Bush Picks Miers for Supreme Court Slot

Of course in this day and age, you would have to be pretty stealthy if you wanted real conservatives or people who would act to reverse SCOTUS mistakes/overreaches, ie. Roe v Wade.

 

Dobson and Sekulow have endorsed her. So has Michael Medved.

I think that it is awful that Christians are called upon to clean up the gambling industry and I would like to see state lotteries be abolished. Lawyers are sharks and have to do awful things to make a living.

My guess is that she is the appointment of a politcially weak President who really has had his hands tied by his own party's addiction to pork, the war against terror, and the domestic tragedies of the 2 hurricanes. We are going to have some very difficult times this winter.

I don't think that she is a fundamentalist but is a member of an independent Disciples of Christ style Campbellite church. They are famous for the statement where the Bible speaks we speak. She reminds me of my grandmother. Her church statement is short:

http://www.vvcc.org/beliefsgo.asp

What do you think?

 

I'll trust the President on this one. He's known her well for twenty years and has said repeatedly he does not and has not asked any nominee "litmus test" questions concerning hot button issues like abortion.

He's looking for nominees that will apply what the constitution actually says instead of what they want it to say.

If she'll do that, I'm sure we won't always agree, but I'll be satisfied.

 

I think the endorsement of Dobson, Sekulow, and Medved are satisfactory. Like carpro said above, a nominee that will apply what the constitution says is an adequate nominee.

I won't be engaging in too many of the threads about her, because I think many of them are sheer tripe, complaining for the purpose of complaining. Some of these folks would complain about Christ himself if he were a nominee.

 

I know her brother, so she does have family. I believe she also has another brother I have not met. </font>[/QUOTE]Perhaps I should have been more specific. She doesn't have her own family as in husband and children.

I think that is a fairly important perspective since most of us are not completely career absorbed and single. </font>[/QUOTE]I understand.

I just can't seem to hold it against her that she never married.

btw Her brother is a staunch conservative, if that helps.

 

Amen. Even the rare "liberal" who might be a strict constructionist would be OK. If they respected the fact that their beliefs had to be adopted through the constitutional process, I could support them.

Unfortunately, I don't think I have seen a noted liberal since Moynihan that came anywhere close to having respect for the "letter" of the Constitution.

 

I have no such allegiance. But I'm not a judge. I expect a judge to uphold a law (presuming that such law is constitutional) even if the law stinks. </font>[/QUOTE]A law that:

1. was legistlated from the bench

and

2. violates the civil rights of life of the unborn is not Constitutional, and therefore should be overturned.

Joseph Botwinick

 

1 - Not exactly. Constitutional amendments were cited. I don't like the outcome due to the topic of the case, but the merit of the case was sound.

2 - But those same rights were being villated prior to Roe. They were just being violated at the state level. Abortion has never been illegal across the board in the US. That's a pro-life activist lie (but it's an effective lie that raises a lot of money).

It's a fallacy that Roe legalized abortion. It was legal prior, but the states had the right to restrict or allow it as they saw fit. Roe cited that a person's constitutionally guaranteed right of privacy precluded state-level legislation on abortion. All that needs to be done post-Roe is to restrict abortion at the federal level. It will likely never be illegal. Perhaps some day, it might be, but until then, it's an unfortunate necessary evil.

 

I think what Evangelicals always hope for is an Evangelical or at least a conservative who talks like an Evangelical on social issues.

Unfortunately, Evangelicals are going to have to pay more dues. Look around, we have not had very many Evangelicals who have wanted to sacrifice and run for public office.

Wouldn't it have been interesting if Bush had appointed Jay Sekulow to the court?

 

That depends, would Sekulow uphold the law even if it's bad law, so long as it's constitutional? If not, then he (or any similar person) would be potentally guilty of right wing judicial activism, which is as equally wrong as left wing judicial activism. At this point, I suppose Sekulow's potential is sheer speculation. Sekulow likes what he's doing, and feels so called. I respect his for what he does.

 

any possibility she won't be confirmed? I hear Brownback has some significant concerns about her....

Any history buffs tell us if a President's nominee has ever been rebuffed by his own party (when they held majority power)? That alone makes me think this is a sealed deal, whether we like it or not.

 

Anyone else remember hearing she had a connection at one point with Exodus ministries? I think I heard Bush mention that in his nomination announcement.

