“This is the Way Democracy Ends”

[housewolf]

Baucus’ Rebuttal: “This is the Way Democracy Ends”

Sen. Max Baucus today offered the rhetorical antithesis to Sen. Santorum’s crass reference to Adolph Hitler. Read it, pass it on to friends. It is a powerful, jarring speech, one that expresses the profound importance of the moment we’re experiencing now.

<snip>

adly, Wednesday was not the first time. 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.”

<snip>

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.” …

<snip>

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.

<snip>

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=927

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Yikes! Did Baucus just see "Revenge of the Sith"?

"This is how liberty ends -- to thunderous applause."

[Journeyman]

2. I believe Sen. Baucus had his thoughts on a higher plane. . .

he's paraphrasing the closing stanza to T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men, :

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Yes, and I loved how he did it.

But a lot more people will see and relate to the movie than will recognize the poem. Whatever gets the message out, whatever works. Tie it all together, Eliot and Lucas and anything else. People have to get it or we're screwed.

[neweurope]

4. A great speech in every respect. Is this guy Dem or Rep?

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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Dem. Of course.

[neweurope]

6. Thank you! I wouldn't now... I've read better things from some

Republicans than from some Dems lately :(


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Remember Fallujah

Bush to The Hague!