Sunday, April 24, 2005

Weak nuclear force

Matt argues in favor of the nuclear option, pointing out that the Republicans can't pass their legislative agenda after Harry Reid shuts down the Senate in retaliation for the elimination of the filibuster. Longer-term arguments are available too -- eliminating the filibuster might help us get universal health care some day. Meanwhile, the Kossacks are marching to get GOP senators to vote against eliminating the filibuster. I really don't know what the right answer is here, but there seems a high probability that Democratic activists are acting contrary to their own interests, and that has me nervous.

2 comments:

Neil Sinhababu said...

Well, here's a Matt line on why Republicans might be pushing it:
"Bill Frist has taken this up as his pet cause in a clear effort to become the candidate of the James Dobson crowd. Folks who aren't especially interested in helping Frist achieve that status have little reason to be loyal to him on this question."
If Frist is trying to promote himself at the expense of the Republican party, I'm all for helping him.

Blue said...

You all know my desire to do away with it as soon as possible, but I gotta say the Dems seem to know what they're doing.

Also, IF we're going to have a constitutional democracy, and IF we're going to give various judges the final say, and IF we're going to have a filibuster on any particular item (since this wouldn't be a universal ban), then judges should be the one with the highest threshold of getting approved, not the lowest.

Anyway, have you ever watched a filibuster? It's disgusting.