Big Time Bigotry

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by AV8R, May 20, 2005.

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  1. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    It's time for an up-or-down vote in the Senate. The history of the filibuster is filled with bigotry as Thomas Sowell points out...

    Big Time Bigotry
     
  2. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    Total and utter nonsense AV8R. This is about a whiney cry baby President who wants it all and thinks he can intimidate everyone into seeing it his way only. This has been the President's modus operandi for nearly 5 years now - and will never change.

    The fact that the Cons are making it a racial issue shows that they are in fact racists. These two judges are not worthy to serve life terms - who cares what color or gender they are.

    Bill Frist will go down for this in the form of his power in the Senate. He is making a big mistake - a calculated risk that will ultimately fail. He forgets that in 1993, the Dems were doing the same thing -- and they were voted out. With all of the misdeeds of the crook from Texas (I am talking about the crook from Houston, not the one from Midland), I forsee a major change in Congress and the Senate leadership in the next two years.

    Dubya has one of the highest percentages of judicial nominees that have been confirmed. Where were you when the Senate help up all of Clinton's nominees (more than twice the number). Could it be that you are simply spewing partisan rhetoric?

    As a Libertarian, I can see that both parties are a bunch of weinies with no pride or dignity. They need to compromise (and compromise is not kissing the President's butt)
     
  3. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    The constitution does not require the Senate to honor a filibuster. The Senate has the right to conduct its affairs as it sees fit.

    However.

    The filibuster has been around a LONG time. Without it, and make no mistake, if they remove it for this purpose it's as good as dead for all other purposes, the Senate will be a very different place.

    I don't know whether the filibuster overall has served the needs of the American people or not.

    But.

    I also cannot predict what kind of body the Senate will become. It will surely lose some of its "deliberative" nature, but not all of it; that's why the Framers gave Senators six year terms while the House gets elected every two.

    The Senate MIGHT become a more efficient "rubber stamp" for the President and the Religious Right, but again, not necessarily. Senators are cussedly independant people, due, again, to their long terms.

    One positive consequence could be that Senators won't be able to "hide" behind some other Senator's filibuster threat. If you HAVE to vote, the people will KNOW where you stand.

    It might also be easier to reduce the influence of the monied and powerful. Such people are a minority, after all, and the filibuster threat has as its intended goal the protection of nonmajoritarian interests.

    As for the judicial nominees, the truth is, honest judges do not usually make decisions based on ideology. Heck, even Scalia makes the right decision sometimes! It is a lot easier from a judicial duty standpoint to seem doctrinaire and inflexible in dissent than to put together a majority for such opinions.
     
  4. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member


    ???

    What on earth kind of rambling nonsense is this, Mr. Engineer?
     
  5. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    To my knowledge, the Republicans have never used the filibuster to block a vote on a judicial nominee. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was prominent in the ACLU for years, was given the up-or-down vote by the Senate, with no filibuster from the Republicans.

    A President is entitled to have a vote on his judicial nominees, regardless of what party he belongs to. Clinton deserved it, he got it, and Bush deserves the same. The Democrats need to stop acting like spoiled children, and the Republicans need to start acting like the majority that they are.
     
  6. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    AV8R,

    The filibuster is a time-honored practice on the American political scene. Baby Bush, being a Republican, has learned nothing from his history. If the Republicans succeed in changing the nomination process in order to abolish the filibuster, there will come a day when they rue the fact that they ever did such a thing. It was the Republicans who were behind the Twenty-second Amendment, which limited the President to only two terms, in 1951, during the Truman administration, because they were mad that Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt got elected to four terms. And that one did come back to haunt them, as either Dwight David Eisenhower or Ronald Wilson Reagan could have also been four-termers like FDR. Of course I also think that PhDs in History ought to rule as Philosopher-Kings. Where is Thomas Woodrow Wilson when you need him? And I also think that William Jefferson Clinton was right about at least one thing: Presidents should not be limited to only two terms because their country may need them both as a young man and as an old man. - Theo
     
  7. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    So you think that closed-minded bigots exist only on the left? I would urge you to look again! There are plenty of right-wingers who are under the misguided impression that they have actually found the truth and are in sole are possession of same! - Theo
     
  8. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    Re: Re: Big Time Bigotry

    I never made any such statement, Ted.
     
