Robert Byrd Loses!

11 thoughts on “Robert Byrd Loses!”

1. Well, I’m not sure what to think. He is giving me $1500 a year for college.

2. Does that mean that those who compared Saddam Hussein (or Slobodan Milosevic, etc.) to Hitler also lost? Cool!

3. American political theory holds that it is better to have an inefficient government that preserves liberty because of checks and balances than an efficient despotism.
   Senate filibusters over judicial appointments may be annoying, but it is not a liberum veto that is destroying the Republic. I may not like the use of filibusters over routine matters, and may dislike some instances of their use in the past, but it is a vital and unique tool of the Senate to preserve their ability to act as a check and balance.

4. Getting judges on the bench who will show some restraint (since there are no effective checks and balances on their power) will go a lot further to avoiding turning our country into a despotism than allowing judges to be confirmed by a majority vote in the senate (which is the way it has always been in practice).

5. than allowing judges to be confirmed by a majority vote in the senate (which is the way it has always been in practice).
   Hmm. That didn’t come out quite right. I meant to say: than preserving the filibuster for judicial nominees (whose use in this context is unprecedented).

6. Why don’t the Republicans have the guts to force a real filibuster?
   Can someone please explain this to me?
   Who is their strategist and why isn’t he strategizing?
   They really and truly earn their nickname of “The Stupid Party”.

7. BillyHW,
   I think a real filibuster would require a rules change. A rules change also requires a super-majority. The “nuclear option”, I believe, is a reinterpretation of current rules so that judicial nominees would no longer be considered business on which there were unlimited debate.
   As it stands now, I think only a couple of Democrats would have to be present to prevent a vote and almost all the Republicans would have to be present to keep the Senate from adjourning. They did that last year (or was it in 2003?) to make a point. It of course will not be truly effective until the rules are changed so that forty-one Democrats who are filibustering must be present as long as the filibuster lasts.
   Perhaps someone more versed in the parliamentary procedures than I can clarify this.

8. What about the pope’s abortion comparison in his new book? Did the pope invoke Godwin’s law?

9. To quote the Wikipedia article,
   One common objection to Godwin’s law is that sometimes using Hitler or the Nazis is a perfectly apt way of making a point. For instance, if one is debating the relative merits of a particular leader, and someone says something like, “He’s a good leader, look at the way he’s improved the economy”, one could reply, “Just because he improved the economy doesn’t make him a good leader. Even Hitler improved the economy.” Some would view this as a perfectly acceptable comparison. One uses Hitler because he is a universally known leader and the example requires no explanation.
   Some would argue, however, that Godwin’s law applies even to the situation mentioned above, as it portrays an inevitable appeal to emotions as well as holding an implied ad hominem attack on the subject being compared to, which are classic logical fallacies. Hitler, on a semiotic level, has far too many negative connotations associated with him to be used as a good comparison to anything except for other despotic dictators. Thus, Godwin’s law holds even in making comparisons to normal leaders that, on the surface, would seem to be a reasonable comparison.
   Godwin’s standard answer to this objection is to note that Godwin’s law does not dispute whether, in a particular instance, a reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be apt. It is precisely because such a reference or comparison may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that hyperbolic overuse of the Hitler/Nazi comparison should be avoided. Avoiding such hyperbole, he argues, is a way of ensuring that when valid comparisons to Hitler or Nazis are made, such comparisons have the appropriate semantic impact.
   ————————————-
   In short. Make sure there’s been a lot of people killed before proceeding.
   On this account, the Pope and people who dislike Saddam Hussein don’t lose the argument.

10. I think Godwin’s law goes a bit too far in putting comparisons to Hitler off limits, but it does make the point. Hitler comparisons abound in political discussions these days, and even when it would be logically correct to use them, it does betray a certain failure of imagination. It would simply be more interesting and rhetorically effective to take the time to think of some other comparison.
    However, I failed to do this the other day in a post about Saddam. I went for the Hitler comparison partly because liberal professor types have tried to retroactively make the same arguments about WWII that they currently make about Iraq (that Hitler was “demonized”, that the Holocaust was not really as bad as the Allies made out, etc…). Still, I should have thought for a while on it and come up with something more original.

11. I think a fair rewording of Godwin’s law could be: “I’m rubber and you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.”
    This is how you use playground politics to combat playground politics. If there are indeed instances when the comparison is apt, then a law mandating that anyone who makes the comparison is the “loser” is, by its own definition, inadequate.
    Whatever. I just try to stick to a personal rule of only saying things that are true (worked for GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, and Blessed Bishop Fulton Sheen).

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