Who Needs Rules?

Cambridge City Council which is obligated to run its meetings using Robert's Rules of Order has a simple solution. Few Councilors know those rules. They suspend the rules (MA legislature does it too) when they want to do something. As for speaking too long the US Senate and US House restrict members' speaking to one minute on occasion. The Cambridge City Council has no limit for their members who drone on, and repeat what others say even after saying "I want to echo what my colleague said." It is humorous to watch them. Try it you'll like it. In olden times high school fraternities used Robert's Rules and it was never a problem. But that was then. Robert's Rules are way too rational for today, when emotions rule and propaganda dictates. Too bad that students are "very busy and have different time priorities” preventing them from learning how to run meetings.

Another consideration is how courts are run allegedly according to strict procedural rules. They too take time and are tedious. It is called Due Process. Perhaps for expediency those rules too can be ignored. Then people can just punish suspects who are accused of crime. It is not even necessary to give the suspect notice of what they are accused. Just punish them for whatever someone says. That is what numerous local police agencies, crime families, FBI informants, Communists, Harvard University campus police, building superintendents, and graduate students in psychology at Harvard Medical School did to me for 45 years. 

[From article]
As a result, some members of the Council are questioning the effectiveness of following parliamentary procedure, which they say causes meetings to run too long.
“I’m for it in theory, but it’s tedious in practice,” Nasrollahzadeh said.
[. . .]
Currier House representative Stephen A. Turban ’17 [. . .] said he believes parliamentary procedure should be done away with altogether.
“We exist as a student government, not a real government,” Turban said. “We’re a group of students that are very busy and have different time priorities.”
Council members point to some representatives’ lack of understanding of the procedures to explain why it slows down the process.
[. . .]
“You don’t want to give the power in the meetings to the few people who know parliamentary procedure,” he said. “It’s ironic.”
[. . .]
“People talk for far, far too long,” Kanuparthy added. “It’s the nature of things that people like to hear themselves talk.”

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/3/6/UC-procedures-process-tediousness/

‘Tedious in Practice’: UC Questions Meeting Procedures
By JALIN P. CUNNINGHAM

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
March 5, 2015