Maybe I'm alone in this, but I'm sorry it's come to this. The filibuster has been a useful mechanism for slowing down dangerous legislation in the past. The Senate is not a representative body; it is a deliberative body. I'm old enough to remember when Democratic filibusters were the only thing standing between us and a crop of some of the worst judicial nominees imaginable. Heck, so are you. It was only eight years ago.
Unfortunately, the filibuster, like Dad's car keys, is one of those things that only works as long as the people who are using it can be counted on to act responsibly with it. When it became automatic, when every single piece of legislation became subject to a 60-vote minimum and the Washington punditocracy blandly accepted it as though it had always been thus, the filibuster's day were numbered. Nearly 30 percent of all cloture motions ever in the history of the Senate have happened since 2007, when Mitch McConnell became minority leader. No republic can hope to survive in the face of that kind of legislative paralysis.
Personally, I'm glad some remnant of the filibuster remains. I remember what it's like to need it—and I remember what it was like to use it, very selectively, in the knowledge that each filibuster was a big deal and it should only be used in cases of great necessity.
Senate Republicans should be made to understand that, if they can act like adults with what remains of the filibuster, they can keep it. That's in everyone's best interests. If they can't, well, it'll be time to take away more privileges... as it has been with children around the world since the dawn of time.