Why the US has a filibuster?

I’ll skip the colorful history of the filibuster which goes back to the Civil War.  I think we should demand more than just a razor thin majority of votes to pass a law.  Unless most of the legislators think the law is a good one, then it’s probably a bad one and should not pass.  The current Senate rules, which allow any senator to call for a vote of 60-40 to pass a law is a good idea.  If 40 senators think the law should not pass, that says to me that the law in question has some problems.  And the Republic is well served when that law is rejected.

  Democrats are calling to kill the filibuster, so that they can pass a number of very questionable laws that Republicans dislike and have filibustered.  I think that is a selfish and short sighted viewpoint on the part of Democrats. 

Humanity has very strong instincts to have children.

If we didn’t, the human race would die out.   Children provide emotional satisfaction, love, companionship and a feeling of wellbeing to parents.  Failure to have children can be a source of great unhappiness to the childless parents.

Last night Tucker Carlson was saying that the mobs of people out demonstrating against the Supreme Court’s cancellation of Roe vs. Wade; this group of people was largely unhappy with the thought that they would wind up having to raise children rather than just aborting them.  Nasty thought that.  He also said corporations like childless workers (they work hard and child care does not distract them from their company jobs). To this end the corporations are offering to pay for employee’s abortions, and creating “feminism” an ideology that is hostile to the idea of mothering children.

Let’s hope humanity’s strong built in urges to have children overwhelm this claptrap ideology.

From a letter to the editor of the Wall St Journal, today

 "Contrary to popular wisdom, Americans aren't opposed to wars for good causes, but they are tired of losing conflicts becauswe the US is unfilling to use its full strength."

Ron Kurtz

Alpharetta, GA.

There are only two exit strategies from a war, victory, or defeat. 

People who smell alike make friends more easily.

I saw this reasonable sounding idea somewhere on the Internet.  Sounded good, but their laboratory technique was flaky.  I cannot smell myself until I have gone without bathing for several days.  Back when I was gainfully employed I would take a shower every morning, just to avoid offending co workers with unmentionable body odor.  This suggests that people mostly smell of soap and water at work. 

   Then the authors used an “electric nose” to see whose scents matched up.  They never explained how this device worked, or how they calibrated it, and what they did to make sure it gave the same readings on the same people every day. 

  So it’s an interesting idea but the authors didn’t convince me that they had proved their idea worked.  

Elected legislatures are supposed to write the laws

Courts and judges are supposed to interpret existing law and show how existing law fits the case before the court.  Elected legislatures are subject to pressure from voters to vote this way or that.  Which is as it should be, legislatures are supposed to represent their districts.  We give judges tenure, often for life, to insulate them from popular pressure so that they can rule in accordance with the written law.     Unfortunately political pressure groups, back in the ‘60s and ‘70s found it easier to influence 5 out of 9 unelected lawyers than to gain the votes needed to pass a law in Congress.   Hence Roe vs. Wade in the early 1970s.  This led to responsible presidents nominating “strict constructionists” to the Supreme Court, judges who would rule in accordance with existing law and not make new law from the bench

The need for guns in America.

Guns in the hands of ordinary citizens have stopped a lot of crime over the years.  They stopped a crazy who was about to shoot up a church down south a while ago.  Every month American Rifleman carries nearly a dozen stories of ordinary homeowners taking care of home invaders, shop keepers or counter clerks fending off robbers, motorists fending off carjackers, and more.  Most of the time that armed citizen manages to hold the perps at gunpoint until the cops arrive.  Some of the time (not all that often) the armed citizen kills the perp right then and there.

   America would have fewer school shootings and other crime if we had more citizens who carried a gun.

   Men are taller, heavier, and stronger than women.  Women, especially young and pretty women, ought to consider carrying concealed firearms, just in case.

   The anti gun people make America more dangerous for ordinary citizens.   

  

Red Flag laws. Gun Confiscation?

Our Congress is talking about passing a gun control bill, still nameless in today’s Wall St Journal.  This bill would “encourage” states to pass “red flag laws”.  The journal did not say what “encouragement” means, a juicy federal payment for just passing a “red flag” law?  Or a bounty of cash for each person who has his firearms seized? Or???.   Far as discussion in the Journal or on Fox goes, all it takes is a judge’s say-so to confiscate a victim’s firearms.  Judges are nice people and all, but they know little or nothing about mental health, psychosis, or depression. No requirement for a board of experienced people, clergy, psychiatrists, law enforcement and others to evaluate the victim.  Victim does not get a chance to defend himself. 

   If the victim is so bent out of shape that we need to confiscate his firearms, is he not so bent out of shape as to require a stay in a mental hospital?  Find out what his problem[s] is/are and treat them.  Today we have a lot of very powerful drugs for mental problems. 

   Seizing the victim’s firearms is cheap, one visit by law enforcement and it is done.  Providing a bed in a mental hospital takes real money.  Confiscating the victim’s firearms makes the anti-gun people happy and does not cost much, which probably accounts for the popularity of the idea.