“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” — Samuel Adams
I’ve just learned this is not the only way for a minority to prevail. They can also bully enough members of the majority into silence.
I finally bothered to look up the roll call vote in the House for S.686, the bill that demolishes equality under the law by stating that “Any parent of Theresa Marie Schiavo shall have standing to bring a suit under this Act” (all two of them) but that “Nothing in this Act shall be construed to confer additional jurisdiction on any court to consider any claim” (the rest of us).
I had been laboring under the misapprehension that this bill passed the House because a majority voted for it, but I was wrong.
The bill passed with a minority of votes. Only 58 members of Congress had the spine to stand up and vote NO. A stunning 174 members weaseled out of their constitutionally-mandated duty and failed to vote at all, handing victory to a legislative minority.
Cowards! This is what kills democracy.
It gets more bizarre by the day, doesn’t it? What distraction is next in the Republican bag of tricks? Anything to keep the sheep from wandering around where they don’t belong, eh?
Well, this time it isn’t a Republican trick. It’s a group, mostly Democrats, who have elected to abdicate their legislative responsibility.
“A stunning 174 members weaseled out of their constitutionally-mandated duty and failed to vote at all, handing victory to a legislative minority.”
Well, just to play devil’s advocate, wasn’t Congress supposed to be in recess when this bill was passed? Sure, if the Democrats cared enough, they should have come back to Washington and voted against this ridiculous bill. But it does seem like a Republican trick since they just had to push this bill through on a weekend when Congress wasn’t supposed to be in session…
Well, maybe they’re trying to send a “see, we don’t think we should be involved, either” message. Surely they’ve seen the polls and understand that most Americans are on Michael and Terri Schiavo’s side, not the GOP’s. Maybe they’re finally learning about not letting the GOP frame all the discussions. By not getting involved, they weren’t hit with the moral arguments, which Dems just aren’t good at (not that I don’t think they have moral high ground, but they just can’t seem to frame their positions from such). They’ve been doing a good job with not being drawn into the Repugs’ script with Social Security.
It would have been nice, perhaps, to hear Dems being a bit more in-your-face with the idiots waving this poor woman around, but they very well might have been slaughtered yet again on this. It’s cold, but I think that we may get further if we let the Republicans shoot their own foot than by letting ourselves be drawn into debates on their terms, which we can only lose.
“It’s cold, but I think that we may get further if we let the Republicans shoot their own foot than by letting ourselves be drawn into debates on their terms, which we can only lose.”
I think that’s an excellent point. Maybe the Dems were saying, “You know what, we can’t argue with people who are this irrational. We refuse to stoop to this level of political pandering. We’re staying out of this one!”
Or maybe they are just cowards.
Even better: The US Senate passed the bill with no debate and Unanimous Consent – of the THREE(3!) members present!
FoxNews.com only stated that the Senate passed the bill unanimously – as if to lend legitmacy to the act.
Oh…and, of course President Bush used Air Force One to fly to Washington from his vacation in Texas to sign the bill in the middle of the night.
Yet when it was first reported that the Christmas Tsunami had killed thousands, and hundreds of Americans were listed as missing, the President of the United States continued his vacation and was lethargic and inept in offering assistance and aid.
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