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Blood on the Debate Floor: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine.''
Sometimes, debates in legislatures can get a little ''too'' heated. The result: a scuffle breaks out on the floor of the chamber.
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May be the only interesting thing that [[Not-So-Omniscient Council of Bickering]] will ever do.
Note: In [[Real Life]], legislative violence is actually a fairly good indicator of
{{examples}}
== Film ==
* ''[[300]]'': Queen Gorgo speaks to the Spartan senate, hoping to convince them to send the full army to reinforce Leonidas. Theron betrays her and mocks her fidelity for having slept with him. Gorgo's rebuttal is a knife to his ribs followed by a ruthless [[Ironic Echo]] of the words he used against her during said tryst ([[Scarpia Ultimatum|which was anything]] [[Rape as Drama|but consensual]]).
* There are a couple of small ones near the end of ''[[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]]''.
* In ''[[1776 (musical)|1766]]'', John Adams and John Dickinson end up [[Cane Fu|waling away at each other with their walking sticks]] on the floor of the Continental Congress, and don't stop until Colonel McKean fires his rifle into the chamber ceiling.
== Literature ==
* In H.H. Munro ([[Saki (author)|Saki]])'s "The Oversight" a character references the violence that had come to be seen as characteristic of the Austro-Hungarian Parliament (''See also'' [[Real Life]],'' below''):
{{quote|''"...not to my dying day shall I forget last year's upheaval over the Suffragette question. Laura Henniseed left the house in a state of speechless indignation, but before she had reached that state she had used language that would not have been tolerated in the Austrian Reichsrath."''}}
* Joked about in "America: The Book" from [[The Daily Show]]. In an article about the Army-McCarthy hearings, the "have you no decency?" exchange eventually ended in the breaking-out of "wiffle canes".
* In ''[[Star Trek: Destiny]]'', when President Bacco calls the ambassadors from the major galactic powers together for an emergency conference, Klingon ambassador K'mtok and Romulan ambassador Kalavak end up fighting. After a series of accusations and insults regarding events in prior novels (particularly in ''[[Star Trek: Articles of the Federation]]''), the two begin to physically scuffle, until separated by Federation security.
* In ''[[The Republic of Thieves]]'', the members of the Konseil of the city state of Karthain get into fisticuffs with each other and the police when {{spoiler|one member, immediately after the new Konseil has been elected, declares that he quits his party and becomes an independent, changing an election result of 10-9 into a result of 9-9-1.}}
* Violence is rare ''inside'' the Chamber of the Council of Counts by Gregor's time-well technically. There are a few interesting occasions though. In '''Miles in Love''' one candidate in a succession dispute tries to have his rival violently knocked out of the way by an ambush. He is able to stumble into the council chamber to testify and his rival's party turns against him. There is no blood on the debate floor but there is the result of attempted bloodshed plain for all to see.
*In Honor Harrington there is once literal blood on the debate floor when a Grayson noble guilty of treasonously conspiring with Masadan terrorists, appeals to [[Trial by Combat]] and is deservedly killed.
**Manticore does not have much actual blood in Parliament. But there is blackmail, mudslinging, gerrymandering and election tampering, and much of it can be so brutal that the loser can wish he had been in a physical dust-up. With all that dueling is still a part of upper class culture and once in a while someone will be angry enough to [[Throwing Down the Gauntlet|give challenge.]]
***Haven does not have a tradition of genteel slaughter between angry dignitaries as does Grayson or Manticore. However for several generations there were repeated coups, terrorist feuds, riots and rebellions, totalitarian tyranny, and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|unpleasantness.]] In the restored Havenite Republic, politics is not violent. But it is as raucous as could satisfy the heart of any properly [[Sleazy Politician]].
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* An episode of ''[[Rome]]'' had a full on fight break out in the senate when Pompey's supporters passed a motion that called on Caesar to return and surrender or be labeled a traitor and condemned to death. Caesar's supporters did not take this well, as might be expected. The fight [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|actually prevented Mark Antony from vetoing the motion, which was what Pompey wanted in the first place]] (it was supposed to show Caesar he was alone, nothing more).
** The show also depicted Caesar's assassination, of course. And there was a scene where Cicero sent a message to be read in the Senate in his absence, which turned out to be a scathing attack on Antony. Antony demanded that the clerk read out the whole thing and then [[Shoot the Messenger|bludgeoned the poor bastard to death with the scroll]].
** Antony previously had pretended he was appalled by this trope, but in his usual insincere but lovable fashion he was only using stealth puns or indirect insults.
{{quote|''"You boys play too rough for me. Knives in the Senate House? I didn't know you had it in you"''}}
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== [[Theatre]] ==
* The death scene in ''[[Julius Caesar (theatre)|Julius Caesar]]''. Kinda because it really happened. (see Real Life)
* John Dickinson and John Adams get into a stick fight during the Continental Congress in ''[[1776 (musical)|1776]]''.
== Tabletop Games ==
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== [[Western Animation]] ==
* ''[[The Simpsons (animation)|The Simpsons]]'' had Homer's and Mel Gibson's remake of ''[[Mr. Smith Goes to Washington]]'', in which Mr. Smith goes on a random killing spree during his famous filibuster and then stabs the evil Senator to death with a flagpole. The test audiences and executives are horrified.
{{quote|'''Mr. Smith:''' All in favor... say ''die''!}}
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* Happens regularly in several South East Asian countries.
