Redstate

I think poor Texas is suffering quite a drought of political talent after the "promotion" of Bush and the exit of Laney and Bullock from the stage.

You took some of the dimmest bulbs out there, collected their ranting, and...

No, wait, your last sentence sums it up. Never mind.

Perhaps reality is somewhere in the middle -- somewhere in between the Senator saying "an infortunate thing" and "apologist for domestic terrorism."

It's more than "an unfortunate thing" to wink at criminality, and that's what Cornyn did. His aliasing of cause and effect was hamfisted and utterly transparent.  But beyond words are intent, and that is where he is guilty.  What could possibly be intended by these remarks?  Nothing benign, nothing good.

I see no need to balance my discomfort with Cornyn's lunatic ranting with a comment about how Democrats "do the same thing," because I cannot think of a comment by a Democratic US Senator  concerning the judicial system that even approxinmates the evil and the intent of Cornyn's.

If the GOP wants to be admired, wants to be seen as stable and mature, it's going to have to take Cornyn to the woodshed.

- TK

It's more than "an unfortunate thing" to wink at criminality, and that's what Cornyn did.

Yeah, calling something "unjustifiable" is surely winking at it.

What could possibly be intended by these remarks?

An inept illustration of his overarching thesis that the judiciary needs to be accountable to the people?

If the GOP wants to be admired....

We'll settle for the current deal of control of all three branches of national government, thanks.

No.

Look, I'm not altogether sure how bright Cornyn is, but this is a bit much. How was he "winking" at criminality? Wouldn't one have to do something other than call that criminality "without any justification"?

I'm especially impressed with your ability to discern intent. Tell me, how can you infer "guilt," "evil," and "lunacy"? All I see is a fumbling attempt to talk about courthouse violence. Had he once said "understandable," "excusable," or "justifiable," you might have a point.

He didn't. You don't.

Trevino states quite plainly in his summary that this was not a smart thing for Cornyn to say.  And why wasn't it smart?  Because his words could so easily be taken to construe exactly what we are excoriating the lefties for saying.

So when someone calls him on that specific, as opposed to just saying it was a dumb thing to say (all the while knowing exactly why it was dumb), it's pretty silly to jump all over that person.

Let's play nice out there, kids.

....that it wasn't smart because the facts don't support the hypothesis.

That it may be misconstrued by the mouth-breathing element is of no concern to me.

Wasn't the lesson of Kerry's narrow defeat that no one gets ahead in politics by trying to sound intelligent and nuanced?

You say these liberal bloggers aren't bery bright?  Bwahaha!  They know exactly what they're doing.  It's the same thing talk radio has been doing for years.  This will probably blow over, but it's worth a shot from their point of view.

So Mr. Pot, don't give Mr. Kettle too much grief.

It was widely thought that the proper response was to first and foremost express solidarity for the victims and contempt for the murderers, before speculating as to what the United States had done to make the murder of its citizens more likely.

Some people who speculated that were really implying that the violence was more understandable, and some even were implying that it was more justifiable. Some were just honestly trying to get into the heads of our enemies--but they were often mistaken for the first category, and understandably so.

There were gunshots fired into a Bush campaign office in Tennessee last year. If I remember one of you denounced the "American brownshirts" of the left, in a way that implied that while not ALL liberals were implicated, it certainly went beyond the idiots doing the shooting. Another guessed that it was the "inevitable result" of the "plain hatred" directed against the President by Democrats.

If I had showed up and speculated that maybe all the dirty campaign tricks or bad policies or lies or what-have you by the Bush administration might have made the shooting more likely--"that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in violence. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share"...you would have jumped down my throat, and accused me of being an apologist for thuggery and terrorism. And you would have been right to do so.

"We'll settle for the current deal of control of all three branches of national government, thanks."

Yes, but for how long?

The Democrats know a little something about staying power, about long term power: from 1932 to 1968 there were nine presidential election cycles, and the Dems won seven of them. Five consecutive Democratic national victories is something for the Republicans to aspire to, no?  Will today's GOP be able to make the transition from sniper to General?

Well, if Senator Cornyn and Rep. DeLay and Senator Frist are predictors of the future, I'd say not.

If the Republicans continue to use divisive social issues as a substitute for policy, I'd say not.  

If the Republicans continue to betray their historical core beliefs -- beliefs like fiscal conservatism, states' rights and the constitutional boundaries of federal government, I'd say not.

There's a theme of thuggishness, of mendacity which runs riot throughout this brave new GOP, an arrogance of power, illustrated well by the content and tone of your comments. As an independent voter, I find this alarming and sit serves as a warning, a warning of a party run riot.

There is zero chance I will vote at any level for any GOP candidate for the foreseeable future. Until the GOP returns to its roots as the party that mistrusts federal power, I'll not assist in their attack on my freedoms and on my family's future well being.

Freedom, rule of law, government accountability are all precepts worth fighting for, worth a king's ransom -- we've fought wars over them.  I cannot understand why this "modern" GOP is so anxious, so willing to throw all of that out the window in their reckless quest for "power."

- TK

trevino wrote;

"I also plainly stated that it wasn't smart because the facts don't support the hypothesis.

That it may be misconstrued by the mouth-breathing element is of no concern to me."

Very well, excommunicate 49% of the population with the dismissive wave of your hand, but I think that's both bad politics and bad citizenship.

I'd also say that your side is only shooting themselves in the foot, only working to undermine its tentative hold on power by allowing the "tinfoil hats" in your party to bark and snap in public like frothing, rabid dogs. When Tom DeLay says that removal of Schiavo's feeding tube was an "act of medical terrorism," and when the murder," reasonable people what getting concerned, start getting anxious, start Taliban wing of the GOP, in this case Rev. Pat Robertson calling court decisions "judicial asking, "What kind of wing nuts are these Republicans?"  

