It is important, for those of you watching the confirmation of John Roberts, to understand all of the keywords being used, so confirm them provides a brief outline of some of the keywords:
When liberals say…
* civil rights, they mean racial quotas and forced busing.
* reproductive rights, they mean underage girls should get abortions without notifying their parents.
* equal pay for women, they mean government bureaucrats determining your pay.
* environmental protection and worker rights, they mean the government has unlimited power to regulate private property and business.
* church-state separation, they mean your town can’t display a Menorah or Christmas crèche during the holidays.
So please, keep your ears open for the keywords and substitute their true meaning.
HP:
So do you really believe this stuff of are you just throwing it out there for some dialogue? I just can’t believe that you or anyone else for that matter could really believe the above mentioned stuff.
Maybe you write it just to make my blood pressure rise!!!!! I can’t even imagine what my BP reading would be right now as I franctically type this. My poor keyboard is being beat up right now.
By the way, I am letting the voucher response “marinate” for the time being. I don’t have too much free time for blogging or responding during the week.
I really believe it, some parts more than others, but in general every word of it, what part do you find most troubling?
Take as long as you want on the voucher thing, I look forward to seeing it when you have gathered all your thoughts.
“civil rights mean racial quotas and forced busing” NO - but it’s nice to see you’ve got your head so far up your hind quarters that you can see the racist/conservative talking points from the 70s
“reproductive rights mean underage girls should get abortions without notifying their parents” - in most cases, liberals would prefer that girls notify their parents, but we are also realists who understand that girls who get pregnant might be from highly unstable family situations to begin with. If the step-dad gets a 13-year-old pregnant, and mom is going to beat the girl to a bloody pulp instead of booting the husband when she finds out, in such cases YES, we want the girl to be able to take care of her health and her future without having to risk her life or sanity through parental notification.
I could write more on the other points, but why bother? You’re obviously drunk on some brain-frying republicon moonshine, and you wouldn’t understand the value of enviromental protection until an unregulated pig farm drained its untreated sludge into your drinking water supply.
I doubt liberals think teenage girls “should” get abortions. More likely, they think it’s not the government’s business, especially the federal government, to make that highly personal decision.
Wow. I too enjoyed our conversation about global warming, and I was left feeling like you were clearly somebody reasonable and rational. That quote above is neither. It’s really pretty hideous slander. I am a liberal, and I don’t believe in any of those things.
“Underage girls should get abortions without notifying their parents?” As Rubani and Lulu noted, that’s a digusting misrepresentation of the parental consent issue. Lulu’s phrase is the correct phrase. This is about what the government has the right to control, not what people “should” or “should not” do.
“unlimited power to regulate private property”? Are you joking? Can you not see the difference between the Democratic Party and the Communist Party? You understand, I assume, that the implied perspective of that quote is that the judiciary should NOT show deference to the legislature when it comes to environmental or labor regulation. How you can possibly justify that with your earlier comments about judicial deference is beyond me.
And let’s be clear. Liberal justices don’t necessarily support racial quotas. But conservative justices definately support removing all affirmative action from every sector of society. Again, this cannot be reconciled with a doctrine of judicial restraint.
Which Government department is paying you with tax payer dollars to make up this bullshit? The Department of Propaganda?
People will say anything to get other people to visit their website. Just today I read on CNN that Bush took responsibility for something. Crazy, huh?
rubani,
Please do write more, I would like to hear it. For example, what does ‘civil rights’ mean to liberals, specifically the part that conservatives would disagree with? Does it not reduce to simply quotas, and outdated methods of ‘affirmative action’?
Or how about ‘reproductive rights’, you write, “in most cases, liberals would prefer that girls notify their parents, but we are also realists who understand that girls who get pregnant might be from highly unstable family situations to begin with. If the step-dad gets a 13-year-old pregnant, and mom is going to beat the girl to a bloody pulp instead of booting the husband when she finds out, in such cases YES, we want the girl to be able to take care of her health and her future without having to risk her life or sanity through parental notification”. So in other words, you agree that to liberals, ‘reproductive rights’ essentially means exactly what I said it means, a belief that “underage girls should get abortions without notifying their parents”. Sure, liberals will try to act as if it’s all about the adolescent and not the availability of abortion itself, but this is shown to be the fraud that it is when you ask them if they would support an Informed Consent for Abortion Law, detailing the risks of abortion - for example this risk - which gives potential abortion clients the necessary information they need to properly make an informed decision. No, as soon as that topic comes up, liberals quickly switch gears, and start talking about how this is not really needed. Or we can talk about liberals refussal to ban late term abortions, specifically abortion in the second and third trimester, a ban that 61% of Democrats refused to support. So please, forgive me when I find it hard to believe that liberals, in the ‘reproductive rights’ language, care anything more than abortion itself.
So yes, please reply back, I am curious to know how I have in anyway mischaracterized liberals and their beliefs, because from your response, it seems like I have it dead on.
Little Lulu,
But this is a humans life we are talking about. If there ever was a reason where it is okay for the government to interfere, it is when a humans life is endanger. For example, what would you say if I said that that the government shouldn’t interfere if a father decides to severely beat his children? Or if a father decides to forcibly have sex with his wife? Or decides to sexually molest a family member? What would you think if I said these are ‘personal matters’ that the state should stay out of? Obviously you wouldn’t respond, I think “it’s not the government’s business, especially the federal government”.
