America Is Not Yet Lost
Paul Krugman writes for the New York Times. I am a self professed cynic about our government and its ability to make systemic change. Ours is a distracted, consuming culture. I’m not even sure that if millions of people dropped what they were doing, not work, not school, not shopping, went to Washington and took up residence on the mall if that would wake the minority party from their desire to regain control (or serve their lobbyists masters) and work with the majority party to govern for all the people. Alas, this is not the 1960’s anymore. We are captive to debt, to “American Idol”, or any number of legal consumption narcotics. Krugman’s latest for the NYTimes online is interesting. A few paragraphs with a link follows.
America Is Not Yet Lost
by Paul Krugman | Feb. 7, 2010
A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.
Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.
In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by “traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.” But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.