For myself, I don't know that wing nuts are the heart and soul of the GOP, but in reading Cornyn's comments and Delay's statements, I can see where large numbers of Americans will question the intellectual integrity and political maturity of the GOP -- I can see why some will ask themselves, "Why do they hate America?"

- TK

~~~~~ corrected posting ~~~~~~~~~~

trevino wrote;

"I also plainly stated that it wasn't smart because the facts don't support the hypothesis.

That it may be misconstrued by the mouth-breathing element is of no concern to me."

Very well, excommunicate 49% of the population with the dismissive wave of your hand, but I think that's both bad politics and bad citizenship.

I'd also say that your side is only shooting themselves in the foot, only working to undermine its tentative hold on power by allowing the "tinfoil hats" in your party to bark and snap in public like frothing, rabid dogs.

When Tom DeLay says that removal of Schiavo's feeding tube was an "act of medical terrorism," reasonable people what getting concerned, start getting anxious.

When the Taliban wing of the GOP, in this case Rev. Pat Robertson, start calling court decisions "judicial murder," can it be a surprise that people will ask, "What kind of wing nuts are these Republicans?"  

For myself, I don't know that wing nuts are the heart and soul of the GOP, but in reading Cornyn's comments and Delay's statements, I can see where large numbers of Americans will question the intellectual integrity and political maturity of the GOP -- I can see why some will ask themselves, "Why do they hate America?"

- TK

"not a terribly bright thing" and "unfortunate" are ridiculous understatements.

Let's take one of the recent cases: the murder of two family members of United States District Judge Joan Lefkow. The killing was carried out by an unemployed electrician named Bart Ross who was furious because Judge Lefkow dismissed his malpractice case. Ross committed suicide several weeks after the murders, and left a letter which

declared Ross a victim of medical malpractice and contained a hit list of seven federal judges, four state judges, 10 lawyers and five doctors, according to the newspaper.

Ross, a heavy smoker, was treated for cancer of the mouth from 1992 to 1995. Surgery and radiation saved his life but disfigured his face, and Ross set out through the court system trying to make his doctors pay for what they'd done. Lefkow had dismissed the most recent of his repeated lawsuits last year.

"I was left with no possibility to live my life, but to progressively suffer more and more, so like those who jumped down from the WTC Towers on September 11, 2001, I 'jumped' too. On the way, I intended to send to Hell as many of the listed (expletive) as I was lucky to get," Ross wrote, according to the Tribune.

"I am not a murderer," he wrote in the letter. "The murderers are the listed (expletive), who violated me like Nazis and terrorists and deprived me justice and compensation to put my life in order, and in this way deprived me possibility of salvaging my life."

The idea that this has anything to do with Justice Kennedy's flawed legal reasoning in the death penalty case, or Roe v. Wade, or anything other than the voices in Ross's head & his decision to murder innocent people, is just so, so, so, so stupid.

Here's the other recent case of violence against the judiciary:

a defendant on trial for rape overpowered a sheriff's deputy, took her gun and opened fire in a downtown courtroom Friday, police said, killing the presiding judge, a court reporter and another deputy who tried to apprehend the fleeing suspect.

A manhunt was on Friday night for 33-year-old Brian Nichols, who accosted two people in their vehicles before pistol-whipping a newspaper reporter and escaping in his green 1997 Honda Accord, authorities said.

Again, the idea that this was connected to anything David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg or any other "activist judge" did, is moronic.  

Cornyn is a graduate of two law schools, has served as a judge for 13 years including 7 years on the Texas Supreme Court, was the Texas Attorney General, and is now a U.S. Senator. He's not this stupid.

Then you have the death threats against Judge Greer and some other Judges involved in the Schiavo case. Which may well be connected to a perception of judicial activism. A perception which is being deliberately fueled by the idiotic demagoguery like this from Cornyn, DeLay, Frist, Santorum, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and many others. I am sure they don't actually want to incite violence against judges; I'm sure the motive is that this sort of outrage will be politically useful in the upcoming fight over the filibuster. I also don't think it's likely to proximately cause violence against judges--but it's not totally implausible either. And I am sure that many of the people making these arguments are actually convinced by them.

But to say that the real story is here is the sinister power of the stupid, shrieking, harpies of the Democratic grassroots--well. I guess in your book I'm one of them. But I really don't agree.  

By the way, the contrast is striking between this and Justice Lefkow's principled refusal to discuss with reporters the possibility that a supporter of white supremacist Matthew Hale killed her family, despite strong circumstantial evidence of his involvement (Hale had been convicted of making death threats against her & while he was in prison, he had plenty of crazy violent followers).

you sure have the mantra of the left down pat.  For future reference should I presume that any "independent" voter I meet is prone to such extravagant fits of melodrama or is that something unique to drive-by posters who protest their impartiality?

Really, answer their substantive points or just drop it.  If you're never going to vote for a Republican then what do you care if they talk themselves right into oblivion?  

Actually, there's a subtle* difference: Pat Robinson is unhappy about people like me having jobs, and says nasty things about us, but he doesn't publicly stone us to death.

And it sort of undercuts your argument against unjustified hyperbole and invective directed towards your political opponents, to use...unjustified hyperbole and invective directed towards your political opponents.

*sarcasm obvious, right?

I kind of doubt you are an independant. There are such stark differences the parties that in order to be independant one has to either not care (in which case you wouldn't be here), not have strong principles, or not have the backbone to do anything about them. But just in case you are...

There is zero chance I will vote at any level for any GOP candidate for the foreseeable future. Until the GOP returns to its roots as the party that mistrusts federal power, I'll not assist in their attack on my freedoms and on my family's future well being.

