New Business

 

Bring Back New Business

(This blog is not an attack on Jeff Bezos or his company, Amazon PD, for their total destruction of New Businesses (Mom & Pop small businesses).

   One could drop the prayer at the beginning of a government legislative session and add a call for new business at the end.  This would add to the effectiveness and the honesty of their endeavor.  I remember student government in high school, sixty-five years ago, and that was our procedure.  We were learning parliamentary order.  The last section of the governing body meeting was always to ask, “Is there any New Business?”  This enabled any elected representative to present a bill to the group and in order for the bill to be brought to the floor for discussion and a vote, an “I second the motion” was also required.  Therefore, what came to the floor for discussion and was voted upon was not the sole discretion of the leader.  Under Robert’s Rules of Parliamentary Order, democracy was alive and well.  Not so in our government today.

   Fast forward to Mitch McConnell’s Senate Majority Leadership, during the Trump Administration.  As you know, Mitch effectively blocked over three hundred bills passed by the House of Representatives from being brought to the floor for discussion and vote.  Any bill must be passed by both legislative bodies before being signed by the President into law.  This effectively gave one man elected by one small state control over the legislation of an entire nation.   As a secondary action, Mitch would not allow a justice appointment to The Terrible Nine by President Obama, for Senate approval, because at eleven months, it was “too close to a presidential election.” While later, under Trump, Mitch ushered in a Supreme Court appointment for Senate review with only one month left in Trump’s term of office.

  If J. Edgar Hoover has earned the right to his name posted on the building housing The Federal Bureau of Investigation, certainly Mitch McConnell has earned the right to his name in large letters posted on the Senate Building.  Like other great Americans, perhaps Donald Trump’s Name should be displayed in large letters on The White House.  It could then be called “The House of Trump.”

Cheers, Old Buz     7/27/2023

“The loyalist follows the under tail scent of the lemming in front of him.” – Old Buz

(This is my humble opinion of employing loyalty as one’s primary moral guide.)

Blackball

    The blackball is an unreasonable concept applied to a democracy that makes it no longer a democracy.  In a functioning democracy the will of the majority rules.  That required majority may be increased to 60% or even in cases of extreme importance 66.67%.  But what do you have when one member can overrule the entire body?

   One member should never be given this power.  Not if you wish to maintain the democracy.  So when the senior senator from Alabama, Tommy Tuberville, stops the promotion of 165 US military officers in order to leverage an unrelated partisan issue, the system has stopped functioning.  The one member Blackball right must be removed from the parliamentary rules of our government.  The Republican senators will not apply pressure to this nut cake senator as our President suggested in a Finland news conference.  A ride down an escalator in the Trump Tower effectively removed the Party’s moral rudder.  The solution to the problem of any single vote ruling the Senate would be a secret ballot to remove the blackball option.   Even our President can have his veto overruled, but we currently have no system to overrule an authoritarian senator.

  There is another problem here that isn’t quite so obvious.  If you were to quiz the 100 members of the Senate and ask them individually: “What do you know about the performance of any five of the 165 military officers offered for your approval for promotion?”  It would surprise me if any of the one hundred had a comprehensive answer.  The obvious next question would be, “Then how is the US Senate qualified to take this vote, and shouldn’t these decisions be left in The Pentagon or below even that level?” Let the decisions be made where the knowledge exists to make them. 

  The original use of the term “Blackball” was to name a venereal disease.  We would have a more effective democracy if the concept returned to its original medical application. 

Cheers, Old Buz          07/13/2023

“You cannot change a person’s position with reason … if they did not reach it through reason.” – Anon

What do Atheists Believe?

   That sounds like a dumb question.  Atheists I have spoken with simply say, “I don’t believe in God.”  There is a hesitance to go any further.  Being as insensitive as I am, I will follow this up with “What does the word God mean to you?”  Those few who will answer come up with “The Creator of the Universe, as described by the bible of the religion I was raised in.”  Since historically there have probably been a thousand religions that they weren’t raised in, this is not a very logical denial.  The other concept I hear from Atheists is the Tea Cup & Saucer cliché, “Just because one can’t prove that there isn’t a tea cup and saucer orbiting the Earth, it doesn’t prove that there is one.”  Their point being, just because I have no evidence that God doesn’t exist, you certainly have no reliable evidence that He does.  I believe your books are based on symbolism and mythology, not proven data.

   I recently watched a couple of hours of discussion, on video, featuring four men of science that are leaders and authors in the Atheist persuasion.  These men have wonderful minds.  It featured Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Christopher Dennett (The Four Horsemen).  Harris mentioned that he didn’t think that “Atheism” is a very well defined belief system because it denies a belief rather than describing one.  To deny a belief (“I don’t believe in God”) leaves a lot of other possible philosophies out there.  To me, the best answer an Atheist could give to what they do believe would be, “I believe that the bibles I have read are obvious mythology.  This is easily proven with logic and science.  I would be glad to illustrate my present position.”  I don’t hear anything like this from any Atheist I have known.

  I would be happy to agree with this concept, but I don’t consider myself an Atheist.  An agnostic better describes my position.  I don’t know what or how the universe I live in came to be.  I use the acronym GOD (Grand Omnipotent Dna) to name the system or systems of the Universe being studied, but I don’t see science finishing their study and doubt they ever will … hence my questions i.e. agnosticism.   Harris faults the agnostic for simply questioning whether the god of the religion of their upbringing exists.  This would not apply to my belief of questioning how the Universe was created or its infinity, as I have never had faith in any god.  I don’t see questioning faith as offensive, but as wise.  Remember, no honest agnostic ever started a war based on religious beliefs. 

Cheers, Old Buz the agnostic          07/07/2023

“Enjoy your awareness.  It is definitely a choice and possibly a gift.” – Old Buz