I’m not usually a fan of opposing political tactics just because they’ve been used primarily by conservatives to block progress¹, but Matt’s convinced me on this one. Maybe it really is time to end the filibuster :

There is a basic asymmetry between the two big ideological forces in the United States. As the old saw goes, Americans are ideologically conservative but operationally liberal. They’re suspicious, in other words, of new “big government” schemes; but once such schemes are put into place, they prove quite popular. Despite dismal electoral performance over the past 25 (or, if you prefer, 40) years, liberals do a very good job defending the gains of the past. The key liberal achievements of the past — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, civil rights, environmental regulation, federal funding for education — have all withstood repeated attack.
. . .
The liberal difficulty is what it always has been — getting new stuff passed into law. The public’s instinctive skepticism toward novelty is re-enforced by the fact that the American political system puts into place an uncommonly large number of veto points at which legislation may be blocked. New bills must pass two separate legislative houses, each representing different sorts of constituencies; acquire a presidential signature; and pass muster with the Supreme Court. The filibuster merely enhances this tendency, already an outlier in the senate world. It’s no coincidence that the United States is also an outlier in terms of having a relatively underdeveloped welfare state. The many sticking points in the legislative process were deliberately designed by the Founders to bias the political system in favor of conservatism. Speaking ill of the Founders is, of course, not something done in polite American political discourse, but such biases are nothing liberals should embrace.
. . .
Indeed, it’s very hard to think of any major conservative legislation that’s ever been stopped by a filibuster.

It is, by contrast, very easy to think of liberal initiatives that filibusters have blocked. Indeed, as conservative activist Jim Boulet Jr. has wisely argued in a memo to his comrades, the filibuster is crucial to conservatism. By his account, without it, majorities would exist to raise the minimum wage; reform labor law to make new union organizing easier; ban discrimination against gays and lesbians in employment; reduce greenhouse-gas emissions; and close the “gun-show loophole.” I’m not a gun-control fan myself, but everything else on the list is a key priority. In the past, of course, the filibuster is most famous for its role in delaying the dawn of civil rights. Less well known is that it was integral to the defeat of Bill Clinton’s health care plan in 1993. If liberals ever get another chance to go for comprehensible health-care reform, the filibuster will once again rear its ugly head.

Having mostly changed my mind on this topic, I still believe that the Democrats should fight fire with fire. While it may be advantageous for us in the long run to get rid of the filibuster, fighting dirty is the only way to beat the Republicans at their own game. If that means griding the senate to a halt, so be it. Hell, it’s not as if the GOP hasn’t shut down the government before…

^{1 : A good example of this is liberal opposition to defending something based on “states rights” (since that’s been the standard approach in the support of pretty much every social evil this country as ever faced). I usually agree with this, believing that something that’s good for one state is good for every state, but I think the states rights defense can just as easily be used as a way for progressive states to set a good example (eg. medical marijuana) as it is for regressive conservative states to resist destroying the rights of their citizens (eg. slavery, civil rights, universal suffrage, etc…)}