Bunning, who views the unemployed as a bunch of undeserving complainers, bemoaned the fact that he was missing a college basketball game as he was debating with the rest of his colleagues well into the night about his objection, saying "I have missed the Kentucky-South Carolina game that started at 9:00, and it's the only redeeming chance we had to beat South Carolina since they're the only team that has beat Kentucky this year."
The reaction to Bunning's unpopular stance has been mainly focused on the filibuster rule. But if Bunning is the type of man that the US Senate produces, then forget the filibuster, why not abolish the obstructionist institution altogether? What great legislation has it produced for the American people in the past ten years? The more one studies the Senate, the more one realizes how contradictory its nature is to the American idea of self-government. It has become an oligarchical and militarist stronghold, where the people's voice is ignored, the public good is destroyed, and the nation's bedrock, the Bill of Rights, is trampled on in full view every session.
The idea to terminate the Senate has been suggested by numerous figures over the last ten years. Richard Rosenfeld is one such voice. He wrote an article back in May 2004 for Harper's called What democracy? The case for abolishing the United States Senate, in which he documented the anti-democratic nature of the Senate and its unpopular history. Rosenfeld says it is irrational to continue selecting two groups of representatives to achieve democratic legislation, especially since the argument that the Senate was created to provide a check and balance no longer holds water:
If the arguments about the number of legislative chambers had simply been about the mechanics of decision-making, Paine and Franklin might well have had their way, but it wasn’t, which is why they lost their argument. For eighteenth-century Americans as well as for the English, the purpose of a second chamber was really to protect wealth and aristocracy from the demands of a democratic majority.A free press can serve as a greater check against tyranny, as well as government abuse, waste, and fraud, than a defunct Senate. And as Rosenfeld reminds us, an informed citizenry is the ultimate check against tyranny:
If the House, acting alone, were to make a mistake, the House would presumably correct itself, or, if it didn’t, the people who elected wrongheaded representatives would elect new representatives to take their place. Here, too, the Senate is woefully deficient, because a wrongheaded senator has to answer to the voters only once in six years.The Senate is not a democratic or a republican institution. It doesn't serve the majority or protect the unalienable rights of the individual. All it does is give the nation's oligarchy unequal privileges and powers.
Obviously, terminating the senate requires a national debate, and should not be a knee-jerk solution to national instability, but it is politically doable. According to a recent poll, the failure of the US government to protect the rights of the American people is self-evident, so such a move will also be very popular. But it is also the right thing to do.
Waldo Proffitt of The Herald Tribune makes the point that filibuster did not originate in the Constitution, it is simply a makeshift rule that allows the Senate to resist change, and only benefits a select few. He writes:
There is nothing in the Constitution about the 60-vote rule. It's just that -- a rule, which could be changed any day by two-thirds of the members present and voting, but a rule which serves the purposes of enough senators it is not likely to be voted out any time soon.The issue is not that one million people are left to starve, although that should boil our skins, or that one million people are at the whim of one disingenuous man, but that the individual is made dependent on government programs which can't be sustained by anyone, or by any tax. Unemployment benefits will not help anybody in the long run. A sound economy and well-paying jobs will. And if Bunning was really concerned about the deficit, he would restrict funding to the military-industrial-complex, the health insurance companies, and the pirating banks.
Expecting senators like Bunning to come to the rescue of the country, much less one million unemployed Americans, is expecting the impossible. The Senate will not reform itself. And if current trends are allowed to run their course, then the country will die. Ordinary Americans can't just vote in new representatives come 2012, they have to demand systematic changes, beginning with the termination of the Senate. It is hard to imagine that such a political move can take place in the country, but the American people have always been radical. They have the unique ability to reinvent their nation, to redraw the map, and tip the scales in a different direction. It is the nation's destiny to perpetually reform itself, and as the President said in his inauguration address, it is time to "perfect the union." The strange perseverance of the American people has served them before in periods of national instability, even beyond the wildest dreams of the Founding generation. One of them, Thomas Paine, wrote that "the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind," an insight that remains true today.
The founding generation saw a whole new era before them. We live in similar times, a great breaking point is in the world's future. In the backdrop at home there is an undeniable domestic tyranny that is waiting for the right time to show its full force, and forever crush the cause of America. Abroad, the empire's long rope is reaching it's pathetic end. But the chances of the nation dying are slim because a massive political awakening is happening. The opportunity to create the world anew has never been greater. America's historical drama began in 1776, but it has never ended. Americans of every generation in the nation's history have reached back to the founding era for motivation and guidance to determine their own destiny and give new life to their depleted politics, and more importantly, for the next passage of the nation's course in world history. As historian Gary B. Nash, author of The Unknown American Revolution, notes, the revolution of 1776 "was a revolution of beginnings, of partial achievements, of deferred dreams--in short, an ongoing process where the transformative work must be passed on like a torch to the next generation."
The American people are screaming for change and new solutions from their elected politicians. But when has positive change ever come from men in power? When the problems are so deep-seated, then it's time to get off our asses. We need to get in touch with the spirit of the times, and think bravely and creatively. But not too creatively. America's original principles, and the Bill of Rights, should still serve us today. We don't need a complete overhaul of the way Washington is organized, just a few dramatic changes. And if one of the consequences of a new American revolution is the termination of the Senate then it will be a successful revolution.
The torch is in our hands. What will we do with it?
Alexandria's Link.
