{"id":4560,"date":"2013-11-29T12:14:18","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T17:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4560"},"modified":"2013-11-29T12:14:18","modified_gmt":"2013-11-29T17:14:18","slug":"the-force-of-reasons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4560","title":{"rendered":"The force of reasons"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 378px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  \" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/visuals.autism.net\/visuals\/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&amp;g2_itemId=125&amp;g2_serialNumber=5\" width=\"378\" height=\"409\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Fig 1: violence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>We begin with a tale of inconsistency, borrowing (pretty much completely) from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eschatonblog.com\/2013\/11\/hacks.html\">Atrios<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2005\/05\/12\/AR2005051201562.html\">Krauthammer.<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0[2005, when Republicans held a narrow majority in the Senate]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist seems intent on passing a procedural ruling to prevent judicial filibusters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The Democrats have unilaterally shattered one of the longest-running traditions in parliamentary history worldwide. They are not to be rewarded with a deal. They must either stop or be stopped by a simple change of Senate procedure that would do nothing more than take a 200-year-old unwritten rule and make it written.<\/p>\n<p>What the Democrats have done is radical. What Frist is proposing is a restoration.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/charles-krauthammer-the-democrats-outbreak-of-lawlessness\/2013\/11\/28\/3184b6f2-579b-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html\">versus Krauthammer.<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0[2013, when Democrats hold a narrow majority in the Senate]<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The violence to political norms here consisted in how that change was executed. By brute force<\/strong> \u00e2\u20ac\u201d a near party-line vote of 52 to 48 . This was a disgraceful violation of more than two centuries of precedent. <strong>If a bare majority can change the fundamental rules that govern an institution, then there are no rules.<\/strong> Senate rules today are whatever the majority decides they are that morning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>These two views are hugely inconsistent, of course.<\/p>\n<p>What is even more ridiculous, however, is how Krauthammer characterizes a losing vote: &#8220;violence,&#8221; &#8220;brute force.&#8221; \u00c2\u00a0Er, no. \u00c2\u00a0It&#8217;s the opposite of that.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, just because you can change rules (even allegedly longstanding ones) does not imply there are no rules. \u00c2\u00a0For, after all,\u00c2\u00a0there is a rule that says how rules are changed. \u00c2\u00a0That rule, at least, stays in place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We begin with a tale of inconsistency, borrowing (pretty much completely) from Atrios: Krauthammer.\u00c2\u00a0[2005, when Republicans held a narrow majority in the Senate] Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist seems intent on passing a procedural ruling to prevent judicial filibusters. &#8230; The Democrats have unilaterally shattered one of the longest-running traditions in parliamentary history worldwide. They &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=4560\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The force of reasons<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[796,1799,115,1797,2014,1798],"class_list":["post-4560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-arguments-that-suck","tag-bill-frist","tag-charles-krauthammer","tag-filibuster","tag-inconsistency","tag-senate-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4560"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4561,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4560\/revisions\/4561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}