So abortion completely turns in radically different directions based on the simple question of ‘is the unborn child a person or not’. And this question shouldn’t be left up to each individual person either, that would be like saying that the decision of whether or not Blacks are full persons should have been left up to those who wish to own slaves or not. Clearly the state should make this decision, just as it did during slavery, and enforce the rules accordingly.
So if, for example, you think the unborn child is a person, than you should work hard to stop such abhorant procedures as abortion, if, on the other hand, you think the unborn child is not a person, than not only should we allow abortion, but we should applaud it, support it, and treat it no differently than getting your tonsils removed, but there is no middle ground.
satya,
Thanks for stopping by again. I answered most of what you said above in my response to Little Lulu and rubani, so please scroll up and let me know what you think. I didn’t answer your environmentalist response, mainly because I am not that passionate about that topic, so I’ll let you have the last word there.
Burrito Pundit,
Not sure about the name, but, since you asked, I don’t get paid by any government agency, remember, i am generally anti-government programs, so that would be against my ethical code. However, I do receive checks from the ‘right wing-conspiracy’, but not much, considering that were an underground group, we have to be resourceful. LOL ;_)
Blogs suck,
Kinda going against your name commenting here and all, aren’t you? But yeah, you’re right, pretty unbelievable, I still don’t believe it!!
Perhaps the only good thing about the resulting fallout from Hurricane Katrina is that retards like yourself will be taken less and less seriously as your idiot president sinks into the mire of his own incompetence and idiocy.
You clearly have obtained your political acumen from licking Rush Limbaugh’s sweaty ass.
My position, the liberal position, on abortion is that no woman should be forced to bear children against their will. Basically your position is that the government, or some other person such as a parent, *can* force a woman to bear a child against her will.
My position, the liberal position, is that no one can force a religious ritual on me. Your position is that the government can and will force me to pledge allegience to a god I don’t believe in (which in my view debases what a “pledge” means). And you believe that the government should force my children and grandchildren to pray in schools, and to perform religious rituals that the don’t believe in.
My position, the liberal position, is that anyone should be allowed to marry whomever they want. Your position (not stated above but I have a pretty good idea) is that the government should interfere in this very intimate decision.
I would say that your position is all about government interference in my, and my children and grandchildren’s, and my friends lives.
You are going to respond that liberals want the government to interfere in people’s lives as well, and that is true. But think about the difference. Liberals want government to make help people’s lives fair, to reduce discrimination and repair effects of past discrimination. They want want women, blacks, and hispanics to have a fair chance at a decent life. Conservatives on the other hand want the government to force religion on us, to force women to bear children. There is no inherent fairness in what conservatives want.
The other main difference is that liberals are internationalist, i.e., everybody deserves a dignified chance at life, while conservatives are nationalist, i.e., the rest of the world can rot as far as their concerned. But that’s another long story.
Left Wing Glock Owner,
Well, I guess there is a silver lining to everything, isn’t there.
Ronsch,
My position, the liberal position, on abortion is that no woman should be forced to bear children against their will. Basically your position is that the government, or some other person such as a parent, *can* force a woman to bear a child against her will
Oh, I see. That is kind of similar to my position, except my position is a little more fundamental than yours, my position is simply, “nobody should be allowed to intentionally kill an innocent person”, nothing more and nothing less.
As for the rest of your comment, for the record, I do not base my pro-life beliefs on religious beliefs. There are those who do, and they certainly have every right to, but I don’t. My rationale against abortion would be something similar to what an atheist pro-lifer would argue, for example, godlessprolifers.
So with that said, and assuming for the moment that the unborn child is a person (a position I am very willing to defend, if you would like to discuss it), the rest of your response makes absolutely no sense. In one hand you are advocating letting people do what they want, not forcing one persons beliefs onto another, and overall having a laissez-faire moral system. But that all comes crashing down when you defend abortion, for in abortion (again, assuming the personhood of the unborn child) you are violating that very thing. You are allowing the mother to force her will over the will of the child, simply because the mother has sole power and control over the child (it’s hard to imagine an ethical system that gets closer to ‘might makes right’ than abortion). Or to state it differently, you are doing the very thing you argued against in your above post.
So you have to choose, one or the other, but you can’t have both.
It is the rare day that I agree with Little Lulu. I know her in the real world and have had many a fight with her. But, on this issue, she is right, and you are wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Did I say wrong?
Oh…. and how can you be against equal pay for women? If, say before the 64 civil rights acts, the phrase was “equal pay for blacks and browns,” would that mean “government bureaucrats determining your pay?” And i know your response before you say it. You are not against equal pay for women, you just think that the free market should be allowed to take its course. Wrong.
Why are you standing up for The Man, my hispanic friend? He can fight his own battle. We need intelligent brown brothers such as yourself fighting on the right (left) side. I will not give up on you. The force is with you, Obi-wan Hispanic!
I hope it’s not your daughter who reverts to the coathanger or coca-cola flush to end a desperate situation. Nobody is for abortion. Nobody advocates having one for fun. To paraphrase Winston Churchill on another issue - Safe and legal abortion is the worst option available, besides all the other ones.
I cannot fathom why it is that while the rest of the civilized world resolves their issues & moves forwards, the trogs in the US dig their way to the surface every few years and send us back to the stone age.
