On Bluffs and Nuclear Options

By Lee Harris - May 11th, 2005 - Tech Central Station

A Two Hundred Year Old Tradition?

Democrats tells us that the filibuster tradition is two hundred years old, making it almost as old as the United States itself. Just Google the phrase "the filibuster tradition" and up will pop a number of sites in which it is confidently stated that the filibuster tradition goes back to the earliest days of the Senate.

However the truth is that the "fillibuster" as we know it was invented by 11 extremist "liberals" who opposed the First World War. As noted in Lee's article, "It is one thing to filibuster against a minor bill affecting people's lives only marginally, and quite another thing to filibuster against a nation's efforts to prepare to fight a war, and it was the willfulness of the willful 11 that drove the Senate to reach for a procedure that would allow a way of terminating filibusters, provided it could be shown that the overwhelming majority of the Senate was desirous of this termination."

If you want to get the true history of this process, this is a great article to understand it. The article addresses both how it came about and why it can be a good thing. The question of whether the good it does is served in its current use by democrats is not so clear.