Redstate

Just after law school, I got my free year of membership in the American Bar Association. The very first ABA Journal I received had a message from the president of the ABA. This was in 1993, mind you. He wrote that racial relations were worse at that time than at any point in his entire life (and he was born in the 20s or 30s). So he was saying that racial relations in 1993 were worse than the 20s through the 60s (when legalized segregation and discrimination was spread throughout the country, both north and south). Was worse in 1993 than any time in the 20th century prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Was wore in 1993 than when race riots were a fixture in Los Angeles and throughout the south. Was worse in 1993 than when racist cops turned fire hoses on peaceful protesters. Was worse in 1993 than when lynch mobs, when prosecuted at all, were prosecuted in front of an all-white jury who quickly exonerated the accused, with a wink and a grin.

I decided that I would never in my life pay dues to an organization who would elect a man as stupid as that as their president.

I don't like political hyperbole in any form, by either side. Pat Robertson has said many things like this before, and it's one of the many reasons I pay little attention to him in politics. And it's why he had such a dismal showing the one time he actually put himself on the ballot and tried to get elected President.

One of my deepest reasons for consistently voting Republican is to put less political judges on the bench, judges who want to apply the law, not make it. More than anything else in politics right now, I want President Bush to succeed with his judicial appointments in the face of blatant Democratic obstructionism. But over-the-top rhetorical bomb throwing like this (and like much of what DeLay has said recently about the judiciary) doesn't help us get there. In fact, it hurts our cause by making it look like we're not opposed to judicial activism per se, just liberal judicial activisim.

fighting al qaeda...The threat from al qaeda is way overhyped to increase our taxes while we get nothing for it...meanwhile our soldiers get killed in Iraq by 3rd world enemies at a steady rate so that it is no longer news when they die...

Not worth my time to give a thoughtful response.  You're not hear in good faith.  Pity.

Nutbag, wack job, theologically vile, camera whore, and communist sympathizer.

Yep, toast him.

LFLFjmPNr, Shark.  Shark, LFLFjmPNr.

to give that Pat Robertson a swift kick in the butt. He sure as heck needs it.

(And man I wish I could have written this comment without that huge "Profanity is not tolerated" warning staring me in the face, I'd have been a lot more interesting :))

Like a little cartoonish angel on your shoulder countering the little devil in all of us.

...is a wonderful argument for bringing back the fine punishment of drawing and quartering that they had in Merrie Olde England.

I'd pay to see that! Or at the very least, make sure that the Rev. Pat Robertson is abducted by Alien Greys. You know, the ones who abducted Elvis?

The ones who do the painful rectal examinations?

In a funny kind of way Pat is correct. Most of our pressing problems are created right here; locally. And they are the result of a lazy electorate, stupid politicians and neglectful press.

The sad thing is most of these "major problems" are easily solvable with just a small amount of will. Everything we need to fix the judiciary is in the constitution, we only need act. Yes, Al Qaeda is a threat but most of our wounds are self inflicted.  

On the other hand what an absolutely stupid way to make the point, Al Qaeda is the ultimate bogyman of our time. To mention them in any context other to condemn them is truly stupidity.  

So does this make Pat an American Mula ? Wonder how he'd look in one of those robe and Turban outfits.  

What's he going to come out with next, the American version of "The Authority for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vices" aka the Morality Police from Saudi?

Snarkingly

"Theologically vile," "Nutbag," "The American Mulla???"

The hyperbolic attacks coming from this thread resemble something that would come out of MoveOn.org.  If you are going to make a point, try to be more thoughtful about it.

Obviously, Robertson sees the cultural decay in American as a greater threat than the attacks from Al Qaeda.  You may disagree with him, but his position certainly is not unreasonable.  

Some believe that it was not Atilla who ultimately took down Rome, but rather Rome's own internal decay that made it unable to fight for survival.

Robertson does not belong in a "turban" for having this concern for America.  He may not be the most tactful about articulating his views, but he doesn't deserve the vitriol that you are spewing at him, either.

Some of the reasons given for being charitable toward Pat Robertson are legitimate enough, but there is one reason why he is deserving of the "vitriol" he is receiving here:

After a failed Presidential campaign and a long career of verbal gaffes whenever he enters the political fray, Pat Robertson should know better.  True, he is entitled to voice his opinion, and the "horrible" things he says often aren't nearly as reprehensible as those of his secular, liberal counterparts, but by now, he should know full well how his opinions are going to reflect upon the Republican Party.