What a waste that we have to debate issues like evolution(?!), basic human equalities, the ineffectiveness of supply-side economics, the wisdom of starting a ground war in the middle east, all over again. The rest of the civilized world has been there and done that. But our pathetically undereducated populace, with no sense of history, sociology, world politics, gets sold the same load of crap by Big Business and the religious right time after time.
Many who lived in Nazi Germany said they never believed “it” could happen in their country until it already had. “It” is happening here under our noses. Beware the death of objective standards of truth and law. Once they accomplish this, the Government can tell you anything while locking up your slightly too liberal neighbor as a “security risk.”
Watch for a “national emergency” to require delaying elections in coming years. It’s coming. Nobody thought they would dare rig voting machines either, but that was a slam dunk.
Nebur,
My bud, good thing you commented, I was about to write you an email. I wanted to tell you that I am going to invoke your good name in a blog here on Thursday, I thought you should be aware of it, so that you could respond early on. So please, check out this blog first thing Thursday morning, I’d like your feedback on what I write.
As far as ‘equal pay for women’ goes, it is much more complicated than that. Certainly much more complicated than addressing equal pay among black men and white men. What complicates matters when comparing pay among the sexes is the fundamental fact that the sexes are not the same. For one, there are nature differences, and these nature differences are very difficult to quantify.
Just take the simple topic of female professors in the sciences; you remember the large controversy that resulted when the President of Harvard, Larry Summers, suggested the big sexual gap might be due to innate sexual differences? The guy was called everything from sexist to a dumb ass, but when you actually look at the facts, when you look at the evidence, you realize that it was his opponents who were the dumbasses, Larry Summers, to a large extent, was right.
So in that case, we have innate sex differences that could explain a large part of the difference, but there are other differences than just innate mathematical abilities, there is also preferences and tastes, for example, men are willing to work longer hours, do more dangerous tasks, work in less healthy environments, sacrifice more of their family time, and prefer the competitive overall ego clashing environment that may come with several career paths, generally all more than women do. This also could explain why, for example, men tend to be in more critical, demanding and stressful positions.
Than comes the physical sex differences. Because women bare children and men don’t, they tend to take more sick days, become more likely to take extended periods off and overall tend to leave a career more than men, etc…etc…etc… Than come the family structures, on average women follow their husband’s careers more than vice versa; so they tend to get less than ideal jobs because they are, unlike the husband, limited to a certain area etc, etc…
Than comes, as you say, the ‘market test’. In order for discrimination to truly work in a free-market, you have to get everybody to discriminate equally, something very difficult to do, especially when it directly affects your pocket book. If that doesn’t happen, the market will (severely) punish those who discriminate, and (severely) reward those who don’t discriminate. For example, say that several companies discriminate against women and pay women $50/hour when their productivity is really worth $75/hour, well if that is the case, than I could open up a business, hire nothing but women, and make $25/hour on each of them, the difference between their pay and their productivity. In other words, that would be like giving just one company - as opposed to all of the companies - the ability to higher Indians from India, at a percentage of what everybody else would have to pay them. So every other company has to pay the very-productive-highly-educated Indians 100% of their productivity, and my company gets to pay them at a discount rate. Imagine if that happened? That would be one hell of a competitive edge. With everything being equal, year after year, I would continue to be much more profitable than my competitors, eventually becoming the dominate force. Since I don’t see that, even in very competitive markets, say like in telecommunications, I don’t put much weight to the discrimination against women charge.
In addition, as Steven Pinker so eloquently put it, it is not harmless to err on the side of discrimination; there are real consequences to getting this wrong. Aside from what Pinker mentioned above, there are also economic penalties to be considered.
People have studied this and published their findings on it, it is not as simple as the sociologist make it out to be.
As far as me standing up for “The Man”, look around hermano, I am no different in my party than you are in yours. Sure, occasionally the Democrats will let you serve on a committee here and there, sure occasionally they will let you sit at their table at conventions, but aside from the dog crumbs they throw at us every now and than to keep us in our dog house, what have they given us of substance? Do you honestly think that the Howard Dean’s, John Kerry’s and the Hillary Clinton’s of your party see you any differently than you presume people on my side see me?
I try not to get into racial politics, specifically because I try to subscribe to “The Brotherhood of Men“, but there are times where it becomes really difficult, especially when somebody assumes that white people on the left sit on a holier seat than those on the right. Every side has their racists, and every side has its good people, I learned that long ago.
As far as converting me back, I kinda wish you would, being a conservative certainly has its downsides. I sometimes feel like a fundamentalist Christian who grew up with certain core beliefs, only to have wandered off and realized that I no longer share those beliefs, and than eventually becoming the apostate of the family. Certainly life would be so much easier being a full member of the family again, believing all of what I was told growing up, but I can’t do that anymore. Liberalism, with its belief in government, with its reliance on legislation, with its lack of logical structure is one of the worse religions imaginable, it is the worse religion precisely because it hurts those who believe in it and those who it tries to help.
I’ve given up long ago following those who have the right passion and instead decided to follow those who have the right solutions. I constantly tell my friends in LA that I hardly ever disagree with liberals when it comes to the problems; I only (primarily) disagree with them when it comes to the solutions. Liberals are like the Karl Marxists of the world, they are loud and right when they point to injustices but dead wrong when they give solutions. Conservatives (generally, sometimes liberTarians are the ones), on the other hand, are like the Adam Smiths of the world, quiet and moot when it comes to injustices, but full of correct and time-tested solutions to those injustices. I now choose solutions, but bring my childhood passion with me.