  9. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Re: Re: Big Time Bigotry

    They aren't talking about eliminating the filibuster altogether, just to require a simple majority to override it in the case of judicial nominations.

    Since the Republicans haven't engaged in such petty behavior in regards to judicial nominees, why would they ever rue the fact they did it?
     
  10. DTechBA

    DTechBA New Member

    From Suite 101's web site

    "In the 1806 codification of the Senate rules by then Vice-President Aaron Burr, there was acknowledged oversight which allowed for unlimited debate. Rather than filibusters in the Senate being a Constitutional provision, filibusters were introduced by accident. The use of unlimited debate to prevent bringing a bill to the floor was first employed in disputes over the Bank of the United States in the 1830s. Though the filibuster was infrequently used, for 111 years (1806 to 1917), a single Senator could prevent a vote on a bill by simply continuing talk. This is the ultimate in minority rights. A single Senator could stop the Senate from action.

    In 1917, isolationist Republicans used the filibuster to make it more difficult to President Woodrow Wilson to prepare for war. Using the threat of eliminating the filibuster rules altogether, a compromise change in rules was agreed to. Two-thirds of the members of the Senate could vote "cloture" to end the filibuster.

    During the rest of the 20th century, the filibuster was used most effectively by Southern Democrats to bottle up civil rights legislation. Again in response to the threat of a drastic limitation of the filibuster, rules were slightly modified in 1959 to allow for cloture with 2/3 present as opposed to 2/3 of the entire Senate. Further limits were agreed to in 1975 when cloture could be evoked by 3/5 of the Senate (60 senators). Further reforms were pushed through by Senator Robert Byrd (who now worships the filibuster as a member of the minority) to provide alternative means to limit debate.


    In short, the Senate rules about filibuster, instituted by accident, are just rules than can and have changed from time to time. The filibuster is not unconstitutional nor is it any way required by the Constitution. It is not a gift from our Founding Fathers, but an accident.

    The recent use of filibuster to prevent the President's judicial nominees from receiving an up-or-down vote in the full Senate is, if not unprecedented, at least very rare and a recent phenomenon. Save for the large number now being filibustered by Senate Democrats, the only previous use was during the confirmation of Abe Fortas for promotion from a Supreme Court justice to chief justice. In 1968, Republicans were concerned about the ascension of a liberal justice following the expansive rulings of the previous Warren Court. However, the Abe Fortas case was atypical since it was revealed in hearings that Fortas kept President Lyndon Johnson informed of the secret deliberations of the Court and had accepted what seemed to be excessive and inappropriate private payments for teaching a summer course at American University. This is hardly the precedent, Democrats should base their current opposition to nominees for whom the only objection is one of political philosophy.
    The current debate about filibusters can have an important impact on future Senate actions. However, the current tussle is one of political wills, not of constitutional dimensions.


    If the situations were reversed, we know that Republicans and Democrats would have different arguments. We know this because situations were once similarly reversed. During the Clinton administration, Republicans kept some of President Bill Clinton's nominees from coming to a vote on the Senate floor. Rather than needing a filibuster, Republicans were able to bottle up some nominations by the more conventional process of not reporting the nominees out of committee by a majority of the committee.


    At that time Barbara Boxer (D-CA) had different position with respect to judicial nominees when she said, "It is not the role of the Senate to obstruct the process and prevent numbers of highly qualified nominees from even being given the opportunity for a vote on the Senate floor." Similarly Diane Feinstein (D-CA) averred, "Our institutional integrity requires an up-or-down vote." The dean of Senate Democratic Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) indignantly argued, "We owe it to Americans across the country to give these nominees a vote. If our Republican colleagues don't like them, vote against them. But give them a vote."
     
