On and on and on. Is this speaker ever going to stop speaking? He’s not really saying anything. Nothing new, anyway. Nothing we haven’t heard before. The guy’s a total gasbag. Why doesn’t he just sit down and shut up? What is the point of this diatribe? Oh, great, now he’s reading from a book!
You’ve been there. In a meeting at the office or at the local school board or the city council, you get a chance to express your views, and you do or you don’t. If you do, you do so as briefly and as concisely as you can. As does everyone else, except for this one person who seems to have the stamina and determination to go on forever.
Only, the person speaking at length seems less concerned about making a compelling argument than about preventing or postponing a resolution of the matter at hand. He’s a blatant obstructionist: a filibusterer.
Sure, he’s annoying, and he may be doing what he’s doing for all the wrong reasons, but sometimes he’s right and he’s doing the only thing he can do to prevent a miscarriage of justice, to protect the powerless from the powerful.
The filibuster! It’s a tool that can be misused, but it’s still a wonderful tool ... and one we need to protect.
It’s under assault now in our nation’s capital, by those who scoff at the idea that they’re accountable to us and think they’re our superiors. If not for the filibuster, they might soon be.
Last week, all 50 Republican senators in Washington voted to filibuster the misnamed “Freedom to Vote Act.” Since it takes a three-fifths vote in the Senate to invoke cloture, the bill is more than likely dead in the water.
The “Freedom to Vote Act” would not protect the integrity of elections or preserve the rights of legitimate voters. If a filibuster is the only way to stop it, then filibuster it.