Castanzo Montebon,
The problem with the Churchill quote is that the analogy doesn’t hold, Democracy is not inherently wrong, but intentionally killing innocent people is. Besides, there is ample research out there that shows that legislation against abortion would significantly reduce abortions.
As for the rest of your post, I am sorry us dumb old conservatives don’t meet up to the level of the highly intellectual, obviously very educated, supremely wise, enlightened liberals. We try though, give us that much.
“So you have to choose, one or the other, but you can’t have both”
No you can’t have both. I choose the woman. Do you really know what it means to bear a child? No woman should ever be forced to bear a child against her will. To conservatives women are nothing. Have some respect. Let women decide for themselves.
Men have their cars, their guns, their jobs. Why can’t they leave women alone. Why do they get to decide when women bear children?
Do you really know what it means to do that? Their bodies completely change. It takes them over. There isn’t anything that men experience that’s like that.
The whole pro-life thing is a power trip. Keep them in their place. You’re going to have to get over that. You want to make that fetus growing inside them something holy because it gives you power over them.
You need to worry about yourself not them.
There’s something fundamental that I think you should understand about this post. There are two kinds of blogs on the Internet: there are those that have interesting and earnest debate about significant issues, and there are those that are nothing more than vicious attacks on your political opponents. From every other post on this site, it seems like you want to be considered in the former category. This post clearly falls into the latter category. There’s nothing wrong with taking a strong position. But posts that casually and slanderously demonize your opposition will turn off anyone but like-minded visitors. If that’s the site you want, keep posting this kind of sarcastic tripe. But those sites, honestly, are pretty dull, and I think you are smarter and more interesting than that. I’d encourage you not to do that.
It’s hard to really engage in an argument about abortion that starts from the position that liberals believe teenagers should have abortions without consulting their parents. Obviously, one of the things that makes America great is that no one is allowed to enforce their private moral or religious views on others. The idea that a fetus is a person is, quite frankly, a contraversial viewpoint and a substantial portion of the country simply don’t agree.
Honestly, I believe that the key question is mostly semantic. Is a fetus a person in the third trimester? If so, is it a person in the second trimester? If so, is it a person in the first semester? Is it a person when it is a single cell? when it is a zygote? The reality is any position you would take in response to those questions is arbitrary. Does anyone really have the right to take away a woman’s right to control her own body because of an arbitrary declaration that personhood begins at X point, when when could just as easily argue that it begins at Y point? I don’t think so. I don’t think that it is constitutional, in fact, to do that. People do have the right to control their own bodies (an aspect of the right to privacy) and without a compelling argument that the exercise of that right interferes with the legal rights of another I don’t think it is constitutional to legislate that (and there’s no doubt that, according to the 14th amendment, a fetus has no legal rights:).
There are certain things the law is good at: keeping social order, promoting the public welfare, regulating the economy, preserving the environment, ensuring political rights, etc. Other things the law, quite frankly, sucks at. Controlling people’s bodies is one of those things (which is why the drug war is such an unbelivable disaster). Answering essentially unanswerable existential questions is another. When does life begin? When does it end (i.e. for Terri Schiavo?)? When is it no longer worth living? These questions aren’t really legal questions, and the legislature is not an effective place to be holding existential debates. The best thing the government can do in such a situation is to stand aside, and allow individuals the freedom to answer these questions for themselves.
Ronsh,
You choose the women? Which one, the adult one or the unborn one? Oh wait, you mean only the adult one.
Have you, on the other hand, known what it’s like to lose your very life, to be robbed of a chance at life? I find that thought much more abhorant than having to deal with a, while very difficult and emotionally trying, nine month pregnancy.
But here, lest you think I’m sexist, let me turn the tables and address men. As I explained in greater detail here,
So essentially, enforcing bans on abortion are nothing different than child support laws against the father, since, afterall, the women having the abortion is the mother of the unborn child.
satya,
You write, “But posts that casually and slanderously demonize your opposition will turn off anyone but like-minded visitors”.
Fair enough, I agree with what you say. I guess like everyone else, I have my moments of fire where I can’t help but stir up the pot a bit. Most of my usual readers know that this is few and far between, so it doesn’t bother them much and those flare ups have the added benefit of giving me a chance to meet new very smart liberals like yourself. Just think, if it wasn’t for my old flare up, we might have never met.
But your right, posts like this do give my blog an appearance that I am not looking for, thanks for the reminder. Now back to our discussion…
I agree with everything you said, provided that your premises were true. But, IMHO, I don’t believe your premises are true, specifically the premise that deciding when life begins is arbitrary. I believe there are common sense, easily verifiable guidelines to deciding when life begins. So again, the whole discussion revolves on just how arbitrary, and just how clear cut the definition for personhood of the unborn child is.
Btw, I am planning to have this very discussion, how clear and scientific is the personhood of the unborn child, on a liberal friends blog, so if your still around, when the time comes, I’ll announce it on my blog and hopefully you can chime in.
