WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 2008
The tra****ng of parliamentary procedure
Hills of the North Blog
Parliamentary procedure is at its core about democracy at its best:
achieving in decent and orderly fa****on the will of the majority while
fully respecting and protecting the minority (or as one writer put it,
"to give the minority a fighting chance.") There is a reason that every
democratic voting organization uses a form of parliamentary procedure
(in this country, usually Robert's Rules of Order Newly Revised),
whether it be church, or city council, or stockholders' meeting, or
legislature. Those who object to parliamentary procedure, or who abuse
it, are almost inevitably those who have no patience for democracy or
dissent, or those who simply do not like the result that would be
forthcoming when the ayes and nos aren't to their liking.
In our church we have two recent and regrettable examples of antipathy
toward parliamentary procedure. The first, of course, is the Presiding
Bishop, who has lawlessly decided to ignore the very basics of Robert's
and the canons themselves in a whole range of actions where she can't be
bothered to follow the rules, or where she worries she might not get the
votes necessary to do what she wants. She has, in essence, with the
apparent acquiescence of a majority of bishops, turned parliamentary
procedure into a sham--something no more meaningful to them than, say, a
Book of Common Prayer liturgy. This certainly reflects her anger at,
disrespect for, and, some say, hatred of the minority orthodox, who
after all have the temerity to do what minorities generally do--object
and disagree and attempt to obstruct the majority. And in a sense her
suspension of parliamentary procedure (for that is what she has done) is
evidence of her own weakness, her inability to reason with those with
whom she disagrees, and her intolerance of those who do not see the
world exactly as she does. It is a rejection of democracy, since the
rules came about by democratic vote, not by fiat. And it is with her, as
with Mugabe in Zimbabwe and every other tinhorn dictator who cannot
accept the norms of democratic procedure, an unequivocal admission of
defeat.
But the Presiding Bishop is not alone. Now comes the sharia-loving
Archbishop of Canterbury himself, writing from that cradle of
parliamentary democracy, Great Britain. He says that Lambeth will avoid
parliamentary procedure. "We have listened carefully to those who have
expressed their difficulties with Western and parliamentary styles of
meeting," he writes, before announcing he is chucking parliamentary
procedure for "indaba" meetings--groups that are preselected and
designed to preclude any decisions from being made. In short, he is
taking from Lambeth any semblance of democracy, because the result might
be inconvenient. He wants consensus instead of the bother and
unpleasantness of true democratic debate. But as Michael Crichton wrote,
"the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a
way to avoid debate by claiming the matter is already settled."
Note that the Archbishop doesn't say who are those who have expressed
these difficulties. Almost certainly they are not the Majority World
bishops, many of whom are from Commonwealth countries that cherish the
parliamentary tradition they received from Britain. Rather, the
objections undoubtedly come from the same crowd that so loathes
parliamentary procedure across the Pond: the Americans and Canadians and
their pals. (After all, who loathes things "Western" more than
self-loathing Western elites?). The reason they would be pleased with
this ditching of parliamentary procedure is because were a vote actually
permitted and taken, the Americans would find themselves bounced out of
the Communion on their keisters, the Communion's overwhelming opposition
to the innovations of the American church reinforced, and a
reaffirmation of the Gospel as it is given to us in Holy Scripture. We
can't have that now, can we? Little wonder so many orthodox are refusing
to play this game.
The left has always found democracy inconvenient (strangely, even when
they win), and so by reflex warms to and seeks control by way of
inherently non-democratic mechanisms (the courts, international
organizations, NGOs, etc.) They are the ones who were apologists for
Mussolini and Mao and Stalin, and who today fawn over Iranian mullahs
and celebrate Castro and Chavez. That's because deep down they wish they
could like their heroes achieve what they want to achieve without the
bother of obstreperous "dissenters," as they define anyone who can't see
things exactly as they do. After all, they have great and prophetic
things to do, and their trains simply must run on time.
The tra****ng of parliamentary procedure in our church has served to
frustrate both purposes of parliamentary law. The Presiding Bishop does
it here so to dispatch with her troublesome orthodox minority. And the
Archbishop of Canterbury does it in Lambeth so to preclude the majority
achieving its ends. In both cases it reflects a profoundly undemocratic
instinct that we should all lament, and an abandonment of law that will
ultimately hasten the end of both the Episcopal Church and the Anglican
Communion.
Source:
http://hillsofthenorth.blogspot.com/2008/05/tra****ng-of-parliamentary-pro
cedure.html
--
Charles Hohenstein (to reply, remove Gene Robinson)
"The sad huddle of affluent bedwetters, thumbsuckers,
treehuggers, social climbers, homophiles, quavery ladies,
and chronic petition signers that makes up the current
Episcopal Church . . ." -‹Thomas Lipscomb
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