Given how progressives have prefected the idea of speech codes at the University Level, who knows what speech will be allowed in the future. Between being shouted down when you disagree with leftist orthodoxy, being hauled in for hate crimes if you tell the wrong joke, or the requirement to given equal time under a future fairness Doctrine, no one knows what speech will look like in the future.

Also, I noticed you did not dispute the idea that the senior senators will lard up on pork barrel spending once the Democratic party controls all three branches of government.

Your fantasies about the future say nothing about the importance of maitanining the balance of power.

When the future comes, you’ll still be free to advocate for whatever you believe in.
In the present, we should do what we can.

End of story.

I am talking the larger implications. As the U.S. becomes a one party state, the idea of checks and balances fails. Is there really any checks on the government in either Mass. or Alabama? No.

The Democrats will not conduct any investigation of the Clinton Administration. There will be no check because the Republican Party is in the middle of a total collapse. Do you really think a party where over 100 of the Congressmen are going to be reelected unopposed is worried about being punished in the voting booth?

I wonder how many government agencies will be moved to West Virginia after the 2008 election? Do you think that anything will act as a check on Senator Byrd or any of the other old time Democratic Senators?

My guess is that when I am reading themoderatevoice in Feb 2009, many of the poster will be repeating Democratic talking about how it is a good thing that some huge pork program has been approved by Congress.

It’s not about Bush or Dem vs Rep.
It’s about all presidents and the balance of power.

There is a message here for all future president’s: don’t try to replicate or build on the current power grab.

There is a message here for all future Congresses:
Do your job of preserving the balance of power.

If the Democrats try to forget these messages, this experience can be used against them. It makes for a good chech on their potential excesses in the future.

If you can’t get over your fantasies of a dire future or step out of the Left vs Right prism, then there is no use in trying to discuss the larger implications.

Everyone who is the least bit rational nows that the idea that Congress conducts oversight or is separate ends the second the Senator Clinton is elected President. Do you really think that Congressmen like Rahm Emanual will not be acting like Clinton shills in Congress. The idea of investigations, oversight, and balance ends on January 20, 2009 when Hillary Clinton in inaugurated. Then the return of big government, social engineering, and more earmarks than ever will return.

Of course, if the Democrats pass enough tax increases, the media will hail them as fiscal conservatives like the Washington Post just did for Maryland. The biggest problems is that Congress is so lazy and their staffers so stupid that they are incapable of writing proper legislation instead of leaving everything to the civil servants in the Executive Branch.

Everyone should care deeply.
Democracies can, and have, been lost when no one acts to preserve them.

There was genius in the Founding Fathers’ creation of three equal branches of governemtn.
For six years, Congress did not act like a separate branch. They have now to reassert their saparate but equal status to preserve the Constiturion, while the President is still busy trying to circumvent the separation of powers.

It’s not children playing at all.
It’s a most serious fight for our future.
The next president, whoever that may be, is wathching and learning. It’s far better that he/she learn the right lesson early.

Of course, the highly partisan Democratic Party would never admit that a single government position is not really needed.

Karl Rove made his strategy for the GOP clear in a recent interview with Charlie Rose: frame everything as the fault of the Democrats.
-Congress can’t pass legislation: it’s the Dem’s fault.
-Nominations are stalled: it’s the Dem;s fault.
Rove appeared to be as fantically driven as ever
Then he sat back and smiled as he said he was just an innocent nerd, and all the criticism of him was addressed to a myth that didn’t exist.
I don’t believe him for a secong.

Judging from what’s going on, I would guess he is still widely consulted by the Pres and the GOP members in Congress. Rove’s strategy of demonization and divisiveness is destroying what used to be seen as good governance, and I would much rather see it forsaken than see it spread across the aisle.

The problem is, of course, that good guys often finish last. Until and unless we elect a majority of good guys, who refect the Rove doctrine, progress will not come.