Loathing America by Republican pirates and the new old filibuster

[BirminghamExaminer]

This is an article about how the Republican party has taken its political cues from the middle of the 19th century. It ties together the obstructionist nature of today's GOP with the etymology of pirate and filibuster. You can read it all here. Here is an excerpt:

Republicans would like Americans and other citizens of the world to think that the United States can't be trusted and that American President Barack Obama is a loser. Obama spent a day in Copenhagen meeting with the Olympic committee and failed to bring the Olympics to the United States for 2016. Republicans cheered when it was learned that the United States wasn't chosen to host the Olympics.

But that is only one example of how Republican pirates are attempting to destroy the reputation of the United States government.

Rep. Mark Kirk (R), Illinois, went to China back in early summer to meet with Chinese leaders in order to tell them not to trust the United States of America.

In September, Senator Jim Inhoffe, (R), Oklahoma, announced he would be attending the UN Climate change forum in Copenhagen in December as a "one man truth squad" to explain that global warming is a hoax to the world's leading scientists on climate change. Inhoffe says his mission is to tell the conference not to believe what the United States says about global warming and climate change.

Senator Jim Demint, (R), of South Carolina has already visited the Honduras, with the full support of Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, where there has been a military overthrow of that country's democratically elected leader. The new military regime government of Honduras is not recognized by the United States government but that hasn't deterred Demint from cozying up to the military regime that has overthrown the government there. Since returning from Honduras, Demint has declared the visit a success, calling it "productive."

PIRACY and FILIBUSTER

And this is where the piracy and filibuster come in. The Dutch term for pirate was 'vribuiter' and this term was used in English as it was heard, filibuster.

According to etymology website Amigofish:

"By the middle of the 1800s the word was shifting in meaning and being applied to Americans who worked for regime change in South and Central America in contravention of international law. This specific reference to pirates in a specific application broadened quickly to be applied to people fighting unconventional wars against foreign governments generally."

From Online Etymology Dictionary, filibuster originally meant "pirate" but by the "1850s and '60s of lawless adventurers from the U.S. who tried to overthrow Central American countries."

It wasn't until later that the legislative sense of filibuster came into use as obstructionist legislators who "pirated" debate.

It seems that elected Republicans have taken the meaning of filibuster and piracy to a whole new level that includes all three definitions of the word filibuster; piracy, lawless adventurers from the US who try to overthrow Central American countries, and obstructionism.