“Just because you have power doesn’t give you the right to abuse it.”--former Tennessee state Representative Justin Pearson, member of the Tennessee Three, expelled from the Tennessee legislature by a group of fascist old fat racist white Republican assholes for daring to care about slaughtered children (April 6, 2023)
“Wall Street didn’t build this country. The middle class built this country. And UNIONS built the middle class.”--President Joe Biden (2/8/23)
Unions have been the only powerful and effective voice working people have ever had in the history of this country.—Bruce Springsteen
"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."--Robert A. Heinlein, "Friday"
The Founding Fathers opposed the idea of a filibuster. They had experience with the idea of super majorities being required from when they were writing the original Articles of Confederation. Ostensibly, nothing gets done and the good of the whole is sacrificed to the whim of the minority. Here's what Alexander Hamilton had to say on the subject in Federalist 22. The man's got his own musical, so you know he's worth listening to.
"To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is, in its tendency, to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser.... The necessity of unanimity in public bodies, or of something approaching towards it, has been founded upon a supposition that it would contribute to security. But its real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority. In those emergencies of a nation, in which the goodness or badness, the weakness or strength of its government, is of the greatest importance, there is commonly a necessity for action. The public business must, in some way or other, go forward. If a pertinacious minority can control the opinion of a majority, respecting the best mode of conducting it, the majority, in order that something may be done, must conform to the views of the minority; and thus the sense of the smaller number will overrule that of the greater, and give a tone to the national proceedings. Hence, tedious delays; continual negotiation and intrigue; contemptible compromises of the public good. And yet, in such a system, it is even happy when such compromises can take place: for upon some occasions things will not admit of accommodation; and then the measures of government must be injuriously suspended, or fatally defeated. It is often, by the impracticability of obtaining the concurrence of the necessary number of votes, kept in a state of inaction. Its situation must always savor of weakness, sometimes border upon anarchy."--Alexander Hamilton Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.--Dwight D. Eisenhower I take no responsibility at all.--Donald Trump The media isn't trying to understand America. It's called programming for a reason.--Mike Hoch, Facebook comment to Paste Magazine article, 2/28/20
[T]he greatest nation in the world should have nothing to fear from children fleeing violence. More importantly, children fleeing violence ought to have nothing to fear from the greatest country in the world.--Mayor Pete Buttigieg, announcing his run for President, 4/14/19
Read the entire speech. |
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