I agree with 100% of what you wrote. It speaks volumes how rubani was able to use the work racist in less than 25 words. Like most liberal social experiments busing was an abysmal failure. But, this is not about busing it’s about the confirmation of Roberts. The fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives on selecting judges is whether the judge will make law or uphold the law. The judicial branch of gov’t needs to limit itself to applying the law equitably and defending the constitution while leaving the creation of law to the legislative branches.
HP - Very disappointed to see you believe the hype my latino brother. I have just cringed at all of your responses and attempts to rationalize. This is a sad way for me to start the day. I thought we (as a nation and as people) had come farther than this. I am still holding out hope for you…
How sad that you are using your God given
intelligence to spout right wing drivel. Before demeaning core values, you might consider what life might be like without them.
With CIVIL RIGHTS, Mexican American citizens and non-citizens would not have been rounded up and herded out of California like so much vermin in the 1930s simply because of their color and last name. Children would not have been shuffled off to separate and unequal schools because of their color. - I stand corrected - would not still be separated - See Jonathan Kozol on educational apartheid.
Equal pay for women - Now here is an issue - think about a society where, under market controls, the person who hauls away your garbage is more valuable than the nurse’s aide who cares for you when you are sick, or who cares for your mother or dad when they can no longer care for themselves, or the child care provider who cares for your child while you are at work. Where are our priorities!
“environmental protection and worker rights, they mean the government has unlimited power to regulate private property and business” How cynical is this! Dubya and his cronies had no problem looking to eminent domain when they wanted to cash in on a ball park. Environmental protection means respecting the natural world on which we depend rather than raping it. Worker rights, again, recognize the value of the worker as a fellow human being.
Church-state separation - Ensures your right to believe as you choose without having a government impose a belief system on you.
Read a little history, HP, to see what might happen without these guarantees. Look at the nightly news and see what happens when those who govern politicize and reward their cronies. Hurricane Katrina may only be a metaphor for the natural response to lack of respect for life.
I’m not sure what disappoints you. I think there is a clear process by which we as a nation govern ourselves. The reason liberals fear the basic concept is that many of the issues they support would never win a popular vote. Busing would be the perfect example. How ironic it would have been if I was sent back to public school in the S. Bronx when my parents worked their butts off to get out of there. Talk to me about new ways to fund education in order to provide equitable per student funding and I’ll listen and work with you. I have mixed views on affirmative action. While I support the premise that the most qualified person should get the position I do think all ties should go to the minority student unless they are Asian because we all know they are over represented anyway! Just joking.
HP-
Really disappointed you have gone the Anne Coulter way. Instead of arguing your point, you have taken to reading the minds of your opponent. I usually really enjoy your blog because you usually argue your points in a well thought out manner and usually have some research to back up your point.
What I can’t stand is when you tell me that you know me better than myself. That in taking broadly encompassing arguments like civil rights, abortion, equal pay etc. I want only the most extreme fringe matters vs the essential central themes.
Michael,
Don’t let this post turn you away, trust me, I have not gone ‘the Anne Coulter way’. I just do these posts every now and than when I get really frustrated. And watching the Roberts confirmation really got me blood going…Just ignore my sudden splurts of overgeneralization, they usually are few and far between.
Update: Forgot to mention, when I first posted this post, I wanted to eliminate some things and change the wording on others, but since it’s a quote of someone else, I decided to leave it as is. So also take into account that this isn’t even an HP overgeneralization, but an HP copying someone elses overgeneralizations. I’m not backing away from the post, just trying to make a point that it isn’t exactly what I would write or the way I would write it.
Angelo,
Thanks for chiming in!!
Kjerringa mot Strommen,
There are civil rights and than there are civil rights. When we are talking about the confirmation of John Roberts, we are usually talking about the civil rights that Republicans don’t agree with, and in this particular case, that basically breaks down to just one thing, affirmative action.
Now I know you might think that if it wasn’t for affirmative action, and the great benevolence of those above, that us poor Mexicans would be doomed to a life of poverty, but I have strong opposing views. To put it more blunty, you can keep your affirmative action, and just give me color blind laws.
Ms Abc Mom,
Can’t we all just get along? We need a group hug.
We agree that the Civil Rights Act marked the true beginning of the end of segregation in the US. But, I can use it as a good example of how the judiciary should work. The congressed passed a law and it was upheld by the courts. In fact, because we are a representative gov’t the Act passed even though it probably would not have won a popular vote.
Unlike so called separation of church and state decisions that the courts have forced upon us. The constitution states that the gov’t shall not establish a religion; it doesn’t say it can not recognize religion. I think the term “separation of church and state” comes from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote. These decisions are generally not supported by the people and were not created nor supported by legislators. In fact we find ourselves in a backwards situation where some judge makes a decision and then the lawmakers try to devise a law to annul the decision.
The fundamental point I am making is that we need to maintain separate but equal branches of gov’t and we must not allow the judiciary to become a quasi dictatorship. Let us allow and force our legislators to deal with the ever changing social standards. I will accept any decision the freely elected representatives make no matter how much I disagree but I can not accept decrees from the judiciary.
While it is off the subject - Who would Kjerringa mot Strommen, appoint to decide what people earn? Maybe the reason the garbage collector makes more is because far fewer people are willing to do the filthy job of hauling away our garbage. I freak out when I hear what Paris Hilton makes but I’d never be willing to make any fundamental changes to a sensibly regulated free market system. Different discussion.
