House Republicans remove Democrats from committee meeting!

[Andrew J.]

Die. For all of our faults, we're the worlds oldest democracy/republic.

How long do you think it will be before a British poster says something about the age of Parliament?

[Xenophobe3691]

How long do you think it will be before a British poster says something about the age of Parliament?

I figure till 8 AM GMT or so...

[Joe]

Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to not be American?

No. Have I?

[Johonebesus]

Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to not be American?

At least they didn't actually break out in a fist fight as happens so frequently in many other ligislatures.

[RedImperator]

Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to not be American?

Yes, several times. Have I ever mentioned how I'm glad you're not an American, too?

Jesus, what the fuck are you, a Ted sock puppet? All I've ever seen you contribute in this forum is sniping from the peanut gallery. Contribute something useful or shut the fuck up.

Onto the matter at hand: from the articles I've read, everyone involved is an asshole. How this surprises anybody remotely familiar with the workings of representative democracy, I don't know. The Republicans used their majority on the committee to deny the Democrats parliamentary courtesy (wow, I'll bet that's never happened before), the Democrats stormed out (ditto), Thomas lost his temper and called the police (a regular occurence in my neigborhood), the police refused to do anything, as did the sergeant-at-arms, Nancy Pelosi (hmm, I wonder if the highest ranking Democrat in the House is going present a one-sided view) submitted a resolution that would have required the Republicans to condemn themselves to pass, and so on down the line until hysterical liberals on Internet message boards wail that the Republicans are acting like Nazis.

Jesus, get a little pespective. If acting like white trash is the worst thing senators and representatives are doing, you're having a pretty good year. When legislators start challending each other to duels and beating each other within an inch of their lives with canes (all of which has happened in Congress in the past), then I'll start to worry.

[TheDarkling]

Jesus, get a little pespective. If acting like white trash is the worst thing senators and representatives are doing, you're having a pretty good year. When legislators start challending each other to duels and beating each other within an inch of their lives with canes (all of which has happened in Congress in the past), then I'll start to worry.

They would cause you to worry? It would cause me to get some popcorn and take an active interest in democracy at work .

[Perinquus]

Come come, this isn't the first time we've had some really serious shenanigans in Congress because tempers flared.

On the morning of February 15, 1798, pandemonium broke out on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. Without warning, Federalist Representative Roger Griswold of Connecticut strode across the chambers to where his colleague Matthew Lyon was sitting preoccupied with some correspondence. Cursing him as a "scoundrel," Griswold pounded the Vermont Republican's head and shoulders with a thick, hickory walking stick.

Moments after the two grappling combatants were separated, Lyon retreated to the House water table; when Griswold re-approached him, Lyon lunged forward with the fire tongs and initiated a second brawl. As Jonathan Mason commented, the central legislative body of the United States of America had been reduced to "an assembly of Gladiators."

Griswold's attack was not a random act of violence--to some it did not even come as much of a surprise. On January 30, Lyon had brazenly insulted the Connecticut Federalist Representative and an offended Roger Griswold had retaliated by publicly calling Lyon a coward. To this character attack Lyon had responded by spitting directly in Griswold's face; when Congress subsequently failed to marshal a two-thirds majority to expel Lyon for indecorum, Griswold thought it necessary to avenge his damaged honor by publicly caning Lyon in the House chambers. This hickory stick attack was the climax of over two weeks of fierce congressional turmoil.

In contemporary politics, the Matthew Lyon-Roger Griswold confrontations might simply appear as battles of individual beliefs or conflicting personalities. After all, Lyon was a Republican and Griswold, a Federalist; Lyon was an Irish immigrant of humble origins, while Griswold belonged to the upper echelon of the Connecticut elite. The congressional fracas of 1798, however, is peculiar to the political culture of early national America, a culture in which politicians were hypersensitive to their public reputations as gentlemen, in which personal honor and politics were intimately related. Lyon and Griswold fought in a competition of reciprocal character attacks, each man intending to reclaim his damaged honor by degrading the other. In defending or castigating the "Spitting Lyon," Congressmen fought almost entirely along party lines, calling on the political honor code to label one combatant the victim and gentleman, the other the culprit and coward. This unseemly congressional scandal thus manifested and exacerbated the ideological rift between the Federalists and the Republicans and was a national awakening to the virulence of America's increasingly partisan political process. Many Americans responded to the episode with fear that their carefully constructed republican government and its Constitution would collapse underneath all the partisan turmoil; they blamed both Lyon and Griswold for dishonoring the nation, for undermining the integrity and "virtue" of the United States in front of a watching world.


I doubt this will permanently sour congressional debate either.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Wasn't there a time in the 1830s when one Senator made a snide remark about another's supposed impotency, and so the second Senator broke his chair over the head of the first, starting a large fight on the Senate floor?

[Crown]

Excellent!

How long till you guys fully come around to the Westminster form of Government? Trust me, the house of Commons, (or the Senate in Australia), is far more entertaining!

*sits back, and smiles*

[RedImperator]

Jesus, get a little pespective. If acting like white trash is the worst thing senators and representatives are doing, you're having a pretty good year. When legislators start challending each other to duels and beating each other within an inch of their lives with canes (all of which has happened in Congress in the past), then I'll start to worry.

They would cause you to worry? It would cause me to get some popcorn and take an active interest in democracy at work .

The only reason I say so is the last time that happened (the caning), we had a civil war break out shortly thereafter.

[LadyTevar]

Jesus, get a little pespective. If acting like white trash is the worst thing senators and representatives are doing, you're having a pretty good year. When legislators start challending each other to duels and beating each other within an inch of their lives with canes (all of which has happened in Congress in the past), then I'll start to worry.

They would cause you to worry? It would cause me to get some popcorn and take an active interest in democracy at work .

The only reason I say so is the last time that happened (the caning), we had a civil war break out shortly thereafter.

...... Redimperator, the caning was in 1789. The US Civil War wasn't until 1861. The two events are seperated by the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American War.

[Perinquus]

...... Redimperator, the caning was in 1789. The US Civil War wasn't until 1861. The two events are seperated by the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American War.

I think you mean the Mexican-American War. The Spanish-American War was in 1898.

[LadyTevar]

...... Redimperator, the caning was in 1789. The US Civil War wasn't until 1861. The two events are seperated by the War of 1812, and the Spanish-American War.

I think you mean the Mexican-American War. The Spanish-American War was in 1898.

My apologies, and thank you for clarifying that.

[RedImperator]

Ahem. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, after delivering a speech on the Senate floor called "The Crime Against Kansas", was beaten within an inch of his life with a cane by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina, on 22 May 1856. He was so badly injured he was unable to attend the Senate for three years. Sumner became a northern martyr and one of the founders of the Republican Party; he was a radical abolitionist. He was a major player in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Brooks resigned his post, but became a Southern hero and was reelected immediately; constituents often sent him canes. He died in 1857.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Have I ever mentioned how glad I am to not be American?

Have I mentioned how you'd look prettier with a flagpole rammed up your ass?

[Vendetta]

Die. For all of our faults, we're the worlds oldest democracy/republic.

How long do you think it will be before a British poster says something about the age of Parliament?

1254 is the first recorded meeting of elected representatives. Though it didn't attain the power it has today until the Civil War, though it's power increased steadily.

Of course, there were republics in the ancient world older than that, but most of them governed city states rather than nations.

[jegs2]

How long do you think it will be before a British poster says something about the age of Parliament?

Reminds me of a Brit who once said, "I drink at a pub that's older than your country!"