Making Policy By Choke Point is Cheating
Making Policy By Choke Point is Cheating
And we should all at least pretend to be against cheating
Let’s talk about shenanigans. Shenanigans are a hot topic right now because the Texas abortion law dials the shenanigans up to 11. Even people who oppose abortion should be troubled by a law that skirts judicial review by turning everyone in Texas into a vigilante. Outsourcing enforcement to the public is insane. I think insider trading should be illegal, but I wouldn’t enforce it by giving everyone in the state a bag of meth and a switchblade and saying: “Keep an eye peeled.”
If you oppose shenanigans, you need to oppose them even when your side does them. That’s not always easy; remember the 2013 Wendy Davis filibuster to stop a different Texas anti-abortion bill? That was the one where she was wearing pink sneakers -- the pink sneakers were the detail that caused liberal brains to go into total meltdown.
That was a rough moment to be a pro-choice, anti-filibuster liberal. Most Democrats were losing not only their shit, but also their children’s shit and their children’s children’s shit over what a kickass quasi-deity Wendy Davis was (oh: The bill passed). At dinner with friends one night -- in Brooklyn, so go ahead and let your brain conjure up the ugliest possible stereotypes of Brooklyn progressives and you’ve pretty much nailed it -- I had to be the Founder and President of the Fuck Your Fun Society and meekly say “yeah I just don’t support filibustering.” My friends reacted as if I had expressed deep regret that I never got to eat the dog from Frasier.