Stuff I Think You Should Know

Filibuster this

Okay, I'll admit it- I'm not completely up to speed on the filibuster issue. I don't fully understand the differentiation between "judicial filibusters" and "legislative filibusters". I mean, I know that one is voting on judges and the other is voting on laws, but I don't see why filibusters are so discriminatory. Why does it make a difference what's being filibustered? Obviously, it's important, or else why all the drama, but what's the deal?

Now that I've established my stance of cluelessness, it's time for me to opine. I learned what a filibuster was in U.S. Government class, senior year. One of the very few classes in high school that taught me anything. A filibuster is a delaying tactic, and it's stopped by cloture. All well and nifty. Until now, I never really thought about "what the heck is the point?"

Seriously. Somebody tell me why filibusters exist at all. I'm ignorant! Educate me! Somebody please tell me that all this insanity in the Senate is at least for a good cause. Because- gasp- I thought the purpose of the Senate was to friggin' vote. That's the whole reason the Senate and the House exist- because the American people are too busy working to cast 200 million votes on every law, judge, and whathaveyou that comes up. So we hire the Congress, and they represent us.

Get it? They represent us. That means that if your Senator is one of the ones blocking anything from happening on this issue, you are effectively saying that you like the government to be on strike. If your Sentor is one of these "mavericks" that is swaying with the wind for political gain rather than just saying yes or freaking no, then your stance on government is that we shouldn't have a stance.

What the crap? Is there more to it than I'm seeing, or is the friggin' United States Senate on strike? What is the point of the filibuster?

Is it really this simple- "51 votes will pass a law, but we can filibuster the majority whenever we want, and it takes 60 votes to cloture, so unless the majority party has at least 60 Senators, we'll filibuster everything?" Is that the way it works or am I missing something? If that's the case, then nothing would ever get done in the Senate. Ever.

It's my understanding that in this little experiment we call "democracy", the majority rules. Yes, of course, the desires of the minority must be at least recognized, but it's pretty simple: The American people elected a majority of Republican House Representatives, a majority of Republican Senators, and a Republican President. I'm sorry, Mr. "Bush-doesn't-have-a-mandate", are we not being clear or loud enough? Is it not perfectly obvious what the majority in this country wants? Or do you Democratic Senators need to go back to twelfth friggin' grade and learn how our government works?

Minority. Does. Not. Rule. That's not how democracy works. That is oligarchy. And I'm not equating the Democratic Party to the Ba'athists here, but let's compare: Sunni Ba'athists, a minority party in Iraq- controlled Iraq through fear (Saddam), continue to try and control Iraq through- guess what? fear. (A great deal of the terrorists in Iraq are Sunnis and/or former Ba'athists.) Hat tip on that: MDG. What do the Democrats do? Even thought they're the minority, they're trying to dictate to the majority what the Senate can and can't vote on. Does this make sense to anybody? And, of course, when all else fails, they resort to fearmongering. "These judges are extremists! They'll revoke the Constitution! The planets will fall out of alignment if we vote! AAAaaahhh!!!"

It seems to me that the Democratic Party refuses to accept the obvious truth- they are not the majority. Can they really just sit down with their filibustering and shut down the government? Is it really that easy? And if so, how come nobody's ever thought of it before?

Note: That's what I got so far. It doesn't seem finished to me yet, but I ran out of crap to say. More later, maybe. Kindly provide input, and not necessarily just "yeah, you're right." Is there something I'm missing here? Because if it really is as easy as the Dems are making it look, then I have great fear for the future.