You know Bush won by what… 3% in the last election. That means almost half of the country did not vote for him. That means your neighbors and possible friends or family are “liberals”. Do you really think that’s what they all believe?
People like you not only bring down the Republicans but also this country. Sure you have every right to spread your ignorance and hate but that doesn’t make it good or right.
If I said that Hispanics really like to mow my lawn for 3 dollars an hour,that would be wrong.
So why do you spew this trash nonsense that liberals want teen girls to get abortions??
THINK for a change.
HP - sorry about your frustration. I feel the same way about Roberts evasiveness as you do about the senator’s badgering, I’m sure. I guess this hostile partisanship will really make Senator Coburn cry now.
What makes me feel that Judge Roberts is being evasive is that he expounds freely on non-contraversial cases like Kelo and Griswold that are likely to come before the court. Why not Roe v. Wade? I know he is not the only one who does it, but this whole exersize is pointless. We all know what will happen the committe will split 10-8, he will pass in the senate like 88-12 or something. Its all theater.
As far as Kelo. Did you read this summer that Justice Stevens said in a speech that he really wanted to rule in favor of Kelo, but he could not find the basis in his interpretation of the constitution, despite the fact that he knew it was unpopular and really despised being forced to give away property of a regular citizen to a wealthy corporation. I do not know enough about eminint domain laws to judge if his intrpretation is right, but wouldn’t his explanation be exactly what you are looking for in a judge. Someone who makes the decision strictly by the rule of law and constitution and not the party that he finds less offensive. Isn’t that the opposite of a judicial activist. So why are the judges being critisized as activists in this case?
Look, nobody other than the shareholders in the corporation and the city officials of New London want to displace these homeowners. Democrats especially, over history have sided with individual rights over the rights of corporations, thats why they fight for environmental regulations. However it is not a judges place to right the law, just to interpret it. If the legislators oare offended by the decision, they should do their job and right a law to protect against it. This is what Stevens said this summer and what Roberts said today. I agree with him there.
Angelo:
I agree with you on the separation of powers, but I see the problem from a different angle. Of late (since the decision to invade Iraq at least), the legislature is afraid or unwilling to take its share of the responsibility in decision making, preferring to defer to the President and his handlers.
As I recall, Jefferson said that in order for the popular vote to work, we need an informed electorate. Unfortunately, in spite of increased mass communication, the ability to be informed has decreased. As a journalist said of late, “we need Walter Kronkite and are left with Geraldo”. Sensationalism, marketing and spin have superceded responsible journalism. A serious problem we have in California – governance by initiative – does not result in a popular vote by an informed electorate since the self-interest of businesses can buy the vote through sinfully expensive public relations campaigns. The little guys may vote, but bases his/her vote on “information” gained from duplicitous T.V. ads.
Angelo, would you consider slavery a “sensibly regulated free market system” in its time? Rules certainly governed the system and prices were in line with demand. I would suggest that higher wages have often been gained by successful labor unions, not for performing the least desirable work. Cleaning bedsores, changing adult diapers, lifting and stooping, and respectfully treating patients who have lost their physical and mental capacities is backbreaking drudgery for which nurse’s aides are paid very little. Yet it is these angels we may all need at some point in our lives. Let’s face it – the free market system is broke.
* civil rights, they mean racial quotas and forced busing
If the citizens of your state decide that “your kind” must sit in the back of the bus and pass a law to such effect, will you peacefully obey that law or look to the courts to protect your “minority” rights?
* reproductive rights, they mean underage girls should get abortions without notifying their parents
This is a canard. If you want to discuss this issue as an adult, let’s debate the real difficult question, when does personhood begin (and more importantly when how wo we balance the rights of different persons). Using the example you have given would be like a liberal stating that if you support the Second Amendment and the NRA you believe in cop killer bullets and provided automatic weapons to criminals.
* equal pay for women, they mean government bureaucrats determining your pay
Your comments are simply off point. If a woman without any plans for a family does the same job as a man then by what principal of equality do you justify the “market place” deciding that because other women have families, this woman is not entitled to equal pay.
* environmental protection and worker rights, they mean the government has unlimited power to regulate private property and business
The constitution was written to protect individual rights. Are you suggesting that business and private property are more valuable than a human being (perhaps if this is so you might want to rethink your attitude with respect to reproductive rights).
* church-state separation, they mean your town can’t display a Menorah or Christmas crèche during the holidays
This is the one place where I feel a bright line must be drawn. Why for more than the first hundred years of our country’s existence, churches and religions felt very comfortable and secure in their place in society. There was no clamoring for “public displays”, for tax relief, for “faith based initiatives”. A person’s religious belief was simply left out of political calculations. It wasn’t until the fifty’s that the pledge of allegiance contained “God”. I find it very revealing, however, that you illustrate your disgust with the most trivial of issues. Perhaps I too think that someone bringing suit to prohibit tax payer land or other resources to be used to promote any particular or even multiple religions. However, I find more of a basis for such action than in the pronouncements of our present day born-again politicos stating the this is a “Christian nation”. I for one find that truly scary. If there should be one thing that all (especially conservatives) can agree on, it’s that a government should be strictly scrutinized and limited in any pronouncements or entanglements with religion. Keeping the peace and enforcing the laws are one thing. But dictating my morality and beliefs is another.
