Have you ever watched the highlights of a filibuster on TV? Its hard to call them highlights because even the most entertaining moments are so unbelievably boring that most people would rather fuck a warm apple pie than have to watch and/or listen to it.
What is a filibuster?
It is essentially a loophole in American Democratic procedures that states the senate can pass anything with a majority but in order to do it with less than a threshold greater than a simple majority they must pass a trial. The trial is an attempted mass murder by speech. Lots of speeches. Long speeches. Speeches that all sound the same.
Filibustering is the madlibs of political conjecture. Every member of the current, slight, minority party gets together and has all of their advisers write the longest speech they can. They then compile all 45ish speeches together, redistribute them for slight editing; "insert colourful simile here", "reference Iraq here", "Point to stupid bar/pie chart now". Then each senator takes turns trying to goad the other side into ritualized suicide.
To stop this from happening in the future, my plan is that all American children should be forced to watch - start to finish - a filibuster during their civics class in high school or elementary school so that when they grow up they realize the barbaric practice must end.
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4 comments:
we have filibusters here.
i actually know a guy that was a clerk in ottawa during the filibuster for the meech accord..
quite humourously, he related his current (mild) coke addiction to those very 5 days (or something close to that).
Yeah but I guess it is kind of like the opposite of hockey. In America it is a sport but in Canada it is a way of life.
Mad lib it to replace hockey with filibustering, and switch Canada and America.
Although it may seem silly to watch, there is more of a purpose to filibustering than you are accounting for. The House of Representatives has a Rules Committee that places a limit on debate when a bill goes to the floor. The Senate has no such committee. The constitutional framers intended for these two to counteract each other. For every filibuster in the Senate, then, imagine a debate that is ruthlessly cut short in the House.
So why not go through a readings system? For example everything needs to be presented in the house thrice for debate but the debate can have a time limit?
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