"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
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 “This is not America,” a woman said to a small group, her voice shaking. She was crying, hysterical. “They’re shooting at us. They’re supposed to shoot BLM, but they’re shooting the patriots.” (from "Madness On Capitol Hill" by Andrew McCormick in The Nation)
I've rarely seen a better articulation of "white privilege". That being said, though I'm sorry this woman and her fellow travelers were denied a proper education, she is NOT a patriot. No one who took part in the violent insurrection at the Capitol on Wednesday is a patriot. They are animals, monsters, criminals, terrorists. Anyone who took part and anyone who supports what took place is, by definition, ANTI-American. You can't be anything BUT Anti-American because you are supporting the violent overthrow of the American government. You are no better--in many ways, you are worse--than the Islamic militants who attacked the diplomatic compound in Benghazi in 2012. You have done more damage to the country you claim to love than Al Qaeda or Isil could ever have hoped to do. Above all else, you are losers. And you've attached your star to the biggest loser America has ever seen. By way of contrast, let me direct your attention to a winner. Stacey Abrams. As you're always so fond of telling us, Stacey Abrams never conceded in her race for Governor of Georgia. In that race, there was a legitimate case to be made that the votes of tens of thousands of African Americans were actually stolen from them. Hell, white people have been "stealing" the votes from black people for over 150 years, and you're just fine with that. You probably don't even know that the whole purpose behind the "Jungle Primaries" and Run-Off elections in the South is to keep black candidates from winning elections. That's how it should be, you believe. They're supposed to shoot the black people, not the white people, the MAGAt said. This is not true of your votes in the 2020 presidential race, where Republicans and Democrats alike have concluded that this was one of the fairest and freest elections in US history and no evidence of widespread fraud has yet been presented. Stacey Abrams did not whip up African American voters in Georgia to "storm" and "occupy" the Georgia State Capitol. There were no mobs of rioters chanting "Hang Kemp, Hang Kemp!" Stacey Abrams did what you do, if you are a true patriot. She went to work. She knocked on doors. She registered voters. She organized. She did not tell them to "fight"; she told them to VOTE. That's how we do it in America. And, in 2020, she won...not for herself--she gained no title or office--but for the people of Georgia. Stacey Abrams is a winner. Stacey Abrams is an American Patriot. Those who sought (and still seek) to overthrow the freely elected government of the United States of America, and those who support and enable them, are the lowest form of human scum...not patriots. By the very words of the Constitution they claim to love, they are traitors. The prescribed penalty for treason is death. Just sayin'. You are the whiniest bunch of entitled babies I've ever seen. It's always bothered me--and this goes back beyond Trump--that there is a contingent of people in this country who think and act as though anything that befalls someone else (poverty, homelessness, disease, drugs, violence) is their own damn fault, but anything that befalls them is someone else's fault. There was an article in a prominent right-wing magazine, recently, decrying the meanness and insensitivity of left-wing media. FWIW, the examples they cited were all of commenters to media stories, not the media stories themselves. And they concluded that the right would NEVER be like that. And I'm like, do these people hear themselves? Are they completely lacking in self-awareness? Shall we talk inner city drug use vs. the opioid crisis. They were all like, those "N"-words are doing it to themselves; put them in jail to rot, let them die. But opioids, oh, help us, help us, we are but poor victims. Shall we talk AIDS? When it was just Gay people, it was "God's retribution". But when it started affecting heterosexual society, suddenly it was something that required immediate and concerted attention. On and on and on. My favorite remains the national television quote of the star of "Coach" who, arguing against taxes, obliviously stated, "I've been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No. No." Perhaps the worst of the treasonous characters in this tale are those who actually sit in our government and know better, but who, for the purely craven pursuit of personal power, have lied to those who might not know better. These include, but are not limited to, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Mo Brooks, and Matt Gaetz. These individuals--and over 100 other Republican legislators in Congress--know damn well that there was no widespread voter fraud in 2020...that the election was NOT stolen. Yet they continue to feed you the lies. Because it is so much easier to incite a mob than it is to do the hard work that Stacey Abrams did. Its so much easier to start an insurrection to overthrow a government than it is to actually come up with policies that the majority of Americans want to vote for. Oh yeah, you should know, if you don't already, that YOU are the minority. On the battlefield of ideas, conservatives lost years ago. Trickle down never did. Pappy Bush was right when he called it "Voodoo Economics". That's just one example. But the Republican Party, as a whole, is intellectually bankrupt. For four years, pundits and politicians alike have been wondering "Where is the bottom? Just how low does Trump have to go before Republicans break from him?" It's nice to see that armed insurrection--an all out terrorist attack on the Capitol--was that bottom for some. I'd say you set that bottom really low, but at least you found it. But for some--for Hawley and Gaetz and Brooks and Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson--they STILL haven't gone as low as they are willing to go. And that is why I have no patience, now, for their "Can't we all get along" speeches. Sounds familiar. Its like Susan Collins saying she thinks Donald Trump has learned a pretty big lesson from impeachment and would NEVER do anything bad again. So why punish him? He's been punished enough. How'd that work out for us, Sue? There has to be accountability. There HAS TO BE. For Trump, for Hawley, for the Sedition Caucus in Congress, for the violent terrorists who invaded the Capitol on Wednesday. It needs to be swift and it needs to be certain. As the FBI agent in "National Treasure" says, "Someone's got to go to jail, Ben." In this case, a lot of "someones". We can't "look forward", we can't "wait it out", we can't "just let the embers die". Because, if we let this pass, it is an open invitation to terrorists--on the right, on the left, and from other countries--that this is all A-OK. And its not. Its just not. And it is not enough just to say that its not. The most disingenuous of arguments is that doing anything now would just deepen the already existing divide among Americans. The time for that thinking passed long ago...at least as far back as Charlottesville. We no longer have a divide among Americans. We now have a divide between Americans and ANTI-Americans, between American Patriots and Trumplican Traitors. Its like law enforcement saying, "We don't want to prosecute Charles Manson because it might upset the other members of the Manson Family." Haven't we learned OUR lesson, yet? If armed insurrection at the US Capitol isn't enough to command immediate removal from office, then America is well and truly fucked. 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. Authoritarians arrive in our midst not in tanks but in bad suits and worse haircuts.--Dr. David Rothkopf, PhD
Read the entire thread. Socialism isn’t fundamentally about public ownership of private resources. It is about collective action in pursuit of common goals, where private action has destroyed or damaged the common good.--Robert Freeman, author
Read the entire piece at Common Dreams. |
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June 2023
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