The State of our Democracy
Many provisions of the Patriot Act are set to expire, and amid calls by the President that they be renewed, there have been a number of hearings on the Hill about the act. I was watching one such hearing on C-SPAN last night, and I must say that I was absolutely amazed by what had happened. Most of the hearings, it turns out, have been stacked by those that support the Patriot Act, but the hearing that occured Friday was composed of witnesses hand-picked by Democrats.
As it turns out, those on the right were not particularly interested in hearing what people on the other side of the political spectrum had to say. Here's an article giving a very cursory overview of the events. Here's an article that goes a bit more in depth. And this may be helpful if you want to do your own reading on the subject.
In any event, this is really one of those things that you had to see it to believe it. I'm no expert on House procedural rules, but from what I've been able to gather they are in no way monolothic, and speakers have generally been alloted more time to at least finish a thought (within reason of course). But what happened here was really something I had never seen. The Chairman decided that it was time to be really a "by the book" kind of guy by strictly enforcing time limits and really hold his ground in the face of any objection.
After the microphones had been cut off, I think Zogby, on of the witnesses really hit the nail on the head. The entire thesis of his testimony had been that U.S. behavior of late had created a climate where we are not setting a good example for the rest of the world, and have in fact provided a some sort of justification for abuses globally. Zogby said that the behavior by the GOP at the hearing would serve the same purpose in the sense that the notion of a free and open government was something that could easily be disregarded. That is, the GOP had treated these hearings as merely perfunctory and so any oppressive regime could do the same.
You may disagree with the reasoning put forth here and argue that the causal relationship is too attenuated. That's fine. In fact, please do. I say this only because so much of what was said by the GOP at this hearing consisted of something to the effect of "saying the U.S. is bad will cause people to think we are actually bad."
You cannot (rationally, at least) both reject and embrace the notion that bad behavior sets an example. But this is precisely what the right would have us believe.
As it turns out, those on the right were not particularly interested in hearing what people on the other side of the political spectrum had to say. Here's an article giving a very cursory overview of the events. Here's an article that goes a bit more in depth. And this may be helpful if you want to do your own reading on the subject.
In any event, this is really one of those things that you had to see it to believe it. I'm no expert on House procedural rules, but from what I've been able to gather they are in no way monolothic, and speakers have generally been alloted more time to at least finish a thought (within reason of course). But what happened here was really something I had never seen. The Chairman decided that it was time to be really a "by the book" kind of guy by strictly enforcing time limits and really hold his ground in the face of any objection.
After the microphones had been cut off, I think Zogby, on of the witnesses really hit the nail on the head. The entire thesis of his testimony had been that U.S. behavior of late had created a climate where we are not setting a good example for the rest of the world, and have in fact provided a some sort of justification for abuses globally. Zogby said that the behavior by the GOP at the hearing would serve the same purpose in the sense that the notion of a free and open government was something that could easily be disregarded. That is, the GOP had treated these hearings as merely perfunctory and so any oppressive regime could do the same.
You may disagree with the reasoning put forth here and argue that the causal relationship is too attenuated. That's fine. In fact, please do. I say this only because so much of what was said by the GOP at this hearing consisted of something to the effect of "saying the U.S. is bad will cause people to think we are actually bad."
You cannot (rationally, at least) both reject and embrace the notion that bad behavior sets an example. But this is precisely what the right would have us believe.
posted by Barwise at 12:09 AM
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