  11. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Re: Re: Re: Big Time Bigotry

    Just pullin' yer leg there, AV8R. - Theo
     
  12. AV8R

    AV8R Active Member

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Big Time Bigotry

    Consider it pulled. ;)
     
  13. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    a Krausian perspective

    I don't think the filibuster serves any constructive purpose.
    It is a way for the unpersuasive to hide behind the unprincipled.

    Now the plain irony of it is that if the Republ- half of our one-party system gets rid of it, boyoboy will they whine and want it back, in vain, when President Clinton starts her federal judicial nominees. And the other plain irony of it is that if the -Ocrat half of our one-party system holds on to it, boyoboy will they whine and want it gone, in vain, when President Clinton starts her federal judicial nominees.

    This assumes that party control of the Senate shifts from time to time.
    Been known to happen, yes sir, known to happen.

    Are we having fun yet? No sir, but we will, we will.





    P.S. Direct election of senators is a terrible idea. It gives 'em hopes.
     
  14. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    Good points!

    I think you raise some good valid points Mr. Engineer, I only hope the Republicans keep up their many unsavory tactics. Most polls show they are seriously lagging in the eyes of the general public.

    Take care,

    Abner :)
     
  15. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    You are correct Abner. 2-1 in all major polls. The general public is seeing right through Frist's BS.

    Bruce

    Regardless if the majority holds up a nomination in committee or the minority holds it up through a fillibuster, the result is the same. Don't fool yourself, the Republican's have used the fillibuster to their advantage as much as the Dem's.

    The President has had more of his nominee's confirmed since Reagan. And still, he wants more and more. I want a Senate/Congress who grills these career appointees and calls them on their past - not some limp wrist jokers who merely rubberstamp the President. That is not the job of the Senate or House.

    I am going to stick my neck out and give my advice to the demo's if they ever hope to win the Congress or Whitehouse back.

    1. Get your own agenda. Forget what the Reps wants - who cares

    2. Get rid of the limp wrists. Get out the big guns - someone as slimey and pathetic as Karl Rove. Grill the President's and VP's military record (or lack of) without remorse (worked for GW against Kerry)

    3. Never apologize, never admit you are wrong.

    4. Remember, the reason Bill Clinton won against a standing President (who actually won a war) was because he had his own agenda and was willing to do what it takes. Don't run if you are a pussy -- don't run if you are afraid to call the President a liar without batting an eye.

    All of this is taken right from the Karl Rove playbook. He turned a second rate failed businessman from Conn (err, Texas) into a pretty popular President. (if you don't believe me, take a look at what GW was like before he met up with Karl).

    About the only person with the drive, and ability to do what it takes - humm - Hilary Clinton.

    (not sure I would vote for her - but it would depend on the alternative)
     
  16. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Yer exactly right, Uncle.
     
  17. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Does this mean you have to be a dick to run for President?
     
  18. Mr. Engineer

    Mr. Engineer member

    In a word, yes. You have to want the prize -- and be willing to take the chances to get it. It is not a job for the weak minded.
     
  19. So then how the hell did G W get in there then???
     
  20. RobbCD

    RobbCD New Member

    OKay, but I've heard this for years...

    Nobody is "seeing through" Frist's BS because there is no BS to see through. Judicial nominees deserve an up or down vote.

    What the majority of American's see through is the stall tactics of the Democratic left. It is evident from the last several elections, the Dem's have lost in congressional elections three times and in presidential elections twice.

    The minority is not entitled to hold a tyranny over the majority, and the filibuster rules have already been changed several times. (That's why no one has to stand on the floor of the Senate and acutally filibuster, and why no one has to actually sit and listen)

    It's time for a vote. (Governance by the majority and all)
     

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