Wise words from Max Baucus

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
Date: May 21, 2005 9:03:46 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: For IP: Wise words from Max Baucus


In the midst of the debate over the filibuster, Max Baucus
had these unusually wise words to contribute:

Mr. President, last week, on Wednesday, we evacuated the Capitol. At the
instruction of the Capitol Police, more than a few Senators and staff  
actually
ran from this building and the surrounding offices in the very real  
fear that
a plane was carrying a bomb to attack this building, the center of our
democracy.

And Wednesday will likely not be the last time, that we guard against  
threats
to our democracy by plane and bomb.

But there are other threats to our democracy and our freedoms, just as
menacing, equally as dangerous.

Abraham Lincoln said: "America will never be destroyed from the  
outside. If we
falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed  
ourselves."

Former Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin said: "It is not slogans or
bullets, but only institutions, that can make, and keep, people free."

And Baron Montesquieu wrote in The Spirit of the Laws: "There is no  
liberty,
if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and the
executive."

Mr. President, in ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power, and the
emperor became a tyrant, it was not because the emperor abolished the  
Senate.
In ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power, it continued to  
exist, at
least in name. But in ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power,  
in the
words of the Senate's historian, Senator Robert Byrd, the Senate became
"little more than a name."

In ancient Rome, when the Senate lost its power, the Roman Senate was
complicit in the transfer. The emperor did not have to seize all the  
honors
and powers. The Roman Senate, one after another, conferred greater  
powers on
Caesar.

It was not the abolition of the Senate that made the emperor  
powerful. It was
the Senate's complete deference.  Like the Roman Senate before us, we  
risk
bringing our diminution upon ourselves. We risk bringing upon  
ourselves a
hollow Senate, a mere shadow of its past self. And we risk bringing upon
ourselves a loss of the checks and balances that ensure our American
democracy.

Mr. President:

This is the way democracy ends;
This is the way democracy ends;
This is the way democracy ends;
Not with a bomb, but a gavel.



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