What Is A Filibuster? — By Tommy Purser
Fonda Ussery shared with me recently the 1960 edition of “Our American Government. What Is It? How Does It Function?”
The publication was an official government document, labeled Document No. 394, of the 86th Congress. It is stamped with “Compliments of E.L Forrester, Member of Congress.”
Elijah Lewis “Tic” Forrester, 1896-1970, was a U.S. Representative from Georgia who had a law practice in Leesburg from 1920 to 1969. He served in Congress from 1950 through 1964.
In the booklet was the following:
What is a “filibuster?”
“Filibuster” meant originally a buccaneer such as plundered the Spanish colonies in America, and later, adventurers who led private armed expeditions into countries from which they set out was at the time at peace. From this general idea, the term has come to be colloquially used to designate organized obstructions tactics in legislative bodies. It is the practice of deliberately taking advantage of freedom of debate (in the Senate) with a view to delay or prevent action on a measure under discussion.
On another subject:
The following quote was found in the Hazlehurst News printed 100 years ago:
“A man or boy who buys a pistol thinking it will be a protection to him, but about nine times out of ten it gets him into trouble. Man or boy neither who attends to his own business ever needs a pistol.”
Now, 100 years later, our Governor and State Legislature want to pass a bill to allow everyone to carry a concealed weapon.
In 1922, just about everyone carried a pistol and shootings were common. Now, our state leadership wants to carry us back to 1922.
People “attending to their own business” are beaten, stabbed, raped, and robbed every day. They have a God given right to defend themselves according to our founding documents as a nation, and I would add, recent decisions of the Supreme Court. “The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” – Thomas Jefferson
It’s wrong to attribute the quotation to Jefferson. Jefferson wrote it, but he wrote it in Italian, quoting Cesare Beccaria. The quotation comes from Cesare Beccaria’s “Essay on Crimes and Punishments” which were written more than two and a half centuries ago in 1764, when firearms consisted of smooth bore and, in some cases, rifled bore muskets.