Don't worry, as soon as we get the Big Government "Republican" standard-bearer out of office we can return to being a conservative party.  




If you truly do care about limiting the power of the federal government I'd challenge you to step up to the plate and join the fray instead of sniping and sniffling about where the party's headed.  Small government candidates don't decide to run or win on their own - they need encouragement and support.  Parties aren't monolithic organizations.  When I first got involved I was 17 and I was an officer holder in my local party within a year.  It's amazing how one person can make a difference (i saw the potential, not saying I changed the world) in who gets to represent the party at the polls.

"Don't worry, as soon as we get the Big Government "Republican" standard-bearer out of office we can return to being a conservative party."

Why do I loathe Big Government?  Because I don't want an entity telling me what is right and what is wrong, who I can and cannot sleep with; I want the absolute minimum possible interaction and interference with and from Big Government -- always.

I don't want money spent that doesn't need to be spent, and if money must be spent, I don't want to run up a tab.

I don't want the feds involved in my kids' education, I don't want the government co-opting the press with hired reporters. I want government controlling as little as possible.

Now.  You say that when Bush is gone, conservatism will again return; I think not. How can I think otherwise?  Bush didn't come up with this agenda all by his lonesome -- he did it with the radical religious right and with the corporate welfare queens, and they are not leaving in 2008, so far as I know.  

The GOP is a willing hostage to the religious right, that's very clear, and what is the religious right all about? They aren't about some notional "Culture of Life," no, they are all about control -- all about getting into your business and mine, telling us what we can and cannot do. No no no! Not going to like that, I assure you.  

Unless the GOP sheds those awful pro=Big Government types, unless it cures itself of dividing the country to stay in power, it's going to be the same old tune. To think otherwise is to simply ignore reality.

-TK

Merely calling it unjustifiable doesn't always avoid winking at it.  Common counterexamples:  Suicide bombing is of course horrifying but understandable in light of blah blah blah, and while we certainly can't condone union violence managements outrageous treatment of workers' obvious concerns lead to a justifiable outrage that may sometimes spill over into violence.

It isn't pretty when the left does it.  I don't like it when the right does it either.  

In this case I'm not entirely sure if he is winking at it, but when you say things like "It causes a lot of people, including me, great distress to see judges use the authority that they have been given to make raw political or ideological decisions" the context does very little to dispel that notion.  

I think before Coryn ever had the idea to make that sloppy statement, which (sigh) was bound to get picked up the way it has been, Mary Cheh of George Washington University Law School was saying that if she got assigned the Schindler case, she would vamoose for parts unknown:  Maybe Coryn just reads the Washington Post and doesn't realize (or doesn't care) that every word he says on the floor of the Senate is going to be scrutinized, recontextualized, and wind up on Atrios...and TPM...and DKos...and...Oh, all the competing narratives of our discourse!  Where is Richard Rorty when you need him to straighten all this out for us?

"Can they force her to relitigate a right she has won?" Cheh wondered. "That may be a violation of her due-process rights." Cheh said she, for one, is happy not to be the one to answer such odd questions. "If I were the judge who got assigned to this by the computer, I'd flee the country," she said.

That was two weeks ago.  Why?  Did she know something the rest of us didn't on March 21st?  Does that statement make her an apologist (or better yet -- a predictor!) for domestic terrorism too?  Should she give up her tenure and resign, and stop teaching Constitutional Law?

Evidently Cheh's statement never made it into the feedback loop...just sayin'.

The GOP is a willing hostage to the religious right, that's very clear, and what is the religious right all about? They aren't about some notional "Culture of Life," no, they are all about control -- all about getting into your business and mine, telling us what we can and cannot do. No no no! Not going to like that, I assure you.

I just don't get it. I am around very politically active religious social conservatives a lot and we discuss politics all the time. And strangely enough, they are just as vehemently against the Government getting into their personal lives as you, Mr. "Independent." I submit that practically nobody who is currently shrieking on and on (that includes you, "Mr. Independent") about the "Religious Right" actually knows a single religious social conservative. This probably includes every reporter at the New York Times,  CNN, CBS, etc.  

What exactly is it about religious people that terrifies the Left (and their friends in the Left) so much that a person cannot say Merry Christmas or God Bless America without causing fainting spells at CBS and the New York Times?

Yes, we social conservatives do not like gay marriage, we think abortion (or euthanizing the infirm) is the termination of innocent life and we do not think that we need to kick our faiths to the curb just so we can serve in public office. And we generally think taxes should be low, judges shouldn't cite French law as authorities for their opinions, think the military is a swell institution, like being able to defend ourselves with firearms, do not like racial preferences, and would like to pick the schools our kids go to.

None of this means we want to put gays in concentration camps, draft everyone into the armed forces, chain women to stoves, mandate Bible study in schools, or install cameras in even ONE bedroom in America to make certain we're all doing it missionary style or reinstitute slavery.

There are millions of people, who are not religious or theists, who are not Christian (I personally am a Muslim) who agree with our positions. Your problem is not that a large percentage of people who are socially conservative are religious Christians. Your problem is that you just don't like the fact we who are social conservatives are actually fighting back. So there you are, shrieking your head off about some nebulous coming theocracy.

You don't have to like it. You want gay marriage? Fine ... campaign for it and win. You want abortion to be legal up until the 35th week of pregnancy? Fine ... campaign for it and win. You want religious people out of public life? Fine ... campaign for an amendment to 'modify' the First Amendment and win.

