Time from posting to regretting posting: 17 minutes. A new record, haha!
commanderkai commanderkai:
xerxes xerxes:
So they changed their minds, BFD. Can we all agree at least that these reforms are needed?
How politically convenient of them. When the Republicans consider it, it's an unconstitutional abuse of power and a partisan power grab, but when they actually go through with it, it's a reform that's necessary.
I think the movie "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", basically required viewing for any American high school civics class, acutely shows why the filibuster is, or now was important. It gives the American people a chance to respond, and allows minorities, even just one senator, to gain attention to an issue, they might otherwise not be able to address. The whole point of a senator is to represent their constituents, and not their political party, even if that must mean they delay the voting of a specific bill or appointee on their own.
But, no matter. They made their choice.
... so do you agree or not? I'm personally leaning towards the idea that reform was necessary.
At the time of those comments, eight years previous and prior to the rise of the Tea Party, it wasn't as big an issue as it is now, in my own view. It was used comparatively less, where prior to that it wasn't used very often in the context of appointments at all and was primarily used for the reasons you mentioned in your post, commanderkai. Personally, I wasn't supportive of it then; I found it all too often to be a way for democracy to be subverted. There are ways to respect the interests of the minorities without being beholden to them, and that's the problem here. You can lose elections by a significant margin and still manage to occlude the functioning of the government, and hence subvert the will of the people. While minorities should be respected, they should not be provided this degree of power within the foremost democracy in the world. Indeed, it's more or less the duty of the courts to keep people from standing atop the minorities of the country; those in a political minority should not be holding the degree they do now.
I think that the Filibuster does deserve it's chance to shine, sure. The problem is that the role of the Filibuster has increasingly become questionable in it's use -- more often than not it's the "we don't want to fill up this board of directors because that would allow it to function" or "we got a lot of conservative judges in during the Bush years and don't want to change the alignment of the court" that are the excuses rather than reasonable blocks on the people who are proposed. There is little value behind the use of the Filibuster in these blocks and the discussions appear to be fairly limited; the Filibuster of the three judges in November appeared to matter only to the extent that Republicans wanted to implement legislation that wouldn't pass. The purpose of the Filibuster, with one or two exceptions during Obama's presidency that immediately come to mind, seems more to shut down discourse rather than promote it, and to block something being voted on by the majority rather than bring it to public attention.
The issue here is not the Filibuster, but partisanship. The existence of a partisan split along party lines to the extent that it is now essentially means you have almost strict two party solidarity. The American system simply cannot function effectively; your representatives are supposed to be YOUR representatives, with a stance that is their's, and not completely beholden to the party. These representatives should have the capacity to negotiate, seek changes to law in the interests of their own batch of voters, and have sufficient autonomy to perform these tasks. With the rise of conservative groups giving scores to people, the growth of the Tea Party demanding RINOs be ignored (even though RINOs vote too), and the corresponding ability for the democrats to field candidates that can take the win with less of a centrist approach, has lead to a two party system that is actually two parties. Playing the party line is irritatingly parliamentary in a system that isn't designed to BE parliamentary. Hence why I find JJ's recent article on Warren annoyingly accurate; it plays to the idea that you can move farther away from the center, because you are already THAT separate, and not potentially lose the centrist voters who are in contention.
The Filibuster used to function well because there was a combination of people from each party who would be willing to back various legislature, and would cross party lines if their interests were met. A Republican from California should be able to vote entirely differently from a Georgian Republican, because while they are from the same affiliation, what those affiliations mean in the context of their regions should be very different. Demanding a solidarity among the Republicans or Democrats of various areas has undermined that, and undermined the function of governance. The Filibuster has been used in the void that used to be the reasoned debate from corners of self-interest, to overcome number values that were there to make sure the various representatives from disparate regions agreed to a sufficient degree on contentious issues. It's function comes with the cost of essentially shutting down the government's ability to do it's duty to it's people each time it's used, which is unacceptable.
Essentially, what the American people have to choose between two systems. One, the larger party always gets its way, or two, the smaller party can stop anything it wants. With such a system, the only way for me to decide is generally that the majority, representing the will of the people, gets the ability to make decisions that impact the country, and that government is allowed to function and do the work the people need it to do. The vote differentials are not enough to provide filibuster breaking majorities most of the time; with the way things are gerrymandered, it may never be possible again. When the house of discourse and reasoned debate has already lost that capacity, and is now two groups often voting along partisan lines, where representatives are just part of that blob, the existence of the Filibuster is generally irrelevant. This is the problem with an idea of a majority of the majority must want something to happen; it makes it so that nothing happens without even the most extreme being interested in it, and American policy should not be dictated by the extreme.
