Culture of What?

From the Times

By Dana Milbank
Saturday, April 9, 2005; Page A03

Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is a fairly accomplished jurist, but he might want to get himself a good lawyer -- and perhaps a few more bodyguards.

Conservative leaders meeting in Washington yesterday for a discussion of "Remedies to Judicial Tyranny" decided that Kennedy, a Ronald Reagan appointee, should be impeached, or worse.

Phyllis Schlafly on April 4:

In California, the Democratic Attorney General personally intervened in the Laci Peterson case to ensure that her killer was brought to justice. But even Scott Peterson benefited from a full jury trial before being sentenced to death, and he will still enjoy numerous appeals and years of delay. Terri Schiavo was ordered to die by one man who served as judge, jury and executioner.

This is judicial arrogance at its ugliest. The public should reject the myth that supremacist judges can override the governor, the legislature, Congress, the president, common sense, and even the right to life, and use armed police to protect judicial supremacy.

Phyllis Schlafly on April 8:

Phyllis Schlafly, doyenne of American conservatism, said Kennedy's opinion forbidding capital punishment for juveniles "is a good ground of impeachment." To cheers and applause from those gathered at a downtown Marriott for a conference on "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith," Schlafly said that Kennedy had not met the "good behavior" requirement for office and that "Congress ought to talk about impeachment."

It really is amazing how far out of touch the crazy people are. Some question my use of the words "fascism" and "Nazi-ism", but taken literally, Schlafly is advocating a dictatorship. In a state, the governor is the dictator and the courts have no jurisdiction to hold his power in check. Amazing stuff.

In the Schiavo matter, there's one of two possibilities. Either they are really stupid and totally don't understand all the matters of law surrounding the case, or they are really evil and are just lying for political gain. There are no other options.

Schlafly's point of view is typical of the right wing, and also completely out of the main stream. A majority of Americans do not advocate executing minors, and 82% of Americans do not support the BSC position in the Schiavo matter.

But then - look at it. Over and over again I come across news stories where the right wing/Republicans are insane about this right-to-life thing, while at the same time wanting to execute minors.

Consider just one factoid about those executions. The United States is the only industrialized western nation that has capital punishment, period. The United States is one of only 4 countries WORLD-WIDE that allowed the execution of people who were minors when they committed their crime.

That is the crazy fucker's culture of life for you.

So, now that public sentiment is turning against them, they just keep threatening judges. Remember as I've said all along, it's not the judicial system that has changed, it's that the crazy fuckers now get news media coverage and hold political office.

It's funny how they wrap their insanity around the whole "faith" thing. They do that to make it seem that if you attack their politics, you attack religion. It's quite clever, but their positions have nothing to do with religion. It's just the culture war.

You remember the guy at the crazy people church that shot up the place last month? I wonder if that violence was politically motivated? I wonder if the religious right wing is getting so involved in pushing their craziness down our throats through politics that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in violence.. I wonder if continued religious/political activism will lead to more violence against persons of faith? Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share.

** update **

Go read the Post column. In the same way that a lot of religious crazy people subtly encourage psycho's to kill medical professionals at Planned Parenthood clinics, so are they now encouraging psycho's to start killing judges.

I'm totally not kidding - go read the post. It's all there in black and white.

Again - and I can't say this enough. Threatening a Federal Judge is a felony. I'm going to be following news on this closely. There needs to be some arrests. Law enforcement needs to start infiltrating these groups to find out which judges they are planning to assassinate. I'm sure Justice Kennedy is getting very good security now.

Invoking Stalin, Vieira delivered the "no man, no problem" line twice for emphasis. "This is not a structural problem we have; this is a problem of personnel," he said. "We are in this mess because we have the wrong people as judges."

** Update II **

Is anybody wondering if all of these recent threats from religious conservatives has anything to do with John Cornyn "wondering" about violence against judges?

Well - there's your answer. Now we seem them actually calling for it. Is it a coincidence?

And to think some "rational" people just think Cornyn was "taken out of context". Well, he was "taken in-context" by some people, and look at the result? A Senator's words have weight for God's sake, and what Cornyn said was the stupidest thing I can remember in a very long time.

** Update III **

"Death solves all problems: no man, no problem." - Joseph Stalin

** Update IV **

I heard a minister the other day talking about the great injustice and evil of the men in white robes, the Ku Klux Klan, that roamed the country in the South and they did great wrong to civil rights to and to morality and now we have black-robed men. - James Dobson

Well now, comparing judges to klansmen. How nice..