It's up to us to make sure the Party continues to keep him on the fringes, because he sure isn't the reason I joined up.

I'll distinguish this from defending Robertson as a person, which I'm neither inclined nor disinclined to do. He doesn't really speak for me on anything. But proceeding from an a priori assumption that Mr. Robertson's views are false, not because they are actually extremist, but because they appear to be extremist, is quite frankly beneath what I expect of RedState. I might also add that some of the commentary in this thread is of decidedly lower quality than what I have come to expect of the posters who have made it.

Are Robertson's comments not worth at least a rational consideration? Isn't it fairly reasonable that a case can be made that we are really not in significant danger of being militarily overrun by the United Arab Emirates within the next thirty years, but we are in danger of losing the moral and political will to defend our society from within?

To dismiss Robertson as extremist or alarmist is to dismiss the numerous, and very real historical parallels between this time in history and pax Romana. Sure, Rome was overrun by barbarian hordes, but that never would have happened if Roman society had not first decayed both in moral character and nationalist sentiment from the inside out. That's not my analysis of the situation, that's Gibbon's - and he was hardly what you'd call a member of the "religious right".

Now, you might disagree that Robertson's concern is valid, and you might care nothing for him as a public persona or spokesman (I don't care, he's not mine). But this vile reactionary rhetoric to what is at least a perfectly debatable point, simply because we are all afraid of how we will be perceived for being associated with it, is more than a little frightening to me.

Let's throw Robertson under a bus, and label him extremist, and in so doing we'll avoid having to discuss whether what he says actually has merit? No thanks, I'll pass. FWIW, I've always considered that the most incoherent ramblings of Michael Moore and Atrios are worth our time hearing and considering - because if we can't answer the opposition, it's a fairly safe indicator that our position was never too strong to begin with.

1 Peter 3:15

always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear

NKJV

MachoNachos

It had to be that for Pat Robertson to teeter over one of his "Lord, What Is This World Coming To?" brinks like this.  Hearing such a nice, quiet, supportive, husband-honoring-and-obeying, god-fearing, churchgoing lady like Laura joke about trips to Chippendales, milking a male horse, and watching Desparate Housewives with Lynne Cheney must have turned all of Pat's knobs past 11, and pegged all the needles on his End Times Proximity Meter.  He couldn't really blame Laura, that would be impolitic, so it had to be the judges (like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Day O'Connor, who were already at Chippendales in the First Lady's routine) who have ripped the bodice fabric of our civilization to the point that Laura Bush is talking like the Whore of Babylon.

It's gotta be a little disconcerting that the President and his wife occasionally tell dirty jokes, and more -- they apparently think they're funny in certain circumstances!  I'm SHOCKED!  

Don't I wish it was that simple (sigh.)  But Robertson likes to play these games on a pseudorandom basis (but usually when there's a really big issue hovering around in the air, like judges are right now.)  A significant portion of his followers hear stuff like that, pound their fists on the table and say, "Amen!" -- Pat knows what he has to say to keep his audience riveted, and so he occasionally makes these "swing for the bleachers" statements just to keep his audience interested in him.  After all, he's got a whole team of people who keep their fingers on the pulse of his acolytes in one way or another -- just like everybody else does who has a cult of personality to maintain.  

It's just good business.

in your deepest heart fear more - that in 50 years we will all be speaking Farsi, or that in 50 years, we will be instinguishable from France (in every aspect)? Which is honestly the more legitimate concern?

MachoNachos

OK, so Pat is just the king of the Moon Bat club, Right Wing division. I guess that makes George Soros the king of the Left Wing division.

For the most part, extremism from either division turns off the electorate, no matter what the underlying truth.

Pat -

Are you aware of the positions of Janice Rodgers Brown, one of the Bush's filibustered nominees?

Here's Stuart Taylor in National Journal

Here's Ramesh Ponnru in National Review

Why they all fear that in 50 years they'll be speaking English.  Not that an enormous and muscular American military presence in their region should really give them any cause to think that way.

the opinions and beliefs of others, it's another fairly safe sign that your own position lacks strength.

Let me see if I can syllogize your basic argument:

Premise 1: Pat Robertson is the ideological opposite of George Soros

Premise 2: Everyone knows that George Soros is an extremist

Therefore: What Pat Robertson said about judges and Al Qaeda is false.

Somewhere, Thomas Aquinas is crying.

