Independence Day: stopped by a filibuster?

Because it's a holiday weekend and hot and humid as Hades outside, today's posting will be short and  sweet, or not, depending on your political perspective.

According to the history.com website:

From 1774 to 1789, the Continental Congress served as the government of the 13 American colonies and later the United States. The First Continental Congress, which was comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in 1774 in reaction to the Coercive Acts, a series of measures imposed by the British government on the colonies in response to their resistance to new taxes. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened after the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) had already begun. In 1776, it took the momentous step of declaring America’s independence from Britain. Five years later, the Congress ratified the first national constitution, the Articles of Confederation, under which the country would be governed until 1789, when it was replaced by the current U.S. Constitution. ...

... The Congress was structured with emphasis on the equality of participants, and to promote free debate. After much discussion, the Congress issued a Declaration of Rights, affirming its loyalty to the British Crown but disputing the British Parliament’s right to tax it....

Now, I ask you to consider a hypothetical. If the Congress had adopted rules that included or allowed for the filibuster, would we now be a United States of America? I suspect not, if those in the Continental Congress had put political party and ambition ahead of country. My suspicions are, at least in part, confirmed by The Brennan Center for Justice, which  found, more than a decade ago:

 Founding Fathers Would Like Reconciliation, Not the Filibuster

There is little question that routine use of the filibuster, a de facto 60-vote requirement that inevitably leads to stalemate, defies the intent of those men in powdered wigs who carefully crafted our Constitution. This is not what the Framers had in mind. 

Fourth of July

By John Brehm

Freedom is a rocket,

isn’t it, bursting

orgasmically over

parkloads of hot

dog devouring

human beings

or into the cities

of our enemies

without whom we

would surely

kill ourselves

though they are

ourselves and

America I see now

is the soldier

who said I saw

something

burning on my

chest and tried

to brush it off with

my right hand

but my arm

wasn’t there—

America is no

other than this

moment, the

burning ribcage,

the hand gone

that might have

put it out, the skies

afire with our history. 

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