* South Korean Parliament members ''cannot'' be arrested while in debate, this goes back to the long practice of SK presidents arresting opponents before critical votes. This has resulted in a number of notable brawls, second in number only to Taiwan.
* The Legislative Yuan of the Republic of China (that's [[Taiwan]], not [[Red China|the other China]], whose rubber-stamp [[wikipedia:National
** The Taiwanese readiness to believe that one of their own Presidential candidates had [[Machete|himself shot nonfatally to garner sympathy]] votes shows how accustomed to political violence the country is.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzVhf9VdK28 And we Canadians thought we had it rough].
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** [[The Daily Show|It is now only legal]] [[Blatant Lies|to carry wiffle canes in the Senate]].
** Note that fighting wasn't terribly unusual in Congress back then. Members of Congress of both houses and all political persuasions were known to carry canes, blades, and even revolvers in the House and Senate chambers. They were generally used only sparingly (probably never as far as the firearms go). On the other hand, it ''was'' unusual for a Senator to be beaten within an inch of his life.
* That wasn't the last time the U.S. enjoyed a good political
* [[Cracked.com|Cracked]] is on the case with [http://www.cracked.com/article_17058_when-politicians-attack-17-most-violent-political-brawls.html When Politicians Attack], though not all of them necessarily took place on the floor.
* In December 1997, during a debate in the EU Parliament on support to the tobacco industry, Portuguese member Rosario Fernandez got so angry when Danish member Freddy Blak insinuated that Fernandez had received money from tobacco lobbyists that he ran over to him, blackened his eye and tried to strangle him.
** In 1988, Northern Irish MEP and hard-right Protestant [[The Troubles|Loyalist]] Ian Paisley denounced Pope John Paul II as the Antichrist during a speech to the European Parliament, only to be hit by the German and very Catholic MEP Otto von Habsburg (and yes, it really is ''[[Holy Roman Empire|that]]'' [[Thirty Years' War|kind]] of [[Austria|Habsburg]]: he was the son and heir of [[Only Sane Man|Charles I of Austria-Hungary]]; he skipped into Bavaria and became an advocate for European integration).
* The [[Mexican Politics|Mexican Chamber of Deputies]], now that it actually has power for a change, occasionally devolves into an out-and-out brawl.
* The 2010 debate in the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada that resulted in Russia's lease on naval bases in the country being extended until 2042 involved a full-scale brawl that featured eggs being thrown and someone letting off ''a smoke grenade''.
** [http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/05/language-conflicts And again in 2012], this time over the issue of whether Russian should be an official language in the parts of Ukraine where it's widely spoken (note that due to historical and economic factors, this sort of thing is [[Serious Business]] in Eastern Europe).
* The ''Reichsrat'' of Imperial [[Austria]]-[[Hungary]] was to the late 19th and early 20th century what the Taiwanese and South Korean legislatures are to
{{quote|''"One night, while the customary pandemonium was crashing and thundering along at its best, a fight broke out. It was a surging, struggling, shoulder-to-shoulder scramble. A great many blows were struck. Twice [Pan-German party leader and racist Georg, Ritter von] Schonerer lifted one of the heavy ministerial ''fauteuils''--some say with one hand--and threatened members of the Majority with it, but it was wrenched away from him; a member hammered [German Radical party leader and racist Karl Hermann] Wolf over the head with the President's bell, and another member choked him; a professor was flung down and belabored with fists and choked; he held up an open penknife as a defense against the blows; it was snatched from him and flung to a distance; it hit a peaceful Christian Socialist who wasn't doing anything, and brought blood from his hand."''}}
* Has happened more than once in [[Chile]] too, with rather harsh polemics among congressmen of every political wing. The crowd watching has gotten its share of fistfights and yelling sessions too. One of the most infamous examples happened when [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be0ikc8DIUM right-wing senator Ivan Moreira attacked left-wing senator Jorge Schaulsohn when he was speaking to some TV teams], which reached quite the [[Memetic Mutation]] levels back then; some of the most recent involve [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOYTbTj7ENg protesting university students] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbthhsOQSfg a lawmakers struggling with several workers and causing a secretary's miscarriage.]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ERu7xb8uh0&feature=feedu Happened in] [[Lebanon]] in 2011. In response to an anti-Syrian MP calling [[Syria
* One [[Tropes Are Flexible|variation]] was the Bladensburg Dueling Ground outside Washingtion DC in early America. It was outside the jurisdiction of DC lawmen and State ones were not inclined to go on a long hike just to avoid [[Acceptable Targets|having fewer politicians.]] As a result whenever political quarrels became a little to [[Understatement|excitable]] they would head for Bladensburg.
**Abolitionist and pro-slavery politicians had a regular feud going long before the [[American Civil War]]. In some places one could not be elected without being in a duel.
**Other political quarrels were reflected on the dueling ground in both Britain and America. In a way it was a kind of [[Combat by Champion]].
* It is striking how violent the metaphors typically used for even fairly normal politics are, "Campaign", "Mudslinging", "Attack Ad", "Damage Control", and even "Whip".
* According to tales St. Nicholas and the dissident cleric Arrius attended the historical Council of Nicaea (the subject was rather wonky theological issues). In the process Nicholas slapped Arrius, and basically Emperor Constantine grabbed him and threw him in the cooler for a time for disturbing the peace.
**It must be noted that there are spoilsports who say that Nicholas may not have even been at Nicaea. But it's too good a story to leave out. Come on, being slugged by [[Santa Claus]]?
{{reflist}}
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