MachoNachos

Perhaps if the Democrats would actually focus on debate rather than obstructionism for obstructionism sake, then there could be an actual debate on the merits of these judges. If Taylor's summary is accurate, I suspect that the Democrats could get 4 or 5 Republicans to join in opposing her.

But by lumping all 10 nominees together, and making the case about labels rather than facts, they've caused a lot of people to just shut them out.

I do think that Robertson was wrong on at least two counts - I think that both Japanese agression in World War II and the Civil War were greater threats to the sustenance of our nation than the current judicial situation. But I think that in the main thrust of his argument, that Al Qaeda is less of a threat, he is spot on.

But I would like to re-iterate that the main point I am trying to make is not the correctness or incorrectness of his assertion, it is rather the blase dismissal of it as extremist, and ad hominem attacking of the argument by arguing against Robertson that has me so irate right now.

I really didn't appreciate, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when Michael Moore basically wrote that we got what was coming to us, how many conservatives merely repeated his position and argued against it solely by crying out "extremist!" Extremist doesn't necessarily mean false. Please remember that at one time in our history, the "extremist" position on slavery was that it should be outlawed in each and every single state, by the force of arms if necessary. If Michael Moore was wrong (and he was), then his position should have been argued against on its factual basis, rather than on its basis as "extreme", or even worse, argued against simply because Michael Moore said it.

If someone wants to make the case to me that a Jihadist with an RPG (he doesn't possess the technical expertise to make the RPG, you understand, but he can purchase it through drug trafficking and thuggery) - if someone can make the case that he is somehow more dangerous to the safety and security of our citizens than a judge who can, by fiat order, sanction the legal murder of 40 million of our citizens, then be my guest. To me, the argument that says:

Premise 1: Pat Robertson said A

Premise 2: Pat Robertson is an extremist OR

Premise 2: Position A is extremist

Therefore: Position A is false

Holds zero water.

And as for whether it turns off the voter base - I maintain that this kind of argument should not be used, ever, even when it turns on the voter base. For instance, I'm opposed to gay marriage, for what I think are very real policy objective issues (it's not within the purview of this discussion to get into them here). But I fully recognize the fact that a lot of opportunistic politicians in the last election gained some traction by playing on the uneducated voter's perception of the support of gay marriage as "extremist". I didn't support that, and I don't support this.

MachoNachos

It's always the enemy within in a civilization which is the greatest threat. Judicial activism corrupts the very fabric of our fundamental institutions, framework, and principles. But Pat has foot in mouth disease, and says things too bluntly, or simply for most people to take seriously.

It works when you're preaching to the choir, but fails when it gets out to the so-called moderates or Center which regard blunt speaking as inflammatory and extreme.

The center or the moderates are always looking for a way to avoid conflict and action and regard harsh words as fomenting divisiveness. It's the same before a run-up to any major war or movement.

I'd remind you that it was the hotheads, the nutballs, and extremists who created this country in 1776. Give me Liberty or Death? Please. That's first order pyschosis talkin' there.

Reagan's speech for Goldwater -- again nutball territory. Christ vs. the moneylenders -- insanity!

You see, the things that some few people take very seriously scare the heck out of all the rest. Mostly because such people are insane (see Mohammed and Islam etc). But there are some causes that can only be won by or defended by fanatics like America or the Catholic Church.

So I am thankful for Pat Robertson. He isn't afraid to have so many lesser and cowardly folks call him nuts.

I worry that a nuclear device or WMD will be smuggled into the country and detonated by a non-state terrorist organization named Al Queda or structured similarly.

Your post above is well reasoned.  I believe Robertson's naive position is wrong (and the Rome-inspired comparisons) for many reasons.  The most apparent one is that we are facing a non-state actor set on our destruction.  The resultant asymmetrical warfare is unlike anything Rome could have contemplated.  Furthermore, the empowering of the individual by the internet and other technological advances allows small groups of people to wield large amounts of power formerly reserved for nation-states.  This isn't about the invasion of an Arab state.  It's about endless WTC attacks and the resultant curtailing of freedom that will ensue.  An Israelization of America.

There are only 7 nominees at this point.  President Bush, for whatever reason, has not yet re-nominated the other 3 nominees.

I agree with you on your point.  I'd like to see the Democrats float a few names of people that they would be willing to confirm for these judicial appointments.  They can't keep playing the obstruction card forever.

And my point, in the face of it is quite simply this: a strong America survives in the face even of continued WTC style attacks. Your example of a country that goes through this on a regular basis was Israel. We might rightly point out that Israel has stood in the face of these attacks for more than 50 years, and yet still stands. Their economy is still the envy of the region (which is probably part of the reason they are so hated).