Bottom line, you rant with talking points and do not even consider any of the consequences of what you are saying. On the one hand you find government too intrusive (when it comes to protecting the environment or setting healthy work standards). But you feel that there is no problem with the government climbing in bed with you and telling you not only when, how and with whom you might want to touch or engage in sexual activities, but insist that the government has the ability to decide when a life begins or when it ends.
That is faith that goes beyond most religious beliefs.
I am as religious as any one I know. I still must wrestle with mysteries. But let’s not have the government proscribe the meaning of those mysteries. Religion should be about an individual’s struggle with the mysteries of life and a his/her attempt to be a good person.
Government should be about protecting individuals and providing for the common good.
End of story.
HP: Thanks for posting this “rant”. It resulted in a most creative discussion
Thanks for replying, HP. Where you and I disagree regards legislation banning abortion.
Legislation banning abortion is not the answer to solving unwanted pregnancies, and it violates the right to privacy. This is what I find so hypocritical about prolifers.
They say they want less federal governmental control until it comes to abortion, because abortion is so abhorrent, but when was the last time they took in a teenager who kept her baby or taught at a crisis pregnancy center?
HP, I have a response to your abortion post, but I’ll wait until your later post to mention it.
Church-state separation means public funds and public resources can not be used to display Menorah or Christmas crèche during the holidays. You are free to display them on private property under your first admendment rights. If the government tries to stop you, the ACLU will be glad to defend you. There is no logical or moral agrument as to why any citizen should be compelled through taxation to underwrite religious expression they do not agree with.
Angelo,
Thanks for chiming in, I’ve been trying to write and explain exactly what you said for some time now, but I’ve never been able to explain it as well as you did. Please, stick around.
RightWingLiberal,
In retrospect, I should have worded this post a bit differently than how I did, I admitted as much above.
However, with that said, I didn’t say that liberals want teenage girls to get abortions, I said liberals want teenage girls to get abortion without their parents permission. Which is, btw, a true statement.
Michael,
LOL @ making Senator Coburn cry.
I agree with you about Roberts, personally, I wish he would just come out and say he is for overturning Roe vs. Wade (assuming for the moment that he is for it, we can’t know for sure, and I have my doubts). His evasiveness gives the impression that one should be ashamed of wanting to overturn Roe vs Wade, instead, he should just come out and say he does, and give his reasons (it won’t ban abortion, but make it a states right issue, giving states the ability to vote on it, thereby having it decided through democratic means, as opposed to judicial tyranny…blah blah blah, you’ve heard me say all of this multiple times before).
I look forward to a national debate on this topic, but not some skewed version of the topic, instead I want it clearly stated what is truly at stake in Roe vs. Wade; which is not abortion itself, but who decides those moral issues for us.
No, I didn’t read the Justice Stevens statement on Kelo, but for the record, assuming for the moment that one would rule in favor of eminent domain based on an originalist (sometimes referred to as a strict constitutionalist) interpretation, than yes, I would be fine with that. Like I said before, I don’t pick and choose my cases, it is more on the merits of the judicial philosophy itself that I base my support. Afterall, there is a strong possibility that the legislative branch will do its job and write legislation that reverses atleast some parts of Kelo.
However, with that said, I am very skeptical of Steven’s statement, afterall he is a justice that clearly does not support the originalist judicial philosophy, and has in the past supported the ‘living constitution’ issues. So when you have all liberals - specifically the ones that reject the originalist judicial philosophy - voting in favor of Kelo, and all conservatives - specifically the ones that adhere to the originalist philosophy - voting against Kelo, you tend to put more weight in that, than Steven’s personal opinions.
You write,
Look, nobody other than the shareholders in the corporation and the city officials of New London want to displace these homeowners.
Did you watch Nancy Pelosi’s response to Kelo? It was sickening; she couldn’t stop defending Kelo, going on and on about what good will come because of it.
Modern day Democrats are a new breed Michael, historically I would have probably been Democrat just like you, but the ones in power now, are clearly different than the ones from history.
eddie,
First off, I want to say that I really appreciate you putting as much effort into your response as you did. While I may disagree with most of what you write, I still believe that you have made several good points. Again, thanks for taking this post seriously when the first appearance may not have given that impression. Now, to my response…
Supporting the judiciary as a protector of civil rights is a bit misleading; it was, afterall, the Supreme Court that gave us the Dred Scott case…
As far as abortion goes, sure, let’s discuss the personhood of the unborn child as adults. To get the ball rolling, let me say that I believe the unborn child is a person just like you and I for the simple reason that it differs from us in one, and only one, arbitrary way, it is at an earlier stage of development. Sure, because of its earlier stage of development it has different human capacities, but so does the infant compared to the adolescent, and so does the adolescent compared to the adult. In other words, if we acknowledge as ‘person’ a succession of outward forms after birth, there is no reason not to extend that courtesy before birth, since human life is a continuum from conception to natural death. By dividing personhood based on stage of development, we may have inadvertently created a new prejudice, “natalism.” And, like other prejudices such as sexism and racism, natalism emphasizes nonessential differences (”different stage of development”) in order to support a favored group (”the already born”).
As far as the rest of your post goes, I’ll let you have the last word, I don’t have enough energy to address that right now, so I’ll just pick my main hot spots, and maybe we can get to the rest later.
