Principles

The filibuster, simply put, is the practice of talking proposed legislation to death. Presently, in the Senate, a three-fifths majority vote is required to end a filibuster: a high standard that aims toward consensus instead of mere majority rule.

Back in the days of the Bush administration, when the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress and the White House, the Republican leadership grew frustrated that Senate Democrats had the temerity to use the filibuster block 4% of President Bush’s ideologically extremist judicial nominations. In response, then Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) proposed using what he dubbed the “nuclear option.” Under the so-called nuclear option, a motion could be carried with a simple majority that would end the long-standing practice of the Parliamentary maneuver known as the filibuster, at least in the case of judicial appointments.

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I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the part of Big Government. Yes, I am speaking of the American political party that ran up the largest budget deficit in our history after inheriting a budget surplus from their predecessors. This is the party whose leaders have consistently supported such privacy-invading policies as warrantless wiretaps and renditions. This party is pushing for a surveillance state: the true “Big Brother is watching you” scenario, where the NSA reads all your e-mails, the FBI has a computer system to transcribe all your phone calls, and the police have cameras on every intersection to track your movements. This party’s leaders lied to Congress, the United Nations, and the American people in order to start a war on false pretenses, a war they wanted for no other reason than because war is profitable. And lest we forget, this party’s leaders also handed more than a trillion dollars in taxpayer money to irresponsible financial institutions.

Yet somehow this party’s spokespeople like to pretend that it is the party of small government??? The party of fiscal responsibility? How do a surveillance state and record deficits square with small government?

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