Until then, spare us the whining about "divisiveness" ... all campaigns are divisive. It's a feature, not a bug. Trying to get an issue off the table for discussion by screaming accusations of bigotry or ludicrous fulminating against a coming "theocracy" or the "Religious Right" (cue ominous music, thunder and lightning) is getting old ...

Seriously, before you go off on the "it is on message; it is paranoid; and it is not very bright" bit, try inverting the statement.  What if Sen. Kennedy had said in reference to Andrew Mickel:

I don't know if there is a cause-and-effect connection but we have seen some recent episodes of cop killings in this country. Certainly nothing new, but we seem to have run through a spate of cop killings recently that's been on the news and I wonder whether there may be some connection between the perception in some quarters on some occasions where cops are making political decisions yet are unaccountable to the public, that it builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in -- engage in cop killings. Certainly without any justification but a concern that I have that I wanted to share.

I would imagine that the people on this board would be all over Sen. Kennedy, accusing him of treason, demanding that he resign, etc.  Would that reaction also be on message, paranoid, and not very bright?  Or would you be defending Sen. Kennedy as simply saying something "not very bright", but remind us that America has a long history of violent rejecting of police who don't follow our collective will?

If your reaction to my invented Sen. Kennedy statement is different from your reaction to the real Sen. Cornyn statement, how is that different from moral relativism?

trevino

Let's state the obvious.

Cornyn is either dumb as a rock, or he decided to make political hay out of recent murders in Chicago and Florida by using them as an excuse to repeat the "activist judges" line.  I will leave aside the question of whether any expression of sympathy for the murderers was intended.  In any case, historical precedents of threats against the judiciary notwithstanding (or, rather, perhaps especially in the light of same), Cornyn's remarks were irresponsible, and perhaps also cynically and callously opportunistic.

Your post is a nice attempt to make this all about the reaction in the left-leaning commentary.  Guess what?  Nothing in any of the articles you link to approaches the idiocy, whether intellectual or moral, of Cornyn's comments.

Cornyn's comments weren't unfortunate.  They were stupid, foolish, and irresponsible.  Rather than wasting time playing he said/she said with the punditocracy, you'd do well to simply acknowledge that simple fact, disavow them, and move on.

As a personal aside, I wasn't aware of the existence of Cornyn before your post.  I'll be keeping my eye on him from now on.

Cheers -

"Wasn't the lesson of Kerry's narrow defeat that no one gets ahead in politics by trying to sound intelligent and nuanced?"

Presented, highlighted, without comment.

Yeah, Mark Levin is leading chants of Hezbollah in the streets, calling on the martyrs to carry out God's will on judges. Please.

While I've not seen evidence of it myself in your limited time RedState, I was told you were much smarter than this.

When I put [sic] after every other word.

Considering that:

1. Cornyn was the first Senator to say the word "blog" on the Senate floor, and
   
2. He's taken positive FOIA activity re: bloggers, and
   
3. He certainly faced a firestorm of response from the blogs after the now-infamous box turtle story and retraction,

I think he's fully aware of the interweb, such as it is.

I'm hardly your political bedfellow, but yours is an excellent and reasoned post.  

I will say, however, that I am extremely troubled by the expansive activism of a number of religious conservatives.  To take one recent example:  the recent proposals to give pharmacists a "right" to refuse to prescribe birth control pills.

No church to which I've belonged (I'm a bit of a Protestant Christian mutt) has forbidden the use of birth control pills within the context of a marriage.  This is, AFAIK, the position of the majority of mainline Protestant denominations.  It is also, without a doubt, the position of an overwhelming majority of Americans.

I thus find it a bit frightening -- and, frankly, more than a little insulting -- for a pharmacist who belongs to a religion to which I do not subscribe to (a) lecture me or my wife on birth control issues or (b), if my wife were to have a prescription for birth control pills, to  refuse to fill it.  If you don't want to do your job, find a different one.  Or, if possible, find a pharmacy that subscribes to the particular religion to which you belong.  That way, we, the consumers, will at least have been forwarned to expect your dogma with our medications.

(The "your," incidentally, is not directed to you personally, but rather more generally to the self-described "religious conservative" movement.)

I do try to love my fellow man.  I certainly do not believe that I know all the answers.  Nor am I so full of pride that I will say that I know the mind of God well enough to say with certainty that my way is the only way (or even, necessarily, "a" way).  

All that said, however: if faced with a pharmacist who (essentially) attempts to impose his or her religious dogma on me, it will be extremely difficult for me not to give into my worse nature.  It is possible -- indeed, even likely -- that I will tell such a pharmacist to go directly to Hell.  In fact, I daresay that I can be quite a bit more colorful than that.

If religious conservatives push bills such as the foregoing, you must expect that the rest of the country will push back.  There will be a backlash, and it will have the weight of numbers far greater than the religious conservative movement can muster.  

Or, more to the point: if the Republican party becomes a party of about 30% of the electorate, it will not long survive.

(I realize that I've used your very thoughtful post as a launching point to an off-topic rant; my apologies.)

Wow, amos - it's really great to have you as a reader.

Isn't that just like any other free market decision... The owner of a pharmacy making a decision that costs him business for the sake of being consistent to his faith?

And since Republicans generally like the free market, shouldn't we favor the freedom of a pharmacy owner to make such a decision, just as any other business owner does?

I'm not opposed to your perspective, but it's just a thought.

I don't get it.  On one post you say that you are "more libertarian than Scalia."  On this post you say indicate that you don't want pharmacies to be able to make independent decisions regarding whether they will fill prescriptions.

So much for being "libertarian."  The fundamental principle of libertarianism is the autonomy of the individual.  This means that while you can attempt to bribe or convince someone else into doing something (like filling a prescription), the government should not make you do something simply because some people think it's a good idea.  

