As many have pointed out, and Josh Marshall has explained particularly well
here and
here, this is all about ignoring the rules and procedures of the Senate to make a power grab by changing those long held rules with a simple majority vote.
A classic example of such a rule change, made by power hungry extremists, occurs in George Orwell's classic "Animal Farm" which I've excerpted below. If you're familiar with this book, I think you will agree that it is relevant to this debate. If you are not familiar with it, take a few minutes to look it over.
Then let me know if you would be willing to join a movement to purchase copies of Animal Farm to be delivered to Senator Frist's office by Monday. Available for $7.95 plus shipping at Barnes and Nobles. If we got enough people to sign up to do this we might be able to get some press.
Excerpts from Chapter Eight below:
A few days later, when the terror caused by the executions had died down, some of the animals remembered-or thought they remembered-that the Sixth Commandment decreed "No animal shall kill any other animal." And though no one cared to mention it in the hearing of the pigs or the dogs, it was felt that the killings which had taken place did not square with this. Clover asked Benjamin to read her the Sixth Commandment, and when Benjamin, as usual, said that he refused to meddle in such matters, she fetched Muriel. Muriel read the Commandment for her. It ran: "No animal shall kill any other animal without cause." Somehow or other, the last two words had slipped out of the animals' memory. But they saw now that the Commandment had not been violated; for clearly there was good reason for killing the traitors who had leagued themselves with Snowball....
About this time there occurred a strange incident which hardly anyone was able to understand. One night at about twelve o'clock there was a loud crash in the yard, and the animals rushed out of their stalls. It was a moonlit night. At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. The dogs immediately made a ring round Squealer, and escorted him back to the farmhouse as soon as he was able to walk. None of the animals could form any idea as to what this meant, except old Benjamin, who nodded his muzzle with a knowing air, and seemed to understand, but would say nothing.
