Justice for Justins

   Ask yourself, “Do some Tennessee Republican lawmakers have a negative bias against black legislators or intelligent gun regulation?”  The answer, “Obviously they do.”  Democracy in Tennessee is not yet color blind, neither is the enforcement of the law.  And, The NRA has the ear of most legislators.  Gun owners and the majority of NRA members would like to see reasonable gun regulation, but the financial backing of The NRA live by the guiding principles of any gun to any one carried anywhere.  These principles lead to increased profit.

   That being said, the above paragraph is not the root of the conflict we just witnessed in The Tennessee Legislature.  Yes, Tennessee’s House of Representatives expelled two Black Democratic lawmakers, but not a White Democratic lawmaker, all for breaking the same House rule at the same time.  And yes the primarily student and parents rebellion was about making schools safer, but these items would have reached the House floor in an orderly manner if not for undemocratic rules implemented across our nation and in the Nation’s Capital.

   The offending rule is that the majority leader of either house determines what legislation will be brought to the floor for discussion and a vote and what proposed legislation will not.  So a majority leader, not elected by the majority of the nation’s voters, has absolute control over the creation, or even the discussion of proposed law.  During Mitch McConnell’s last term as Republican majority leader of The Senate he was able to stop over three hundred bills passed by a Democratic House.  These bills passed by the House were not allowed to be discussed or voted on in the Senate.  They never saw the floor.  A one or two member majority in the Senate gave its majority leader absolute power.  Realizing that each state in our nation has two representatives in The Senate, you realize that states have equal representation in that body, but that citizens certainly do not.

   So what were the Tennessee Justins objecting to?  In representing the majority’s wish to protect students in Tennessee against gun violence, they were not allowed to speak.  The people’s house was not open to the people.  Perhaps the Rules needed to be violated.  Perhaps there is room for improvement in the rules that so poorly govern our “democracy.”  Punishing Black people and not White people for the same actions might be worth a look as well.   

Cheers, Old Buz     4/8/23

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“There is a willful blindness that marches alongside loyalty.” – Old Buz 

"NRA: Any Gun, Any One, Anywhere"

The National Rifle Association’s mission, in our Nation today, is just that:  “any firearm, in anyone’s hands (sane, violent criminal or not), to be taken anywhere” would equal Freedom in America.  The people who run the NRA are not insane; they are owned and guided by the dollars of munitions manufacturers.  The NRA functions just as our government does.  When the battle lines are drawn between the common good and large dollar interests, it is the power of money that always wins the day.  It isn’t just your elected representatives that are owned and ruled by large corporate dollars.  The appointed U.S. Supreme Court is also (example: Citizens United Decision).

“Two years ago last week, President Obama ordered the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to get back to studying the causes of gun violence.”  - The Washington Post.  This order was issued by Obama in response to the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary.  Congress responded to the order by not funding the research, due in no small part to NRA influence.  I’m not sure that I would support such a study myself.  You can easily predict the study’s outcome.  It will show a bell curve of the American population.    A couple of standard deviations to the right of this violent population, will be the mass murderers, who would like to shoot up large numbers of innocent students and at their tip, the few who actually do so.  At the center, or top of the curve, is the simple majority (you and me).  We enjoy violent video games, violent TV series, violent films and read the stories in our newspapers of our Storm Troopers of The American Empire vanquishing “the others or the terrorists” in lands far, far away.  We each own one or more deadly weapons.  On the left of the curve, are a tiny number of pacifists (these are the people who think), they don’t belong here in America any more than the psychopathic killers on the far right side do.  The right and left indications mentioned are not political beliefs; they are positions represented on a bell chart.  The Political Right might tend to align with the NRA, but that is a topic for another day (you dumb-ass Ultra- Right-Wingers need not take offence).

In today’s paper, there is also an editorial written by Fareed Zakaria in which he quotes Andrew Bacevich, military historian, in pointing out that before Syria, Washington had already launched interventions in 13 countries in the Islamic World since 1980.  Zakaria wonders if one more intervention, into Syria, will really do the trick of stopping terrorism.  You do wonder if the U.S. interventions aren’t part of the cause rather than the cure.  There seems at least to be a positive correlation.  The munitions manufacturers and the NRA would certainly not like to see the killing stop.  Can’t make any money if that happens.  That concept is our Nation’s true moral guide.  God Bless America’s Corporations.

Comments are welcome, Old Buz