I realize that the Left doesn't care much for the autonomy principle.  They think that the government should be allowed to shove pro-birth control values down the throats of every pharmacy in the nation, no individual autonomy allowed.

But for someone who just got through saying "I'm more libertarian......" it makes no sense.

Augustine -

Regarding politics: as we all know, we as a nation have lots of important things going on right now.  Perhaps it's time to put aside politics as a form of entertainment and/or armchair contact sport and start trying to engage the actual issues so we can solve them.

I'm not sure if your comment to me was sincere or sarcastic.  In either case, for better or worse and subject to the discretion of the editors, here I am.

Cheers -

You may have misread me.  

My position is that pharmacists should be free to work for pharmacies that do not dispense birth control pills.  That's what I meant when I wrote (above) "Or, if possible, find a pharmacy that subscribes to the particular religion to which you belong."  

I very much object, however, to a pharmacist refusing to do their job at a pharmacy that does sell birth control pills -- as well as to creating a special "right" for the pharmacist to commit insubordination.

Since two people have missed this statement, let me put it in bold.  From above:

I thus find it a bit frightening -- and, frankly, more than a little insulting -- for a pharmacist who belongs to a religion to which I do not subscribe to (a) lecture me or my wife on birth control issues or (b), if my wife were to have a prescription for birth control pills, to  refuse to fill it.  If you don't want to do your job, find a different one.  Or, if possible, find a pharmacy that subscribes to the particular religion to which you belong.  That way, we, the consumers, will at least have been forwarned to expect your dogma with our medications.

This is an endorsement of the free market system, not a rejection of it.  (Indeed, a rejection of the free market system is to pass a special bill to grant pharmacists a "right" not to sell medications that their employer stocks.)

I realize that I've used your very thoughtful post as a launching point to an off-topic rant; my apologies.

Don't be ridiculous ... there's absolutely no need to apologize. :) But I think you miss the point as to why we're pushing for such a law as this.

Why should a pharmacist be forced to fill a prescription that he finds offensive to his beliefs (religious or non-religious)? Of course, this could lead to ridiculous extremes, i.e. refusing to fill a prescription for Viagra because it offends Gaia or because the pharmacist hates Pfizer(?).

But the crazies would soon be weeded out. After all, you have a right to choose another pharmacist who has no qualms about filling any prescription whatsoever. You'd soon know that Pharmacy A is the place to go for your birth control pills while Pharmacy B has the best supply of Lamictal but doesn't fill birth control prescriptions.

In other words, the market would sort it out.

But what I really find interesting is that you apparently feel that someone simply telling you that he cannot fill birth control prescriptions is "lecturing" you or "imposing" his religion (why must religion always be the reason) on you. I don't think so. If so, isn't forcing him to fill lecturing and imposing your beliefs on him?

After all, you have a right to choose another pharmacist who has no qualms about filling any prescription whatsoever. You'd soon know that Pharmacy A is the place to go for your birth control pills while Pharmacy B has the best supply of Lamictal but doesn't fill birth control prescriptions.

Let's pass for the moment the potential for abuse, which you note (and which I think you dismiss too quickly).

I have a problem with the government telling an employer that he or she must employ someone who has an ethical objection to a legal business practice.  If you don't want to work in a pharmacy that stocks birth control pills, don't work in the pharmacy.  But it is a huge government overreach to tell a particular pharmacy that you must employ person X, even though they are refusing to dispense the medications that your store provides.

It is incumbant on the pharmacist to find a job that he or she is willing to do.  As I've indicated, if this means finding a job at a pharmacy that doesn't stock birth control pills, go for it.  But there should be no "special right" to refuse to do your job.

von

It is incumbant on the pharmacist to find a job that he or she is willing to do.  As I've indicated, if this means finding a job at a pharmacy that doesn't stock birth control pills, go for it.  But there should be no "special right" to refuse to do your job.

On this you and I both agree ... I guess I am probably not as conversant with this proposed law as I thought.

they were foolish and definitely opportunistic, to my mind. But it is the height of stupidity (not referring to you) to claim he was expressing sympathy for judge-killers or he was making some sort of threat toward judges who substitute Jamaican case law for the American Constitution.

So I see no reason to "disavow" them anymore than I would disavow anything stupid a friend of mine of says just because he's a friend of mine.

PS: I like Cornyn. He may have been dumb as a post in this here instance but he's a very smart man.

But what I really find interesting is that you apparently feel that someone simply telling you that he cannot fill birth control prescriptions is "lecturing" you or "imposing" his religion

Consider the following:  I (or my wife) goes to a pharmacy to pick up birth control pills; or condoms; or the patch; or a sponge -- any of which are prohibited by certain religions.  Yet, each of these birth control methods are legal, on sale at the store, and absolutely in accord with my religious beliefs.  I go to the check out line or counter, and the pharmacist or clerk refuses to sell the item to me.  "I'm sorry," he or she says, "but my religion prohibits me from selling this particular birth control method [or any  birth control method, save a calendar]."  I explain that my religion does not prohibit whatever birth control method is in my hand, but the clerk is adamant.  "No, I'm sorry, I know they're for sale, I know they're in my employer's store, I know they're legal, and I know they're not against your religion, but my personal religious beliefs are more important.  I will not sell them to you.  You're free to come back in six hours, however, when my shift ends and I'm replaced by someone with a different religion."

