Judge Not Lest Ye Be Scalia

I’m continually amazed at why people are afraid “to call a spade a spade.” The Washington Post reported Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia recently rebuked the Courts ruling overturning anti-sodomy laws. He said jokingly that “sexual orgies eliminate tension and ought to be encouraged,” but said that judges and lawyers don’t “reflect the views of the people” and shouldn’t be deciding the morality of behavior. The article refers to Scalia as a “strict constructionist,” which on its face is idiotic. According to Wikipedia,

Strict constructionism is a philosophy of judicial interpretation and legal philosophy that limits judicial interpretation to the meanings of the actual words and phrases used in law, and not on other sources or inferences.

If that isn’t a subtle form of judicial activism, I don’t know what is. The meaning of words change over time, so being a strict constructionist means that the laws change with the shifting sands of time.

I think it’s more likely Scalia’s just trying to justify his distain for gays and lesbians…

The Republican Utopia

Listening to Mitch Daniels answer questions on the radio on Wednesday night, he lost my vote in the next election. I’m quite the liberal/progressive when it comes to my political beliefs. Even so, last election I voted for Mitch Daniels for Governor. Why? The Kernan administration refused to discuss their position on gay marriage. Kernan kept saying that a marriage amendment wasn’t needed. I asked a direct question to the campaign as to where Governor Kernan stood if a marriage amendment was found to be “needed.” When pressed about this, the administration simply responded that the republicans were BAD and Democrats were GOOD. Mitch Daniels met with the gay community and addressed tough questions openly and honestly, which Governor Kernan refused to do. My thought process went something like “if Mitch was the same on marriage issues as Kernan, what is the difference between the two?” When I listened to both campaigns, I heard Mitch say what he planned on doing about the economy, about the state budget deficit, and property tax reform. Kernan just attacked Daniels about what he had done at while at Lilly’s, and IPL, but put forth no real plan to pull the state out of the financial gutter. I simply heard the campaign smear Daniels while not putting forth any new ideas. So I voted for Mitch….

But after his first year in office I can say that I won’t vote for him again. He removed collective bargaining for state employees and spent way too much time on moving Indiana to Daylight Saving Time (and I might add that he’s not been following DOT regulations concerning the changes… before GW they called that breaking the law…). Those things were definitely nails in the coffin. But what nailed it shut was his comments at a Town Hall meeting broadcast on Network Indiana/WISH-TV on Wednesday night. When asked why he hadn’t asked for full day kindergarten, he responded that we just don’t have the money for it. He said that maybe we could do it once we’re out of debt. If this were a business, Mitch’s answer would be a good one. But state government shouldn’t be run like a business. The mistakes made in government don’t effect a bottom line, they effect peoples lives. A good example of Mitch’s “business approach” in government is found at his time as head of the Office of Management and Budget (the OMB sets the administration’s annual budget goals) in the first GW Bush administration. His nickname at the time was “The Blade.” In 2002, Mike Parker, the former head of the Army Corps of Engineers, was forced to resign over budget disagreements with Mitch. He said “One time I took two pieces of steel into Mitch Daniels office. They were exactly the same pieces of steel, except one had been under water in a Mississippi lock for more than 30 years, and the other one was new. The first piece was completely corroded and falling apart because of lack of funding. I said ‘Mitch, it doesn’t matter if a terrorist blows the lock up or if it falls down because it disintegrates — either way it’s the same effect, and if we let it fall down, we have only ourselves to blame.’ It made no impact on him whatsoever.” Studies have shown that full day kindergarten and Head Start programs improve learning for low-income families and children with disabilities. So what does Mitch see as the most important thing on the legislative agenda for the next year? Construction of the I-69 road project…?????? His reasoning is that building roads brings jobs to the state. What kind of jobs would be dependent on a interstate roadway? I doubt they’d bring in too many high paying tech jobs to the state.

If you don’t invest money in children on the front end, how can you expect to develop a well educated, high tech work force in Indiana? Not funding all day kindergarten but funding a controversial road project is penny wise, pound foolish. I’m sorry Mitch, but our kids are worth more than a damn interstate. If you can’t see that then you’re not as smart as I thought you were. I’ll be smarter next time you’re up for reelection. Too bad they didn’t have all day kindergarten when I was a child. Maybe I wouldn’t have made the mistake of voting for you, Mr. Daniels.

DON’T YOU DARE CALL ME A NAZI, YOU NAZI!

Because the whole system [is] like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber.” – Bob Novak 5/14/05

“I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It’s the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, ‘I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It’s mine.'” – Senator Rick Santorum

“Just like what Nazi Germany did to the Jews, so liberal America is now doing to the evangelical Christians. It’s no different. It is the same thing. It is happening all over again. It is the Democratic Congress, the liberal-based media and the homosexuals who want to destroy the Christians. ” — Pat Robertson 1993

“The EPA, the Gestapo of government, pure and simply has been one of the major claw-hooks that the government maintains on the backs of our constituents.” — Tom DeLay 1995

Hitler was “an individual of great courage” and a “genius.” Talk about Jews killed at Treblinka reflected “group fantasies of martyrdom.” — Pat Buchanan 1990

“Those who support gay and lesbian families are no different from those who supported Adolph Hitler in the years preceding World War II” – Sheri Drew, who gave the invocation at the Republican National Convention on August 31, 2004

“The Nazis were for gun control, the Nazis were for high marginal tax rates. Do you want to talk about who’s closer politically to national socialism, the Right or the Left?” — Anti-Tax Activist Grover Norquist, 2004

“What Hitler began to build against the Jews is now being built against people of faith who believe the Scriptures are valid for today and their injunctions against certain sexual behaviors is correct.” — Lou Sheldon, Traditional Value Coalition 1998

*”The notion that is involved in homosexuality, the unbridled sort of satisfaction of human passions’ leads to ‘totalitarianism,’ ‘Nazism,’ and ‘communism.’ – Alan Keyes 1997

“We certainly have all seen the rejections of Nazi Germany’s abuses of science,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) declared regarding his opposition to stem cell research last October. “As a society and a nation, there ought to be some limit on what we can allow or should allow.”

“The whole system [for picking judges] is like going to a concentration camp and picking out which people go to the death chamber.” — Robert Novak May 15, 2005

“We certainly have all seen the rejections of Nazi Germany’s abuses of science,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) declared regarding his opposition to stem cell research last October. “As a society and a nation, there ought to be some limit on what we can allow or should allow.”

Please Bring Our Soldiers Home…

Help Jesus’ General in the effort to recruit college Republicans into the armed forces.

Terri Schiavo

I told you so….

From the Florida’s medical examiner’s office:

Reported by BBC

“‘She was incapable of surviving without her feeding tube,’ Mr Throgmartin said, adding that she was blind and incapable of thinking, feeling or interacting with her environment.

‘This damage was irreversible, and no amount of therapy or treatment would have regenerated the massive loss of neurons,’ he said.”

I’m rubbing it in because of how many people weighed in on this topic but had no medical background to base their position on.

Next time trust medical professionals… instead of Neocons.