Why Obstruction? | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: BCN welcomes Contributor Austin Goss, who, along with BCN Contributor Ryan Case, publishes a growing journal, The Liberty Fix, already steeped in information of a growing wisdom.

    Since the beginning of America, and time for that matter, a controversial but necessary tactic used widely throughout not just the nation's House of Representatives and Senate, but throughout state houses across the land, "obstruction" has been a tactic both lauded and booed on both sides of the aisle. Obstruction, which can be and is broadly defined, has been a common rallying cry and insult by the right to the left as many senators in DC look to quickly approve Donald Trump's cabinet picks, as it was a common rallying cry and insult by the left when they attempted to jam through various Obama cabinet picks on various different occasions, or refuse a vote on the empty Scalia Supreme Court seat, etc.

    To call obstruction a bad thing wholesale is a knee jerk and mostly wrong reaction. Of course, if a senator were to lay in the aisle of either House and uphold a vote by way physical and literal obstruction, then yes, there is no room or purpose for that. When Nancy Pelosi cut the lights out on House Republicans back during her time as Speaker of the House, that was negative obstruction. When Democrats from both the House and the Senate sat on the floor and shouted down Paul Ryan as a way of attempting to get a vote to be held on stricter gun legislation, that too, was negative obstruction.

    However, there is plenty of good, if not great obstruction. Just this week, Rex Tillerson, Donald Trump's nominee to the position of Secretary of State, faced some extremely tough questions not just from Democrats, but in particular from former presidential candidate Marco Rubio of Florida, a Conservative Republican. Even as many Republicans looked on and scowled at the potential threat of a close colleague not voting for a nominee of their party's President-Elect, Senator Rubio stood strong in the face of potential backlash and criticism. Although to many, what Senator Rubio did could be viewed as obstruction, and more than all likelihood is indeed obstruction, there is no question that there are serious moral and ethical questions surrounding potentially putting Mr. Tillerson in the position of Secretary of State, due to his close ties to Russia. In obstructing a vote on Tillerson, Rubio was able to hold the Republican Party up to a morally objective standard that is so often lost in party politics, as people across America, and the political spectrum at large, were able to see that there was at least one senator who would not fall victim to partisan groupthink, that is so often the reason and rhyme for a politician's action(s.)

    The filibuster, a tactic which can be both positive and negative, and viewed as obstruction, but nevertheless completely constitutional, had been almost completely eroded away from existence during the Democrats majority rule of the Senate. Harry Reid, former Democratic Minority Leader and now retired Senator, proudly proclaimed the filibuster "dead" as he headed towards the door in his last days. What Senator Reid, along with other Democrats who chose to chip away at the filibuster, don't realize is there will likely come a time where THEY will want to filibuster. Maybe not a cabinet pick, maybe not in the first month, but it is not far fetched to believe that Democrats will seek to challenge a Republican President and a Republican majority in both houses by way of a filibuster, that they have attempted to erode completely over the course of the past eight years or so. How can they? How do Republicans respond? Do they strike back in a manner of revenge, or do they accept a filibuster and go through the procedural and for so long correct practice of voting it away, should it arise?

    James Madison, the father of many of the institutions of Government with which we are all so familiar with today, embraced this obstruction and gridlock. In Federalist Paper #51, Madison expresses his belief that this gridlock would lead the various entities of the government, the three branches in particular, to hold each other accountable. It was through this slow moving process of lawmaking and regulation, that the ambition that man was and is so prone to, would be counteracted.

    A common complaint and misconception of people all across the nation is that the government "isn't doing anything." In many cases, this inaction is probably a credit to various different types of obstruction, whether that be refusing to vote on a Supreme Court pick, a filibuster, or a prolonged hearing on a cabinet pick. As informed American citizens, it is our job to understand that politics is not always perfect and pretty, for good reason. Sometimes, these attempts to block, challenge, and/or obstruct something, whether along party lines or not, is not the demise of democracy or the Republic, but often rather the premise in which it was founded upon; dissent.

poll#99

With the Democrats losing the presidency, after winning the popular vote by over 2 million votes more than the victor, Donald J. Trump: Should the constitutional provision of the Electoral College be scrapped?

  Yes, the votes for president should be concentrated in the population centers.

  No, the Electoral College provides for better representation from the less populated states.

  I rarely vote because I have little knowledge of the issues.

116 total vote(s)     What's your Opinion?