On the political future of the US of A.

[grouchyoldcoot]

I've been working on a long, detailed post about filibusters, and how they are paralyzing the government and how they are a quirk of the rules, and yada yada yada. Maybe I'll still get around to posting it at some point. It occurred to me today that it's all OK, though. Even if nothing passes unless one party has 60 votes in the Senate, the

Comments

[herooftheage]

I suspect they are not a quirk of the rules, but designed to be there, for good or ill. The early politicians were keen on the Roman republic, and there are plenty of famous examples in Roman history, most notably Cato, of one person holding everything up

[byronhaverford]

Maybe that's because Reagan had a much worse economy to deal with. (By most measures -- I think unemployment wasn't as bad.) Everyone felt the need to be on board with the fiscal measures.

If you accept the premise that politics can affect the economy (and I'm not sure I do), Reagan and his Democratic House have to be given credit for turning things around.

But right now, I'm so much in debt that inflation would help me, so maybe having the govt throwing money around willy-nilly will work out for the best.

[byronhaverford]

How come everybody wants to talk about one lousy gubernatorial election, and no one wants to talk about the single most influential Supreme Court decision of my lifetime? Fer cryin' out loud, this is my one chance to agree with all my pinko communist friends!

[grouchyoldcoot]

I think the problem is that we're all still flabbergasted. I have no idea what to say about it. Note that they even said 'This doesn't apply to the case under appeal, but...'. I think the conservatives clearly wanted to achieve a political goal, and to change the law before Obama got another appointment.

[byronhaverford]

I would agree that this benefits conservative candidates, because they tend to be more business-friendly, but I object to the implication that this is part of a conservative political agenda. It's more like an "insane" political agenda. Remember that this ruling applies to labor unions, too!

I see this ruling as "taking all that is wrong with the political system, and amplifying it a million-fold". Yuck. I'll have to remember to ask my sister what the legal basis it.

[grouchyoldcoot]

Yeah. I think it rests on the 'corporations are people' legal fantasy- but I heard a great argument at dinner asking if that means the 13th Amendment means we cannot own them.

Labor unions will have some clout- but I would expect Chinese corporate interests to have far more.

[pondalorum]

Why's everybody so afraid of a stupid filibuster? Who cares if the Republicans want to spend days making asses of themselves in public?

[grouchyoldcoot]

Ah, that's the issue! There was a rules change in the 70's which said they no longer actually have to talk to filibuster- they can just declare the intent and that they have enough votes and the issue gets permanently tabled. It happens over a hundred times a term now and they don't lose a day actually speechifying.

[grouchyoldcoot]

Yeah, well, remember that the Republicans are much more ideologically uniform than the Democrats. Except for Snow, all of the centrist Republicans of Bush's term are now Democrats or gone. The Dems have a liberal wing, a Blue Dog wing, a pro-life wing, and God knows what all else. The Republican 'police' are meaner too- they *will* make sure you lose if you fail to show purity. So the argument that the two situations are reflections of each other doesn't hold, I don't think. Yes, the Dems are being total wimps- they could use a lot more force. But they'd have to use it; they're not going to just convince anybody to break ranks on the other side.

[grouchyoldcoot]

Oh, and I forgot to mention the whole 9/11 thing. That effectively made the Senate and most of the US insane for a while.