Now, I don't begrudge this person their views.  Indeed, if anything, I respect their conviction.  But all I want to do is purchase the pill/condom/sponge/etc. that's in my hand.  Instead, I'm being refused service.  I'm being told that my religious beliefs must be subordinated to the specific religious objections of the clerk or pharmacist.  That, to me, is a lecture -- and one that I didn't ask for.  (Granted, the impolite aspects of the lecture -- e.g., you're sinning by purchasing product X -- are left unstated.  But they are there nonetheless.)  

Let me spell it out for you:

1)Politicians must appeal to the masses - the lowest common demoninator.  You don't get ahead by writing large pamphlets on your policy proposals.  You get ahead by doing your best to avoid answering questions about what you intend to do.  Instead you promote your image.

2. Slime your opponent.  Take his words out of context.  Take any stupid thing he might say and spread it everywhere and make sure your interpretation of his stupid remark is the one that enters public consciousness.
   
3. Democrats, realizing they brought a knife to a gun fight in 2004, are pulling out the artillery.  Don't complain.  It's what the right has been doing for years.

If I understand the issue, the Governor of Illinois may have gone to the other extreme and passed an executive order requiring pharmacists to dispense birth control pills, which may include pharmacists working for pharmacies that would otherwise refuse to stock such pills on principle.  Admittedly, I could be wrong about the Governor's order, but, if I'm not, I'd find it just as objectionable as the "conscientious objector" bill that's winding its way through (for instance) the Michigan legislature.  

minimizing the damage that these kinds of comments can do, even though I agree that the comments themselves in isolation were largely harmless. And you seem to be in denial about the rise in this type of rhetoric - and how widespread it is getting play via repetition.

In the case of a pharmacist refusing to sell an item in stock what would the law say about simply walking out with the item, promising to pay next time you are in the store?

How will the law balance the States right to prosecute shoplifting with the individual right against discrimination for religeous or other reasons?

You haven't taken the item with the intention of not paying, rather the pharmacist has refused to accept payment.  Is there not a paralel with the 'lunchcounter' situation in the old south? in which blacks were discriminated against as consumers on the basis of their color?

I may not be the biggest fan of Pat Robertson out there, but unless you're positing that he's running a Wahabbi Theocracy with effective state control over a large geographic area in which women must be covered head to toe and in which they build walls simply to drop them on gays, you're so far over the line that you can't even see the line anymore, it's now just a myth told around the campfires at night.

In other words, cut the American Talibam garbage. We tolerate opposition voices of good will. Yours, so far, is not.

As to the rest, it is the nature of politicians to engage in hyperbole. All we have to do is yank up choice quotes from Democrat Senators during, oh, any confirmation hearing of the last five years, and we can see in slow motion why the Democrats are the minority party in this country (hint: It's not because they were respectful of the other 51% of the population).

Go to another pharmacy.

No, there is no parallel, largely because this is private, not state action, at work. And were there such a thing, which there is not, it is noteworthy that those folks didn't take food and promise to come back later and pay.

Although, as I mentioned, I would (a) tell said pharmacist off (I'm only human) and (b) complain to the owner of the pharmacy, and (c) spread the word about this pharmacy and pharmacist, with the goal of resolving the situation in a positive manner (if this includes getting the pharmacist fired for insubordination, so be it).

To de-legitimize the independent judiciary itself, and the rule of law.

I am sure the GOP's dislike of the judiciary began as genuine and justified anger about either the lousy constitutional reasoning behind, or the human costs of, the decisions of the Warren Court. There are some decisions conservatives had every reason to be angry about on both levels, like Roe v. Wade.

There are also some decisions, like Brown v. Bd. of Ed., which were not well argued at all but whose results were entirely correct, legally and morally. Those also sparked a lot of hostility to the judiciary, and for whatever reason most of the people and parts of the country that were angriest about that are now in the Republican party. I think an overwhelming number of them now support the outcome of Brown on both a moral and legal level, but I think the hostility and distrust towards the judiciary remains.

There are also plenty of decisions whose legal arguments are excellent, and where the law pretty clearly required the judges to act as they did, but the G.O.P. rejects because it disagrees with the outcome.

The anger about Roe is, as I said, quite justified in my opinion. If I were on the Supreme Court I would vote to overturn it. If I were in the Senate I would not make it a litmus test in voting for nominees--though unfortunately any nominee who wanted to overturn Roe would almost certainly also cross lines that I do consider litmus tests.

But it has gotten loose from its moorings and become a generalized hatred and distrust of the judiciary that has little to do with the legal reasoning of decisions, or their evaluation of the facts. It has gotten to a point where the aim seems to be to delegitimize the judiciary in general.

I don't think Tom DeLay or John Cornyn has any intention of murdering judges or inciting others to do so. But they are playing a dangerous game here, and I think they are playing it because they want to either intimidate judges into doing what they want, or, failing this, to openly defy inconvenient rulings of the courts in an act of alleged civil disobedience. A "Justice Marshall has made his decision, now let us see him enforce it" moment, or a George Wallace stand in the school house door.

If that it is not their intent, it may still be their effect. This is a dangerous game to be playing.

At a time when:

--the Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House

--they are seeking to end the filibuster in the Senate

--they have made major changes in the House rules to marginalize not only Democrats but moderate Republicans

--the House has been gerrymandered enough to protect incumbents in general and Republican control in particular & is being gerrymandered more now, so that even if a majority of the public opposes their policies it is fairly implausible that the Democrats will retake the House in 2006.