The use of the Filibuster was a symptom of the breakdown of the American system into a nigh pure bipolar power structure. The fix to it is to remove that breakdown, to remove demands for purity and cohesion. I view the Tea Party as the major issue here; they fomented such purity, something Republicans are coming to regret, and hence provided the capacity for the Democrats to do the same thing on the smaller scale. While we'd already seen a growing sense of two sides under Bush, it was solidified and taken to a much larger level under Obama. Think at the margin; the existence of a problem does not mean the problem should be allowed to become much worse. People are willing to accept some problems in government, but not to a degree that the Republicans are going to. Each additional Filibuster reduces confidence or trust in it as an effective policy forming mechanism. If Democrats had been doing the same thing
to the same degree (think marginally, guys, this is key) as Republicans are now, I bet the Republicans would have used the nuclear option.
And it would have been the right thing to do. You can get away with a few bad things, but not dozens upon dozens before something has to change.
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Thanos Thanos:
The whole concept is ridiculous and should be banned. Committee, a week worth of floor debate, maximum, and then vote. Nothing could be simpler and more efficient and can't be so easily sabotaged by radicals, or cause the entire institution to become an object of ridicule.
Remember this when the Tea Party takes control of the Senate and the Democrats can't do sh*t while Sheriff Joe Arpaio gets nominated and appointed as the Chief Justice of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
No offense, but the current standard is that the court will remain Republican without removing the Filibuster, so what is there to lose from a Democratic standpoint? Either they never get a chance to influence court structures, or to fill seats in government bodies the Republicans don't like (but can't kill with actual legislation, because democratically it's a no go), or they do this, do get a chance to fill those seats, and at least have some influence as the party in power. Sure, it might come back to bite them in the ass... but right now, they've already got the Filibuster tearing in nicely there, so what would be the point?
As an aside, I doubt Arpaio would get in; even with all the TP behind him, the Republican establishment outside the bible belt and the democrats would be opposed, and a number of Republicans in that area are actually fighting for immigration reform. In addition, the investigations he is under, breach of the constitution under his watch, and his lack of expertise renders his capacity to get in moot.
The expectation is that the Republicans will get the same thing, for the record; the Filibuster won't be coming back unless they want it back. The Tea Party, on the other hand... well, you also thought the Republicans were going to come into power with a plurality of the vote, and that the reason Romney wasn't expected to win by many news outlets was due to their democratic leanings. That didn't come true, and I honestly don't expect the Tea Party to get any more than the minority of seats they have now. I'm really happy to see some moderates fighting back in the Republican party.
I'm thinking we're starting to see the slow end of the Tea Party. They'll have an impact on the next elections, both 2014 and 2016, but as the numbers roll in, support for the Tea Party continues to drop, while support for people like the NJ governor keep rising. Many see you can advocate for fiscal conservatism without the brand of the Tea Party, that you can be a functional Republican and conduct discourse with Democrats (well, beyond a list of "we get what we want or you don't get a vote"), can actually be involved with negotiations and can avoid excessive socially conservative platforms while seeking smaller government costs and size. When Cuccinelli can't even beat McAuliffe... and it's friggin'
McAuliffe... in Virginia of all places then it's a sign the Tea Party might not be a safe bet.
For the record, since you said this a lot before and, after a quick review of posts, have said this since I took my break, yes, the Republican party SHOULD be interested in the advice of voters who aren't voting for them right now. See, in a democracy, people vote for their leaders; people in the Tea Party get the same amount of votes as independents, one each. When independents go out of their way to tell you what they want, which isn't the hard right policies of the Tea Party, maybe it's time to consider looking at all these potential voters and trying to cater to them too. For a lot of these independents, the purpose of the government shutdown and all these Filibusters isn't clear. It might make sense to the 23-28% of the people in the USA who are members of or who support the Tea Party, but the other 72% who have a say need to be convinced too. A standard of instant denial for anything not of your own interest, with no negotiation, and no discourse does not serve your constituents well, yet this is the Tea Party strategy. The government was shut down on the basis of that strategy.
Don't forget, in your rush to defend the Filibuster as a cornerstone of discourse, to try discourse with people outside of the Republican party too; both in
and out of government.
CKA Moderator 
CKA Uber 
