The Linear Canvas

This week has been quite a week for change. I guess I never realized that the political landscape could change so quickly. My first thought is that it is some sort of neo-con trick to throw me off.

Several months ago Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist from Tennessee, threatened to invoke a so-called “nuclear option” in response to threats by Democrats that they would filibuster legislation proposed by Republicans. There were many Republicans that warned that the consequences of not allowing filibusters’ by the minority party would someday come back to haunt them. Conservative talk show hosts and some conservative politicians made it clear that they endorsed use of this technique. With the loss of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the short sighted nuclear option would have been a complete disaster for the Republican Party.

Many rights and privileges that the minority party had enjoyed throughout most of the history of the United States congress, were ignored or disallowed during the last six years of the Republican led congress. I admit it would be pleasurable to administer the same banishment to the Republicans, but I believe that it would be wrong to continue the treatment of the minority party as outcasts. Exactly what the neo-cons want is to continue the partisanship of the last 10 years. We must resist calls to punish anyone that has not committed a real crime. Punishing someone for their thoughts and actions that did not really affect anyone is exactly what the Republicans did. To continue this would be unpatriotic. I forgive the Republicans whose only crime was to be wrong.