Kjerringa mot strommen,
No problem bud, come by atleast every three or four weeks, that is about the frequency with which I have these sudden spurts of emotion that push me to over generalize. Nothing but good times, and good convo, that is my philosophy.
Little Lulu,
Everything you say is true, provided that the unborn child is not a person. I admitted as much in my previous response to you, yet you refused to address that point. If, assuming for the moment, the unborn child is a person, than essentially what the mother is doing is murder, are you really advocating that the government shouldn’t enforce murder laws?
On the other hand, if you would like to discuss the merits behind the claim that the unborn child is a person, I am more than willing to do that, but you can’t simply assume that is the case in your response. To side step that point would be as insensitive as a pro-choice person during the slavery days responding with, “If you don’t like slavery, don’t own one, but don’t tell me what to do with my property”. Or to say, “I don’t think the government should interfere with private property”. The reason being that the pro-choicer with regard to slavery, like the pro-choicer with regard to abortion, is trying to side step the critical issue here, whether or not the slave and the unborn child are fully persons, for if they are, these type of responses don’t cut it.
As far as pro-lifers doing their part, you need to look no further than pregnancy centers, centers that are heavily run by pro-life workers. I’ve heard it said that there are now as many pregnancy centers as there are abortion centers. In addition, unlike abortion centers, the pregnancy centers are almost all run by charity, often by people who give up their time, money, and expertise in order to help the poor women in a difficult situation. In addition, it is pro-lifers, not pro-choice people, who are putting the most energy in changing the adoption laws, and removing some of the overly burdensome bureaucracy involved, and all of this out of their own pocket and energy, unlike abortion providers who could make well into the six figure incomes by providing abortions.
In addition, it is completely irrelevant whether or not pro-lifers adopt, or volunteer for pregnancy centers. If the unborn child is a person, it is already enough for them to fight for their right to life. To say that a pro-lifer must adopt these unborn children in order to be against abortion is about as reasonable as someone saying, say during the slavery debates, that in order to be against slavery you must be willing to feed, clothe, and educate the newly released slaves. Clearly the two are separate issues.
Again, this all centers on whether or not the unborn child is a person or not, a topic I am more than willing to discuss with you.
satya,
Okay, but I must warn you, it may be a bit, since I start school again on the 22nd, and may not have the time to participate like I originally thought. If you like, go ahead and post the response here, I’d like to see what you have to say.
Monkey,
I see religious expression, specifically things like the Ten Commandments (things that were gifts to the state, btw) and the pledge of allegiance, more as heritage issues than religious issues. Sure they have religious connotations, but they still represent a culture that is part of a great majority of American Citizens.
HP:
To be honest, I’m not any more comfortable defining when an embryo becomes a person than Justice Blackmun was, so I’m not going to. Is it at conception? First heartbeat? First movements? Birth? I don’t know. But I know that women have a right to privacy and choice that outweighs the embryo’s rights until all but the end of the pregnancy.
Women have the right to be left alone from governmental intrusion into their decision, to exercise their right to privacy.
I believe that prolifers have a responsibility to do something to aid women who give birth instead of having an abortion, instead of condemning them. It is much the same as those people who don’t vote and then bitch for the next four years.
Good for prolifers for working to change adoption laws. It’s way too difficult to take in children who need loving, safe homes. But, don’t fault the abortion providers who are providing a desired service and earning “well into the six figure incomes by providing abortions”; after all, that’s just simple economics of supply and demand. [see your comment above]
~ LL
Lulu,
Thanks for replying. I sympathize with your hesitance in trying to define when human life begins, but it is not something that can be avoided. Whatever response you give, will have atleast one of its premises depend on the personhood or non-personhood of the unborn.
For example, you write, “But I know that women have a right to privacy and choice that outweighs the embryo’s rights until all but the end of the pregnancy“. But this response begs the question, which ‘women’ are you talking about? You certainly aren’t talking about the unborn ‘females’ choice, after all, that person also has a right to choice, and in abortion the mother is violating that persons choice to life, is she not?
In other words, the pro-lifer is appealing to the very same principle you are, they are saying that everybody’s rights end where another persons right begins, hence abortion is wrong.
But here, let me turn this around and ask you a question. Do you support or oppose child support laws? In other words, if a male has sex and impregnates a female, should he be required by state to pay child support for atleast the first 18 years of that child’s life? Assume for the moment that the male did everything he could to not impregnate her, he used condoms, he made sure she was on birth control, and every other reasonable precaution, yet she still got pregnant, should he still be required to pay child support laws?
If you say yes, than how is this any different than what the pro-lifers ask of the mother in abortion? In other words, because of the relationship of the male to the child - being the father of that child - the state has a right, indeed an obligation, to force the father to use a percentage of his hard work to pay for that child’s needs for atleast the first 18 years. Or, as Michael Levin states, “All child-support laws make the parental body an indirect resource for the child. If the father is a construction worker, the state will intervene unless some of his calories he expends lifting equipment go to providing food for his children”. The same is true of abortion, we are asking the mother to fulfill her parental obligation to that child, based on her relationship to that child.
In short, “What is really at stake is the mother’s lifestyle, as opposed to the baby’s life. No one has an absolute unconditional right to a lifestyle. It is always governed by its effects on others. There are 1,000’s of restrictions on us including no-smoking provisions, noise and zoning ordinances, etc. “