Republicans: We Will NOT Tolerate blocking Bush's Nominees, The End of Fillibusters?

[Dinner]

Mark my words this will come back to bite the Republicans on the ass some day. They want to act petty because they are the current big shots but one day the Democrats will win a majority and then it will be the Republicans who whine about unfairness.

It's to bad the current majority leader is such a partisan hack who is willing to harm our nation over petty politics.

[Agathon]

Filibustering is an abuse of parliamentary procedure to give the minority effective veto power over all legislation

No it isn't. It's a way of forcing compromise and moderation. The idea is that one side has to find enough of the other side to support it so that it can get stuff done.

It's necessary for judicial appointments. You forget that many people on both sides are moderates, they should prevail because they represent mainstream thinking. It's better for the country to find candidates that don't veer to the extreme.

[Al B. Sure!]

i dont think this will happen just because it'll come back to hurt the GOP one day. we're not talking about short-sighted idiots here

[Agathon]

Mark my words this will come back to bite the Republicans on the ass some day. They want to act petty because they are the current big shots but one day the Democrats will win a majority and then it will be the Republicans who whine about unfairness.

It could create major problems. The extreme wing of the GOP seem to be going all out to get rid of Roe v. Wade. Have they ever thought about the consequences of doing this?

[Dinner]

Agreed. Only a short sighted idiot would put in rules which will surely be used against his own party one day.

[Seeker]

Why didn't they challenge it's constitutionality back when they were using it so effectively? They suddenly made great strides in consitutional scholarship since winning the elction?

Don't try to disguise this as anything but the usual bald-faced power grab.

actually, UNusual. Almost all democaracies have rules for filibusters to prevent mob rule and senates are supposed to be the chamber of 'sober second thought' in all bi-cameral systems.

What has changed so much that the ancient American electoral system is just fine, but equally ancient democratic procedures shared by almost all real democracies are suddenly right now not fine?? After hundreds of years?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
we're not talking about short-sighted idiots here

Wait, I thought we were talking about Republicans?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, I doubt this happens. The Republicans filibusted many more judges under Clinton than Bush has had judges filibustered. When the Dems come back in power, the judges they appoint could really screw over Republicans (such gay judges in Southern states, who would undoubtably rule that laws against gay marraige violate the Constitution).

[Al B. Sure!]

yeah the republicans sure are short-sighted... that whole freeing the slaves thing was so ignorant.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
yeah the republicans sure are short-sighted... that whole freeing the slaves thing was so ignorant.

They aren't the same party as the one that freed the slaves. That whole pandering to racism thing killed Black support for the GOP seventy years ago, and all the Dixiecrats joined the GOP. Today's GOP is the spiritual decendent of the 19th Century Democratic Party.

[Agathon]

The problem is that almost all the extremists are on the Republican side. You don't see many democrats that are really radical. Kucinich is about the only one I can think of and a lot of the stuff he says would place him as a centrist in many other countries. The radical left have no real presence in government.

On the other hand you have a lot of Republicans who are absolutely rabid gay-hating fundamentalists. How on earth did Santorum ever get elected?

Rush Limbaugh is mainstream to many of these people. They went after Clinton like attack dogs. Some Democrats really don't like Bush but I have yet to see them behave like the Republicans did towards Clinton.

[Al B. Sure!]

chegitz:

The Republican party from Lincoln on has been dominated completely by fundamentalist Protestants and business interests. what has changed?

[Al B. Sure!]

Agathon:

How on earth did Santorum ever get elected?

Santorum reps PISTOLVANIA!

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
what has changed?

They became openly racist.

[St Leo]

Originally posted by Agathon
The extreme wing of the GOP seem to be going all out to get rid of Roe v. Wade. Have they ever thought about the consequences of doing this?

Well, the political centre would move back eighty years and make the repeal of the 19th Amendment a moderate idea.