The Unrepentant Patriot has been doing some research on the implications of using the "Nuclear Option" to force through President Obama's health care plan. He gives the history both of the filibuster (a tool created by the Founding Fathers to prevent the passions of direct democracy from taking over), and of the "reconciliation rule," which was intended to be used only for moving budget legislation, so that a deadlock would not shut down the federal government.
The extension of the reconciliation rule is even beginning to scare liberal Democrats, as the quotations in the article attest. Another interesting feature is a listing of Democratic comments on Republican attempts to do exactly the same thing during the Bush Administration.
This kind of hypocrisy is rampant, both in federal and state governments, because too few members of the Congress or the General Assembly are willing to hold fast to principle at the risk of losing re-election. This kind of hypocrisy is also feeding the liberty movement, which by November may well prove to be a highly potent force for turning things around, at least here in Ohio, but perhaps at the federal level as well.
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