The Filibuster

I first learned about the filibuster in high school, and to this day, I find it to be the most advanced form of torture and masochism ever created within the political arena.  Its origin (as best I can find) began in the ancient Roman Senate, with the senator Cato being one of its earliest users.  The idea was that Roman Senate had to conclude all of their business by sunset, and a couple of times, a proposal came up that Cato did not want to pass.  In order to block the proposal, Cato would get up to speak and he wouldn’t stop speaking until sunset, thereby giving the Senate no time to vote on the proposal, and thus killed it.

Since then, the filibuster has been put to nefarious use over the years in several different countries, but I don’t know that anybody has ever perfected it the way the United States Senate has.  A filibuster doesn’t have a time limit like the setting of the sun—indeed not.  In the U.S. Senate, a filibuster lasts as long as the speaking senator endures.  The senator doesn’t have to say anything of substance, either.  They can talk about the weather, share family stories, read out of the phone book, or talk about last week’s football game; it doesn’t matter.  As long as they’re talking, the bill they oppose is blocked from being voted on.

Just the threat of having to sit through something like that is enough to keep me away from ever trying to run for any major political office such as that (not that I’d ever get enough funding for such a campaign anyways.)  I also have great admiration for those speakers who can physically stand in one place for an entire day, and those who have to listen to them for having enough patience not to shout somewhere in the middle to shut up.

Last week, Ted Cruz gave one of the longest speeches in recorded Senate history: Twenty-one hours.  That is incredible:  Twenty-one hours of no food, no sleep, and never once shutting up all for something he believed in.  No one can doubt how much this man wants to defund Obamacare because he has sacrificed his health and sanity for this belief.  That 21-hour speech would make any filibusterer (I can’t believe that’s a real word) proud.

Then there’s debate that the speech wasn’t a filibuster, and I would have to agree with those who say it wasn’t.  A filibuster delays a vote, and Ted Cruz didn’t delay anything except a well-deserved nap.  So what was the point?  To get it on the record that he didn’t like the Affordable Care Act?  He’s a Republican; everybody figured that even without news reports.  His goal then, if not to delay, should have been to get more people on his side for the vote.

In 21 hours, though, what he’s being remembered for is not his clear, passionate, and convincing arguments, but for quoting The Little Engine that Could, Green Eggs and Ham, Ayn Rand, making a Nazi comparison (you can’t have a serious debate in this country without that), and a Darth Vader impersonation.

Whether or not this was a filibuster doesn’t matter to me.  What does matter is that I am now convinced that there is no such thing as reasonable discussion about the important issues.  It is simply two sides talking at each other and they don’t even care if the other side is listening.