US Keeps Filibusters Alive

A. Unabashed Pacifist:

Every war is dis-honorable. So “peace with honor” is a redundant term.

B. Unabashed Christian:

Holy One,

You have amazing vision. You see into our hearts.
You have awesome hearing. You hear our longings.
You have incredible touch. Your hand can heal our spirits.
Your taste and smell must also surpass ours.
But then, we are your means of reacting to the sensations of the world.
Amen

C. Un-quoting Jesus:

“My followers should just ignore parts of the Sermon on the Mount they don’t like.”

[We do well at obeying things He never said…]

D. Blog: Word of the Week

Filibuster

Origin: 1852

It began with pirates. The Dutch had a descriptive term for them: vrijbuiter, which roughly translates into English as freebooter--that is, someone free of national allegiance who sought booty. Other languages borrowed vrijbuiter too. The French translated it as filibustier, the Spanish filibustero. And from the Spanish we derived the American English filibuster.

Why Spanish? Because a new kind of filibuster was taking place in the Spanish-speaking parts of North and South America in the nineteenth century, and citizens of the United States were among the most involved. This new piracy occurred on land rather than at sea, and it aimed at capturing whole countries rather than ships. After the revolutions of the 1820s had swept most of Latin America free of Spanish control, the weak new governments provided tempting opportunities for adventurers seeking to bring democracy, or do business, or both. One such adventurer was William Walker of Nashville, who tried unsuccessfully to capture Lower California in 1853-54 and successfully installed himself as president of Nicaragua in 1856. The U.S. government was not amused; the U.S. Navy routed him out one year later. He died in 1860 while attempting to conquer all of Central America.

By 1852 this adventuring was much discussed in Washington, D.C. In January of 1853 one U.S. senator was recorded as accusing another of "filibustering" against the United States. The term then began to be applied to a particular tactic: taking advantage of the Senate's privilege of unlimited speech to delay action on a bill. A senator can speak on any topic for as long as he or she wishes. This provided a way for the minority party, a small group, or even one determined individual to prevent the majority from having its way. In the mid-twentieth century southerners used this kind of filibuster to block civil rights laws that would end the legality of discrimination based on race. An overwhelming majority of the Senate (formerly two-thirds, now three-fifths) can vote to cut off debate, and that finally happened in 1957 to pass the first civil rights bill.

[from Answers.com]