The reason for that is that the Israelis have a strong sense of national identity and pride which unifies them as a people, and allows them to nonetheless thrive. A secondary reason is that their political leaders (until recently) have shown the will to do the things necessary to display resilience (if nothing else) to the enemy.

I'm not naive to the possibility of a WMD detonation upon our own soil. I'm not trying to sound calloused about the potential destruction that could cause. But what I am doing is two things:

1. Weighing the potential for a large-scale WMD attack, with casualty estimates of approsimately 2 million for a nuclear weapon detonated over a populous U. S. city, with the actual reality of approximately 1 million abortions that occur yearly in this country with court sanctions
   
2. Recognizing that the terrorists only win if we lose the will to survive. We will only lose the will to survive if our people cease to believe that this country is different and great. The courts are doing much to erode this

MachoNachos

is our tremendous and commendable monetary support of their first-world standard of living and military.  Nothing more, nothing less.  None of this abstract "national identity and strong economy" nonsense.  I'm a practicing Jew and a big supporter of the state of Israel, but I'm still willing to call a spade a spade.  

Recognizing that the terrorists only win if we lose the will to survive. We will only lose the will to survive if our people cease to believe that this country is different and great. The courts are doing much to erode this.  The courts are doing much to erode this.

Which courts are doing this?  All of them?

but money does not create willpower. There is no doubt that we have given a great deal of financial support to Israel - but money does not erase the somewhat natural desire to retreat, capitulate, and surrender, when things get difficult. One need only look at Senator Kerry for the proof of this point.

MachoNachos

The SCOTUS bears much of the blame - for the initial decision in Roe, and cowardice in Casey (and others), they have, as Robertson said, participated in the erosion of the national consensus by declaring through judicial fiat a question of considerable debatability which ought well to be settled by the people - legislatively. I would challenge you to look through the threads on this site (and others) in the wake of the MSC decision to order gay marriage upon the Massachusetts legislature, and then for comparison's sake the threads in the wake of the Connecticut legislature's voluntary decision to sanction civil unions. You'll find an understanding of what I'm talking about.

MachoNachos

Here is the thread on the Conn. Civil Union legislation.

an Israeli military stronger than that of all of Israel's surrounding countries combined.  I'm not suggesting that this is a bad thing - it's just unfair to say that somehow Israel has survived on pluck alone.  It survives suicide bombers, wars, intifadas, and other forms of attack because it has the resources to respond.  

As for Kerry, I don't recall any retreating or surrendering or capitulating.  He just lost.  The two are not the same.  What's more, even if he had somehow done any of those things, a man and a state are entirely different sorts of actors.

To be completely frank, I don't know tonight whether to worry more that Laura Bush is making jokes like the ones she did the other night,  acting like a bawdy standup comedienne at a  comedy club to pander to the sensibilities of the Washington press, or Pat Robertson's statements.  The Washington Times article about it hinted at "self deprecation" but really her jokes were just pandering.  Sex jokes are an easy laugh in Washington, and if that's the kind of humor it now takes for the President and First Lady to seem self-deprecating, it makes me uneasy.  Especially because the entire routine was crafted by a ghost writer.  It's surreal, and although I got a chuckle when I first saw the video clip, today I feel embarrassed for the country.

"I'd like to see the Democrats float a few names of people that they would be willing to confirm for these judicial appointments."

Wouldn't they be the 95+ % who've already been confirmed?

for the President.

Would Bill have allowed Hilary to upstage him so publicly?

She generally is not into the political 'whatever of the day' but this one resonated with her.  

The fact that the president's wife was making fun of him in front of a national audience like this....

And the jokes, he's stupid, she is unsatisfied and unfulfilled, the chainsaw joke for Bush Cheney and Rumsfeld, Don Corlione....

Her reaction was that this is a woman who has expressed her feelings in private, and she is  not happy with his response, therefore she is responding by showing others that she is not "on board" and disagrees with him.

his ego was too big for that.  Besides, Hillary doesn't have a humorous bone in her body.  Face it, he was and always will be the only charming one in that couple.

Scratch, scratch

The whole purpose of that event is for politicians to poke fun at THEMSELVES and their own party. In previous years, President Bush appeared and made plenty of jokes at his own expense. That did not indicate a deep-seated self-hatred... it indicated that he understood the purpose of the event and was taking part in it in good spirits. This was not some fancy formal serious occasion where his wife suddenly got up and started telling jokes about him.