--the large cities that are the heart of the Democrats' constituency are in the states that are most underrepresented in the Senate; the rural areas that are the heart of the Republicans' constituency are in the states that are most overrepresented in the Senate, so it is fairly implausible that the Democrats will retake the Senate in 2006 even if that is what the voters want. (As I've noted before, the Democratic Senators got more votes in the last election than the Republican Senators and still lost five seats. That might have been fluke-y; you don't usually have such lopsided races in California AND New York AND Illinois. But if we can get more votes and lose five seats, we can't count on gaining six seats in unless we get a lot, a lot more votes, and given the increasing polarization of the country I think this is unrealistic.)

--the Democratic caucus has been badly led for so long that their party discipline is atrocious, and while the Senate leadership shows signs of getting its act together the habit has proved very very hard to break.

--the Bush administration has successfully convinced a large % of the public that their press releases, Fox News, and talk radio are more trustworthy sources of fact than the Washington Post or the New York Times or PBS or even (this is true; there are surveys to prove it) C-Span.

--The mainstream media does a really really really lousy job of informing the public.  

--There is an effort to pass laws that attempt to force state-run universities to conform to party orthodoxy, and to de-legitimize private universities, like judges and the press, as "liberal elites out of touch with mainstream America" in the eyes of the public.

--Huge % of scientists working for the Agencies and other civil service employees have said that they are afraid of losing their jobs if they make factual determinations that the administration does not like, and have changed not only their actions but their factual findings accordingly.

--It is routine for Republicans to either directly say or insinuate that Democrats are guilty of or close to guilty of treason, murder, hate America, etc.

--There are serious attempts to limit the rights of unpopular minorities (i.e. gay people, Muslims).

--The administration has taken the position that it can indefinitely detain American citizens on American soil without charge or trial.

--The administration has argued that torture of prisoners is legal under some circumstances.

--Members of the administration have argued that not only is it legal for the President to allow torture, but it unconstitutional for Congress to order him not to torture, and he would be justified in disobeying such a law.  

--There have been numerous, credible, accusations of torture. There are many documents showing that the administration turned a blind eye to torture, or authorized policies that would forseeably and inevitably lead to torture. There has not been and will not be an independent investigation of this.

--The only effective check on the President's claims of unlimited executive power have been the federal courts--starting, but not ending, with the Supreme Court's decisions in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush.

--Again, we are at war. As the President's advisors themselves have recognized, this is a struggle of ideologies and  for hearts and minds rather than of conventional military force. If we go off the rails in our treatment of Muslims, I think it could have disastrous effects on the outcome of this war.

--We have fortunately gone longer than I thought without a terrorist attack on U.S. soil, but the possibility remains. A nuclear attack or biological attack is unlikely, but not impossible and not implausible. A chemical or radiological attack are even more plausible. All of these sorts of attacks would probably lead to the public rallying around the President & accepting far greater restrictions on civil liberties. This will be true even if the President's policies actually did more to contribute to the attack than to stop it--it will not be possible to prove that e.g. the President's neglect of A.Q. Khan's black market made this possible, or that the rise of Zarqawi's network because of the Iraq war was a but-for cause of this attack, or that Abu Ghraib helped make it more likely. Even if the arguments are true, we will not know they are true, and people who make these arguments will be accused of blaming Bush and not the terrorists, and the public will probably buy this whether it's true or not.

I don't go in for stupid Nazi analogies. I have pointed out plenty of times that not only have Bush's abuses of power not compared to Hitler's, but that as far as U.S. citizens go they do not compare to FDR or Woodrow Wilson's. But just because things have turned out all right in the past (assuming you accept the internment camps as turning out all right, which I don't) does not mean that they will turn out all right in the future--our country has been extraordinary lucky, and one day that luck may run out.

One of the best means I have had of preventing liberals, myself included, from getting stupid and hysterical and paranoid has been to point out: the courts have been truly courageous in defending the Constitution and the laws in general. And while they have attempted to evade the courts' decisions in every way imaginable, and make ridiculous legal arguments in justification of blatantly illegal acts until they get a final court order to stop--when the courts have given a clear order to stop, the administration has stopped. That is an important line that has not yet been crossed.

If and when it gets crossed, that's when I go from concerned but thinking I'm probably overreacting, to genuinely scared.

p.s. I realize I didn't express myself as clearly as I might have, but if you're going to call me stupid I would politely request that you actually:

--just come out and call me stupid

--or figure out a way to do so that would comply fully with Roberts Rules of Order. (Not the posting rules, Roberts Rules of Order, preferably the version they use in the English Parliament. There's a lot to be said to find creative ways insult people while following formal limits, but it's too easy with the posting rules; I think you guys need to really challenge yourselves. Whatever rules they use in the British Parliament would actually be better; Question Time is way more entertaining than the U.S. House.)

The pharmacist is acting out his perceived 'right' to religious freedom and "free exercise thereof", the customer is acting out their own right not to be discriminated against by the pharmacist.  If the pharmacist refused to sell because the customer were black the case would not even be in dispute.

just to be crystal clear, what I'm genuinely scared of is not Nazi Germany. As anyone with any knowledge of history knows, there are all sorts of governments, that are not even close to as bad as Nazi Germany, but which are quite bad enough and which would be a total betrayal of this country's traditions. Most governments in the world today, and actually in human history fall into this category. So do many moments in America's past, for that matter--there are darker periods in our history that I thought we had left behind forever and I could not ever accept our going back to. This is part of why I find the stupid "Bush-tler" stuff so annoying: it betrays a total ignorance of U.S. history and of the current state of the world.

