Should we let Bill Frist & Co. change the rules of the senate ?

Well, maybe.But they have been winning elections of late, and the other party has been losing elections of late.I don't see how abolishing the filibuster is an end run around the Constitution. The filibuster isn't specified as required in the Constitution, IIRC.If I'm mistaken, please cite the relevant article or amendment.Just think, if the Democrats regained a 51-49 advantage, what goes around would come around.

That much it says - but no more. If a supermajority is Constitutionally mandated, please cite article or amendment. Otherwise, it is a matter for Senate rules, which the Senate can change.AFAIK, the filibuster is a long-standing tradition and is codified in current Senate rules - but is subject to change. I am not certain of the procedures. If you have neutral references, please cite them. Would that be penumbra 157, emanation 14 ? Same objection as above. There is opportunity for debate in committee, and in a simple majority vote. Somebody has to win the debate eventually. Right now the Republicans have a majority. In Nov. 2006 the Democrats can try again. Politicians are politicians. Did the Democrats think a filibuster was a wonderful tradition when Clinton was President, and a Republican Senate minority used it to block his appointees? No whining here.This message has been edited by paisano, 05-18-2005 11:34 PM

There are at least two fallacies here:1) This assumes that the default viewpoint for an intelligent, educated person is the Democrat viewpoint, and that any failure to arrive at this viewpoint must be attributable to some individual deficiency.I find this assumption not only unsupported by the evidence, but somewhat arrogant.2) This presupposes that vapid political commercials are a phenomenon of recent origin, and limited to Reppublicans.On the contrary, I recall a whole series of commercials produced by MoveOn on behalf of Democrats that exploited every logical fallacy in the canon.I particularly recall one with a depressed looking factory worker, claiming the economy was the "worst since the Great Depression". This would seem on the face of it to assume and exploit a general lack of knowledge of American history among its target audience, as at the time it was running, the national unemployment rate was below 6%, i.e. comparable to that at the time of Mr. Clinton's 1996 campaign, and far below the 20-25% level actually seen at the nadir of the Great Depression.

On this one, I have to agree that the Indiana decision is a bad decision. Barring parents from instructing their custodial children in a particular religion seems to be unconstitutional on its face. That the religion is not mainstream is irrelevant.However, it is difficult to see how preserving government neutrality toward religion requires the banning of a student-selected song at a graduation with religious themes, unless songs with themes from other religions were treated differently.I don't think either example served up in this thread is very strong evidence for either protagonist's point (incipient theocracy vs. incipient stamping out of religion).It seems everyone has their hypersensitivities.

Perhaps they want to make sure he is taught evolution in biology class

Crash, here's a thought experiment for you:If someone had sung John Lennon's "Imagine" at the graduation, would you regard this as impermissible state sponsored advocacy of atheism? Would you think that theists who felt allowing such a song to be used was unconstitutional had a point?Or would you think they were being hypersensitive?For the record, I'd go with hypersensitive.