HE decided that he was tired of making jokes about himself, so he'd let his wife have some fun with it for a change. She told the same kind of jokes he had previously made about himself.

hillary's last attempt at humor

heh heh

you lefties are reading WAY too much into her teasing.  Looks like you are just trying to find something wrong with Laura.  Teresa could have said the same things and you all would have thought it was hilarious.

I'm not a leftie, (she is).  But we both agreed we thought more of her after this routine.  We did think it was hilarious.  The problem for Him is that it rings so true of leftie criticism of him and his administration.  

"...I can pronounce nuclear..."  

Good Stuff!

Maybe Laura didn't know what she was saying.

Here's a speech that President Clinton gave at the similar function for the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner.

At the 1997 White House Correspondents Dinner, President Clinton made frequent jokes about his own peccadilos, including the frequent sale of nights in the Lincoln Bedroom to the highest bidders.

And here's what President Bush himself said at last year's Radio & TV Correspondents dinner.

So all Laura's rousing performance means is that she and the President have a healthy sense of humor, don't take themselves too seriously, and can tell a good joke when the occasion warrants. Don't psychoanalyze it to death.

You're going to find a negative spin on this, no matter what. You can't accept the simple explanation that it is possible for good people to poke fun at themselves without some deep, hidden psychological meaning or ignorance.

Isn't this the 1st time a Presidents wife has addressed the WH correspondents dinner?

Knowing how scripted and contrived these events are and how strict this administration is about controlling it's message shouldn't we suspect something?  What's Karl up to?

Don Corlione?  First prize is 3 days, second prize is 10?  The President, Vice President and Secretary of Defenses response to problems is cut it down with a chainsaw?

That woman was making fun of her husbands policies.  If not, she could brighten up the line-up at Air America Radio.

If you read "Imperial Hubris", (a book by an intelligence officer who discusses, among other things, the way the Arab Street relates to the US) one thing that alarms the Arabs is that our outspoken religious leaders are so hard-core against Islam and the arab world.

The author suggests that they don't quite get that we don't listen to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells in quite the same way as they listen to their Ayatollah Sistanis.

In a sense, our howling evangelicals create their opposites on the Arab Street.

Now, Robertson wasn't the gay Teletubbie, right? That was Falwell. So, what stupid, ignorant remark did this leading religious figure in the Republican Party make? Btw, the reason Howard Dean's rhetoric has sparked absolutely no outrage outside of you Right bloggers, is because he's yet to cross the Ann Coulter line!

I'm assuming you looked for an equally offensive quote from Michael Moore, but gave up in frustration. More and more, you Right bloggers are denouncing Robertson's ilk, but it means nothing if you do nothing to challenge your party leaders for their complicity.

And, I'm confident in saying, that as for Moderate voters, the Evangelicals have already become the face of the GOP.

It's a very good point that positions labelled "extremist" don't always qualify as false.  But sometimes it seems there's a blurring between the realms of "extremist" and just plain absurd.  Robertson's comments, IMO, fall into both categories.  As do the comments of Ward Churchill, the right wing's favorite pariah (rightly so), when he compares 9/11 victims to "little Eichmans".

To say that the filibusters of 10 of Bush's 214 nominees is a greater threat to the US than a group that has killed 3000+ Americans (and is likely planning further attacks as I write this) would be laughable were it not so offensive to the families of those who lost their lives on that day.  

I'd say "extremist" is a rather euphamistic term for this point of view.  True, that does not make it false.  But maybe your point would be better made if you offered a defense of these views, rather than just a semantic defense of Robertson.

Now the Democrats are choosing which nominees will be vetted.  A far cry from "advise & consent."

Re: The author suggests that they don't quite get that we don't listen to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells in quite the same way as they listen to their Ayatollah Sistanis.

You'd think they'd realize that if we are seriously debating gay marriage and avidly watching Desperate Housewives we are not exactly in thrall to Mssrs Robertson and Falwell.

Re: The author suggests that they don't quite get that we don't listen to the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells in quite the same way as they listen to their Ayatollah Sistanis.

A rather weird argument given the fact that Rome had been an avowedly Christian state for some generations by the time Atilla and friends came on the scene. Of course Gibbon and other anti-Christians have long theorized that it Christianity that was the cultural decay. (No, I certainly do not believe that, just pointing out that the "decadent Rome" theory is pretty mooted by hard historical fact).

