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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DMaA who wrote (115061)	5/20/2005 7:38:19 PM
From: Bridge Player	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793809

I pose these questions to any who follow, read, or post on this board who believe that the use of the filibuster is an appropriate means for the minority to use to protect their rights against a majority, in this case, bent on approving a number of judges to higher office. Liberals, moderates, and any persons of striped-tail-ape persuasion are invited to reply. Conservatives are requested to stifle themselves, as Archie was wont to say. 1. Do you believe that 100 hours of open "debate", on the Senate floor, offering each Senator who wishes to avail himself or herself of the opportunity 1 hour of free speech, is inadequate to thoroughly vet a nominee, examine their fitness to serve based on their jurisprudence, their judicial philosophy, and their record, and thus establish the necessary exposure that would precede an up-or-down vote on the nominee? 2. Do you believe that, given the opportunity offered in question 1, such a vote would still be unfair, or undesirable, or insufficiently protective of the minority, because the majority would thus be able to vote their will to promote extreme right-wing candidates? 3. Do you believe that the present Senate, as of May 2005, would vote to approve the nomination of any person who was as totally out-of-the-mainstream, extreme in philosophy, and unsuitable to serve as has been described by some in the current debate? 4. Do you sincerely believe that the current debate is really and truly about the Senate and the tradition of that body as opposed to being about the judicial philosophy of the nominee? Comments from non-right-wing ideologues welcome.

To: DMaA who wrote (115061)	5/21/2005 5:33:31 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793809

Really, you would think the Republicans had proposed to rape the Statue of Liberty. This might be a good time to close the loop by reviewing why I got into this in the first place. I was responding to JDN's assertion of an absolute "right thing" to do. He said, "We dont need individuals [in the Senate] incapable of doing the RIGHT THING in something so important as this." I have tried to point out that there are other legitimate perspectives on what is the right thing. >>An interesting feature in the dispute is that some of the hardliners are former House members, and there the tradition is that the majority exercises the authority of the majority with no shedding of constitutional tears over imperiled or lost traditions.<< I think that using brute force undermines any perceived rightness. I don't know if you've been exposed to the corporate exercise of analyzing whether the entity is doing right things right, right things wrong, wrong things right, or wrong things wrong. Whether or not this is a right thing, it's being done wrong and there is a cost to that.