Going to Hell in a Handbasket

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a big argument going on in the Senate. Its about something called the “nuclear option” (BTW, thanks to Julie for alerting me to this about a month ago). It’s basically a move by Republican Senators to change the rules in the Senate to prevent the minority from using a filibuster to block judicial appointments. A filibuster is a tactic used in the Senate where someone will continue to talk, as long as it takes, in order to prevent a vote. It takes a 2/3 majority of votes to stop the filibuster. Both parties have used it successfully in the past to block votes on the Senate floor.

Republicans are now frustrated that Democrats are using the same tactics they used when Republicans were the minority party. Worse yet, they’re trying to change the rules not by going through the normal path, but by bypassing all the existing rules in the Senate. Basically, they seem to think that they can do whatever they please since they’re the majority party.

On top of all of this, this weekend there was a live, nationwide broadcast from a church in the South essentially calling anyone who blocked these judicial nominees non-Christian. Mind you, the Senate has confirmed over 200 of President Bush’s judicial nominees and are only blocking 10. Now, my question is, who the fuck made these people thing they speak for the entire country? Suddenly, we’ve got a small group of Americans trying to tell the rest of the country what to think. So, because I’m a liberal and a Democrat, I somehow don’t have the correct type of faith if I don’t agree with some other group on the appointment of political nominees. What the hell is our country coming to?

The founding fathers put many checks in place to safeguard us not only from the tyranny of the majority, but also the tyranny of the minority. Our system was set up so that a small fringe group could not impose their views on the majority, but also so the majority couldn’t run roughshod over the minority. Now, suddenly, we have a group of Republicans that seem to think they have a kind of mandate to run the country without any thought to what a large part of the country thinks. Let’s face it, Bush was elected by a little more than 50% of the popular vote. The House and the Senate are not overwhelmingly Republican. So, there is a substantial group of people that do not believe in the conservative agenda. Who decided that these people don’t count?

Our political process is being over-run by fringe groups, and the leadership in Washington is letting it happen. Everyone, whether Democrat or Republican, should write their Senators and demand they vote down this “nuclear option”. They seem to forget that in Washington, memories are long. There will come a day when Democrats again hold the majority, and boy, will you hear the whining then when the Republicans get screwed by the rules they are trying to create now should they go into effect. Anyone that believes in democracy should be appalled at the tactics Senate Republicans are trying. I’m nearly at a loss for words to describe my outrage. And to top it off, religious groups are trying to make policy now. I don’t care what religious group it is, they don’t belong in government unless they were elected by the people of their district. If you want to live in a theocracy, move to Iran. There are plenty of governments out there that will tell you what to think. Ours shouldn’t be one of them.