Filibustered
You may have noticed that our government has ground to a halt due to Republican obstruction. At this point I think they would block funds to build a 300-foot statue of Ronald Reagan on the White House lawn – even if it peed on poor people. This is the party that, during the Bush years, whined about not getting "up or down" votes on every fascist Bush wanted on the bench. Not that Democrats keep consistent views on the filibuster when they are out of power.
At bare minimum, old white men who want to filibuster should be forced to physically do it and shut the government down. Let them talk endlessly for days and weeks to block health care reform while liberal groups wheel out dying grandmas with red tape over their mouths for the cameras and see who wins that PR war.
What I find most amazing in all this is that Republicans are not doing anything the rules of the Senate don't allow them to do. It starts out as a ridiculously undemocratic institution, then makes up rules for itself so that some hick in a flyover state can shaft the entire country out of spite.
Pundits like to point out that our founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, designed the Senate to move at a glacial pace to prevent rushing headlong down some dangerous path. And hooray for that. Whether it's freeing slaves, letting women vote or being the last industrialized country to provide health care to all its citizens, Senators know it's best to sit on things for a few centuries and mull it over. Well, unless there is a country that needs bombed.
posted by Matt Bors at
2:00 AM
5 Comments:
I've never had someone answer this point - why DON'T we require the traditional Jimmy-Stewart/Strom Thurmond physical filibuster? Has that just gone away or is Harry Reid just not allowing it? If it's still a usable tactic, why in hell aren't the Dems forcing its use on at least a FEW bills? And why didn't they overuse this simple filibuster during the Bush years?
I can understand that maybe they secretly want to lose on some of these bills for political reasons. But they want to lose on EVERYTHING? I find that hard to believe.
The point of a filibuster is that if you're in the minority, but feel so strongly about an issue's validity to the state of the union, you go up there and bleed your heart out. It's very difficult. You can't even go to the bathroom. Strom Thurmond didn't eat or drink prior to his and even used a steam room to drain out whatever liquid he could from his body.
You don't do that if it's not an issue you believe in. And if members of the Senate believe enough the other way, they'll wait you out. It was meant to be an "immovable wall / irresistible force" moment. I wish the democrats would call the republican bluff on filibustering. It'd be better for John Stewart and Stephen Colbert than the day Cheney shot a man in the face because he mistook him for a bird.
Isn't this all nonsense? Democrats don't want health care reform or they would fight for it. Don't you get tired of pretending this all is anything but a tried charade? I realize that drawing a political cartoon requires a certain amount of caring about the news, but really--aren't you tired? How many more meaningless distractions are you going to get worked up about? The fix is in. It's more wars and less health care from here on, and that's how it had been planned all along. Getting rid of the filibuster, or any other procedural device, isn't going to change reality.
e-it has gone away. You officially don't have to filibuster, just say you will and it has the same effect.
John-sure I tire of the partisan games. Democrats don't fight for much I believe in, but they would be able to pass this watered down bill if it wasn't so easy to be a dick in the Senate.
I don't think Obama would eat a PBnJ. It seems a little too real American for him.
He'd probably eat a bunch of fair trade organic extremely expensive caviar.
I mean unless the media is lying to me about him?
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