It wasn't so long ago that the same "conservatives" wanting to monitor phone calls without warrants as the constitution would require, were actually declaring the Soviets and their satellites an "Evil Empire" because they did such things. How in the fuck do you truly reconcile that? I have come to the conclusion that as fractured as the Left is with their own whackos, so much of the Right is made up of loons that change their "core values" at the drop of a hat as lon as the guy pushing it has an R by his name. Deficits are bad- Reagan Before Deficits are good- Reagan after Military should only be deployed with clear objectives and entrance/exit strategy-41 We can't leave because its a mess and we owe it to the Iraqi people- 43 We have to support the rogue army cocaine trafficking contras ( with our illegal arms sales to terrorists) to overthrow the government of Nicaraqua.-Reagan The rogue hezbollah army is bad-43 We have to mine the commercial ports of Nicaraqua.-Reagan The indiscriminate killing of these terrorists is reprehensible.-43 Carter is weak-Reagan We couldn't respond to the murder of our marines because uh...uh...uh- Reagan Human Life is sacred Fry em til their eyeballs pop out, shock and awe the son of a bitches! We want judges that will read the constitution and not legislate from the bench- All of them Its just a piece of paper- 43 Man the freakin neocons and their "core values" make me dizzy!
I think my argument is reasonable. Criticizing a judge and CAIR are as reasonable as the ACLU criticizing an American president and Christianity. But where in the 1st Amendment does it mention the right to listen? All I see is the right to speak. The Legal System is not a science. Itâs a practice. We have liberals and conservatives practicing law. Laws persist by the support of argument and persuasion. Liberals expand the interpretation of laws and tweak them to jive with current events, while conservatives appreciate history and context and interpret what laws originally intended to do. Liberals, however, have contempt for history and the laws that reflect tradition. Liberals like change and fool the downtrodden as ammo against the consensus of tradition. Any minority is glorified, even if that minority hates America. Liberals today have contempt for America because they see America as powerful so they instinctively aid and abet those who want to undermine America. The Founding understood the perpetual war between conservatism and liberalism and the need to have both and a system to reflect both. But there are times when one side is sane and the other is not. Today, liberals will undermine this country and that is insane. The question is whether the Founding had this in mind when they designed the government. I think they did because they created a government that balances the good of the few against the good of the many. I agree that itâs up to the Judicial and Legislative branch to determine if Bush overstepped his authority. I think he never did, and if he did he would be toast by now. You know itâs not about everyone agreeing with me. Itâs about Americaâs ability protect and reflect a majority consensus as a means to protect itself. The ACLU works on cases to protect a childâs right to be raped by an old fart. The ACLU is insane. When liberals are detached from any context of culture they go insane. The Islamist enemy is taking advantage of this because they see an Achilles heal in the West. And they are right. If I were an English speaking Muslim who wanted to spread Islamofacism on non-Muslim land, I would pass the Bar and work for the ACLU.
The U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) is the acknowledged interpreter of "what the law is." Marbury v. Madison (1803), so the fact that you don't see the right to listen doesn't mean that it's not there. It's there because the USSC says it's there. Our legal system operates according to the rules decendant from English common law, not the Roman Civil Law, which means that judges are entitled to make legal interpretations and judgments which become binding precedent. So, while I understand your desire that the Constitution be strictly interpreted so as to prevent the right to listen from being a part of the document, the reality is that the right to listen is part of the Constitution whether you like it or not -- so attempting to argue that this doctrine should be overthrown because it doesn't seem justifiable to you, is tilting at windmills. If you want to change the way the legal system works, then you will need to advocate an amendment to the Constitution that will disable the judiciary's ability to render judicial precedents. Otherwise, this part of your argument fails -- simple as pie. Answer me this: what damage is done to the Bush Administration or the nation if Foreign Intelligence Security Act judges are rotated in and out of the NSA so as to provide judicial oversite and protect individual interests under the Bill of Rights? My answer is "none." It would save a huge amount of billing hours for lawyers throught the nation, if the President would simply allow someone other than Karl Rove to know what the government is doing. But, Mr. Bush won't. He will tell you that to do that undermines the power of the Presidency. This is a joke. Mr. Bush has the strongest Presidency since FDR, because both houses of Congress are Republican and Bush is nearly immune from impeachment. So, reality is that it's all about his personal self esteem. He just wants to show everyone who's da boss, and this incredibly childish behavior costs everyone a huge amount of tax dollars. Mr. Bush's policy in Iraq is a complete disaster, and for the exact reasons why it was predicted to be in advance by every thinking human being on planet Earth. But, our Congress isn't going to force him to some other policy, because it would be an admission that our President and the nation f'd up. We should have just paid Pakistan to let us march into the mountains between Afganistan and Pakistan and found bin-Ladin, strung him up by the balls and left him for the vultures. It would have been way more satisfying to everyone and a whole lot less expensive, and it would have shown the other Islamo-facists that if they mess with the bull they're gonna get the horns. But, instead Mr. Bush decides to bring Christianity and democracy to Ali Baba and the 40 Theives, and he thinks he's gonna overcome 6,000 years of camel crap during his eight year term of office. So, now who's really insane here? It's all relative, in my opinion. I am all for us sweeping up all the evil men in black hats/turbans, and I'm not trying to undermine the national security. But, let's get real. Any time that the bad guys want, they can send a small pleasure yacht with a nuclear device into Hudson Bay and wipe out most of the population on Manhatten Island. And, none of this wonderful NSA cloak and dagger technology will do anything to stop them. There's only one thing that is stopping them: the certain knowledge that if they do that, we will destroy every single one of their major cities in response. The leaders of the Arab world are not idiots, although they love to brag like they are. They know exactly what would happen if they decided to go for the gold against the USA. And, the point of all of this is really simple. While you and Michael Savage are screaming about the mental disorder of liberalism, you are forgetting that the conservative view is equally disordered. We don't need to play covert games to protect this nation. If Mr. Bush had one testicle, he would just stand up and tell the Islamic world: "Watch your collective asses, because if you don't, you won't have any asses left to watch." Meanwhile, we should be enforcing our laws against everyone, and that includes the President of the United States.
Change the way the legal system works? No, not hardly. We just need one more good judge. It will happen. The court may be the arbiter of what the law is, but in case you weren't aware, congress can remove arbiters who screw up thier arbiting, and I suggest they start... right... about.....now.
Sarcasm duly noted. One person's "good" judge is another's "activist." The reason why the Supreme Court has nine judges is with the intent that nine judges will have a better consensus of what the Constitution means than only one. Most people don't read USSC opinions, including their dissents (not even most attorneys -- but I do -- every one of them, and a lot of em' are boring as spit). The average person gets their view of what the Court thinks by reading news articles, which are almost always incorrect interpretations of what the Court has ruled, and just as important, interpretations of what the Court "hasn't" ruled. Personally, I don't think most of the current crop of USSC justices are anywhere close to the best legal minds in the nation. The choices are so highly political, that the best minds, the ones who will actually "tell it like it is," could never get an appointment. But, that's the system, and unless we want a complete overhaul, it's unlikely to change. Interestingly, there's nothing stopping the Congress from increasing or decreasing the number of USSC justices. Maybe we'd be better off if there were 21 justices instead of only nine. Then a majority opinion would be more like a legislative act of Congress -- more representative of what the People want. I don't propose to have a solution. However, I sincerely believe that the system works pretty well the way it is, even though I disagree with the Court half the time (just like everyone else).