerant Nut Group + Republican Elected Drones. Until the Glowing Red are replaced by reasonable men and women from the former Grand Old Party, these “prefer not to” events will continue, ad nauseum.
Colonel:
(1) Whatever.
(2) The French judiciary struck the law, and anyway, a 75% marginal rate is about as relevant to U.S. politics in 2012 as the price of tea in China.
(3) Citation, please.
(4) I’m sure Hitler and Stalin would’ve been totally deterred, seen the error of their ways, and ended their lives in monasteries, praying for peace.
(5) AR-15s and their ilk are massacre weapons, designed and built for human slaughter. That’s what they’re for. Humans in malls, churches, movie theaters, schoolrooms, campuses, anywhere, with no distinction. You’re hunting with an AR-15, you’re a lousy f—ing hunter, or else you’re hunting people.
CRS, your thumbnail account of the 1933 German election (the March 1933 election, presumably) is so wrong and simple-minded as to throw your mental stability into question — again. Seriously man, you humiliate yourself as a braying ignoramus every single time.
The idea that the 2nd Amendment was intended to protect against mass genocide of the American people by the American government only registers with conspiracy theorists who secretly relish the prospect of a civilian vs military bloodbath, like in the Rambo movies.
Richard Evans discusses the Nazi electorate in July 1932: the right-wing splinter parties collapsed and their voters went Nazi; 60% of Nazi voters were middle-class. One in 7 of those who’d previously voted Social Democrat voted Nazi.
I don’t see a breakdown of the March 1933 electorate, but I don’t see why it would’ve been significantly different.
Evans also describes a pre-election “campaign of violence and terror that dwarfed anything seen so far” against trade unions, left-wingers and members of the Social Democrats. A campaign of violence against trade unions and left-wingers does not, in my opinion, parallel any of the “economic appeals of the Democrats” (as CRS puts it) in the United States in 2012 or any other year.
CRS’ version sounds like Glenn Beck garbage to me.
Anderson and PB should have yielded to the Godwin declaration.
This got ugly and needs to end.
Now, me and my self-righteous self are going to go look at some porn.
Have fun, bitches!
Hi bb
hru?
My bad. Wrong site.
Ya ever wonder … what would we have for a universal boogieman if there had never been Hitler, never have been those wild and crazy Nazis, never have been the SS and their runic initials, never have been those coal scuttle helmets, never have been the 1908 Luger Parabellum pistol, never have been swastikas emblazoned on flags, arm bands, aircraft surfaces, etc.? And what would Godwin have come up with in their absence?