But could we please take the birth control/pharmacy discussion to the diaries? It's not germane in this thread at all.

The right to freedom of religion is not a matter of perception, my dear bluestate.

Second, and I'm somewhat amazed that I have to spell this out; the pharmacist is not discriminating because he/she is not selling the product to ANYONE.

In other words, his/her problem is not that the customer is not of a specific race, creed, sexual orientation, sex, etc. The pharmacist's problem is with the product itself.

Your analogy is monstrously flawed.

Capiche?

PS: Do you usually try to tie stuff up with race?

But, the racial discrimination angle doesn't fly.  The pharmacist here isn't discriminating based on any class or association s/he assumes the patient to be in.  Rather s/he is discriminating based on their personal feelings about the drug itself.  

I assume that it would make no difference to the Pharmacist what race or religion the patient seemed to be.  

The reason Lawrence v. Texas shot down the Texas sodomy laws is not because Texas can't prohibit certain sexual acts.  It was because they couldn't prohibit certain sexual acts among some groups and yet allow the same acts by other (less gay) groups.  This is a good analogy to the above.

Good Luck

Oh well ... at least this means goodbye to "nuance" ...

Bring it on ...

But remember, as you just said, we know how to get things to enter the public consciousness (how Marxist does that sound, by the way?).

Are you sure you really want to fight people who know how to do the Jedi Mind Trick on such a grand scale?

On this thread. They'll be deleted from here out.

This is particularly bizarre for me.  First, it's bizarre that I'm actually about to make an on-topic comment on this thread (apologies again for my prior diversion.)  

Second, my comment is going to be the following:  Katherine is pretty much right.  On all of it.  (Hopefully, Katherine was sitting down at the time she read that.)  

Trevino is absolutely right to note that there's been some hysteria from lefty bloggers on Cornyn's comments.  We should hoot and deride the Bushhitler folks, and those willing to proclaim that Cornyn is some kind of latter-day fascist.  But that does not mean that we shouldn't be demanding that Cornyn -- a lawyer and Senator -- get a free pass for a comment this utterly idiotic.  Two wrongs do not make a right.  

I'm not actually much in disagreement with Trevino either, then.  Indeed, Trevino is not guilty of failing to hold Cornyn to account.  To the contrary.  And Cornyn did not endorse violence against judges; rather, fairly read, he seems to have been attempting to say the ultimate.  (Albeit in a twisted and bizarre way.)  But I don't want Trevino's point to be lost in the rush to defend Cornyn for a statement that is indefensible.

On the broader issue:  the increasing anti-Judge rhetoric that's coming from some members of the Republic party -- rhetoric that, by the bye, has been mostly directed at decisions by conservative judges -- is something that is not healthy to our country.  Yes, we've seen worse (See, e.g., FDR; Jackson).  But that's no reason to pay this latest rash of idiocy and intemperance no mind.  Indeed, beware the person who tells you not to mind the fact that the sewer's backed upon and there's crap in your basement -- because, after all, there was so much more crap in your basement the last time it happened.  

And you may not even believe this, KatherineR, but I'm personally glad to see that you came back to post again on RedState instead of selecting yourself out of the discussions by deliberately violating the posting rules as you deliberately did a couple of weeks ago.  As much as I disagree with some of the points you make here, (not all of them, and even for some of the ones that I do disagree with I think I can understand, at least, why some of them cause you to be so concerned) I'm happy to have you around to make them.  

So, I will dispute a lot of the evidence that you present here, but I'll give you this credit:  the post was very well-done, if for no other reason than it's going to force me to thoroughly rebut it in a diary entry.  A few of the things you write do give me pause also, and have for quite a while.  I'll just start by saying that the "breakdown in the rule of law" argument is a very old meme, especially among legal academics, that dates back to the adoption of the Patriot Act, and it has had a long time to ripen and accumulate "evidence" supporting the alleged "breakdown."

I've saved this post and I'll do my best to rebut it thoughtfully, soon.  Most of the things you make reference to are not transient concerns, I take it, so please forgive me if it takes a couple of days.

From not knowing who you're referring to here - the pharmacist or the consumer.

a Chomsky lie so I could think of, uhum, other connections to make rather than to the unaccountability of police officers.  

Patty Murray would make for a better comparison and if I cared more I'd search the noted blogs in the OP to see their reactions to that speech and likewise here and other right blogs.  But I don't.

Masterful post.

- TK

Between the rhetoric of politicians and acts of political violence?  It is incredibly hard to do.  Even Matt Hale couldn't get nabbed for Benjamin Smith's murder rampage.  But that didn't mean that the two weren't connected in some way.  After all, what about all that rhetoric from the right about "providing aid and comfort for the enemy" when it comes to anti-American talk from the likes of Ward Churchill?  If the reason any of you despise Ward Churchill and his kind is that you honestly believe they share responsibility in acts of violence against Americans, then you have to admit some connection between the vicious statements from Cornyn and Delay and others regarding the judiciary and any future acts of violence against judges and their families.

If I were on the right I would be praying right now that no more judges are murdered, especially for political reasons.  Consider what comments could be brought out immediately afterwards:  Falwell telling his followers to pray for the LORD our GOD to kill the supreme court in light of the sodomy ruling, or William Kristol using words like "revolution" and "rise up against our robed masters" in regards to the Schiavo case and man many more.  How will those comments look dragged out into the light once a federal judge gets a sniper round in the forehead while pumping gas on the way home?  

Either you hold no one accountable for their words in terms of the violence that may ensue, on the right or the left, or you do.  So you condemn the anti-American left, so must you also condemn the anti-Law and Order right.