If I'm remembering rightly, I'm just surprised the press or the Democrats haven't started calling her a homophobe yet.

 

I think she will receive fewer votes than Roberts, but I think she will be confirmed.

 

Yeah... they were cited completely out of any rational stretch of context. If you changed the subject from abortion to murder or rape... the court would have to declare state laws on those unconstitutional as well.

Certainly if it is a violation of a woman's right to privacy and due process to forbid her from enlisting the assistance of another person to abort a baby, it should be even more of a violation to pursue her for killing her infant in the privacy of her own bathroom without assistance.

If it is against due process to outlaw something before it is done... then nothing can be outlawed.

I am sorry but abortion was never a "right". The links to actual constitutional rights are contrived by a determination to push a liberal social agenda that could not succeed legislatively.

By the very same reasoning, states should be precluded from legislating on any crime.

 

Yes it was, it simply a right legislated at the state level instead of the federal level. Those who argue a "states rights" violation with the Roe decision cannot therefore use the "Roe should be overturned because it's murder" arguement, because the murder arguement is irrelevant to the states' rights arguement.

 

Yes it was, it simply a right legislated at the state level instead of the federal level. Those who argue a "states rights" violation with the Roe decision cannot therefore use the "Roe should be overturned because it's murder" arguement, because the murder arguement is irrelevant to the states' rights arguement. </font>[/QUOTE]John, Abortion is not a right. Period.

A right is something endowed to all people by the Creator or if you like by virtue of their humanity. Rights are self-evident. They can be recognized and even denied but they cannot be legislated. Genuine rights never extend to the point of denying another person their genuine rights.

As for the legality of abortion, it was like murder. States in various forms recognize some "legal" murder- especially when performed in defense of one's genuine "rights".

Elective abortion is no more a "right" than elective murder. It can be legalized but it can never be a "right" as it clearly denies another human being the right to live without just cause.

 

Yes it is. A person can go out right now and have an abortion, and that is protected by law. So while you and I might find it morally objectionable, it is a legally guaranteed right. Period. The same is true of taking the Lord's name in vain, or coveting, or lusting. The same was true in the past of slavery. That right is no longer in existence. They're all rights, though they're all morally reprehensible to you and me.

I of course don't have the moral right to covet, lust, or curse, but I have the legal right to them nonetheless.

 

Yes it is. A person can go out right now and have an abortion, and that is protected by law.</font>[/QUOTE] That isn't the definition of a right John. Making something legal doesn't make it a right. In Nazi Germany it was legal to exterminate Jews. That does not mean that they had a "right" to do it.

Rights are not created by human beings nor their legislatures. They are either recognized and protected or else denied and/or confiscated.

Most of human history and most nations today are governed by the errant and enslaving notion that rights belong to and are dispensed/created/destroyed by government. Our founders wisely rejected that notion.

It is a legal "privilege" resulting directly from the confiscation of the rights of the unborn.

No it isn't. Those things are rights so long as they don't infringe on the rights of others... and as long as the person who does them is willing to accept the consequences. One of which might be that no one wants to employ them, sell them property, do business with them, associate with them, etc. This is the way it works in a self-governing society... which is what our Constitution purposed to create.

Either it does and it is being denied or else it never did. I submit that very much like abortion, it was an attempt a human creation of a right that never legitimately existed... by saying that human beings could legitimately be considered property like an animal in a "free society".

BTW, we have forms of slavery today. A slave is a person whose labor as a resource belongs to someone else... so why is it again we pay income taxes on our wages? Who ones our labor? What happens if someone refuses to give the massa' his share?

I submit that one person does not, and never has had, a legitimate right to own another person. I submit that one person does not, and never has had, a legitimate right to kill someone else simply because they deem them inconvenient or undesirable.

I disagree. You do have a moral right to do those things since they are clearly moral determinations that rightly belong to you and no one else... so long as you don't exercise those rights to infringe upon them. I have a right to disagree with your moral decision. I have the right to not associate with you. I have the right to ban you from my property. I don't have the right moral or legal to tell you not to do it.

The founders had the idea that individuals were sovereign, not government. That rights came directly from God to man, not to or through government.

 

Yes it does. You know very well that we're discerning between legal rights and moral rights.

Your analogy can by no means be compared to institutional slavery of pre 1860's US.

So is it your assertion that slavery was not a right? I'm not arguing here, just clarifying.