What was that earlier point about caricature?

Re: Sure, Rome was overrun by barbarian hordes, but that never would have happened if Roman society had not first decayed both in moral character and nationalist sentiment from the inside out. That's not my analysis of the situation, that's Gibbon's - and he was hardly what you'd call a member of the "religious right".

First, see my comments above. Gibbon's take was that Christianity "corrupted" Roman civic morality, making people mystical and squishy when they should have been patriotic and martial.

Secondly, ignore the Hollywood epics: there was no "moral decay" in Rome. In fact, morals got more not less puritanical under the Empire. Augustus after all passed laws against homosexuality, adultery, etc. and even exiled his own granddaughter for behaving like the first century AD's Paris Hilton. The ethics of the Stoics were quite puritanical, and a case can be made that Christian sexual morality owes more to these "pagans" (and to the flesh-hating Gnostics) than to Jewish precedents. The moral meshes were a bit different from ours (the good old double standard for men; and slaves were fair game for just about anything Master and Mistress wanted to do) but Rome was definitely not a Sex and Drugs and Rock-n-Roll type of place. The occasional imperial orgies and incests that Tacitus and Suetonius sputter on about were shocking precisely they outraged ancient morals, not just our own (we weren't the intended audience for their histories after all).

Next: Rome was an empire. The Romans did eventually grant citizenship to all free peoples under their rule, but we need to remember that a lot of people would have seen themselves as second class subjects not as free citizens, so it's hard to see where their patriotic spirit should have come from. It was also a tyranny, often a benevolent and enlightened one, but a dictatorial autocracy nonetheless.Civic spirit tends to suffer under such regimes even when they give good government (and Rome often did). Then too: Roman taxes were outrageous. Supply-siders would have a better case for blaming Rome's fall on confiscatory taxation, and on a quasi-corporate-socialistic economy than moralists have for blaming it on anything happening with the togas doffed.

And finally: Rome got hit by some major natural disasters, notably horrendous epidemics of (perhaps) smallpox and other diseases. Rome's weakening was due at least in part to its lack of modern medicine and the fact that its cities were much bigger and more crowded than anything the ancient world should have tried to sustain.

Re: in your deepest heart fear more - that in 50 years we will all be speaking Farsi, or that in 50 years, we will be instinguishable from France (in every aspect)?

Would it be worse to find our grandchildren eating snails and not using deodorant; or to find them bowing to Mecca and stuffing their women in chadors (and also not using deodorant)? Honestly, that's a hard choice!

Re: Weighing the potential for a large-scale WMD attack, with casualty estimates of approsimately 2 million for a nuclear weapon detonated over a populous U. S. city, with the actual reality of approximately 1 million abortions that occur yearly in this country with court sanctions

Minor quibble: a low yield nuke (about the only kind the terrorists are likely to get their hands on) would have a toll in the Hiroshima range (100K).

Major quibble: I don't think you can compare that with the abortion toll. That's apples and oranges. Like comparing the highway death toll of c 40K/yr with 9-11's 3K dead. Yes, you're more likely to die on the roadways than in a terror strike, but that doesn't mean we ignore Al Qaida and declare war on road rage. All the numbers do involve dead humans, but the phenomena are on different pages entirely.

Re: Recognizing that the terrorists only win if we lose the will to survive. We will only lose the will to survive if our people cease to believe that this country is different and great. The courts are doing much to erode this

I fail to see how anything the courts are doing erodes American will or capacity to fight back. The terror detainee cases did not exactly throw open the cell doors of Gitmo. And the Lawrence decision will not result in everyone being too busy sodomizing it up to fight our enemies. Anyone care to argue that not executing handful of teenagers somehow weakens the country? All in all, persecuting homosexuals, executing minors, and torturing prisoners strikes me as behavior that our enemies are better noted for--and America would be better off to draw some sharp lines between us and and the likes of Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar.

Oh good grief, there was nothing at all obscene in Mrs. Bush's jokes. If she had felt they were over the line I'm sure she has enough backbone in her that she would have ripped up the script. And she was in the company of adults. Surely adults can enjoy adult humor in an adult setting when all the kidlings are safely abed? Can the neo-prudery! I rather like the fact that George and Laura and Dick and Lynne are not a bunch of whey-faced, humorless dweebs!

Thanks for giving me a morning chuckle.

Oh, Hillary would definitely be the "straight man" in the Laura and Hillary Traveling Comedy Troupe.  ;)  And I won't psychoanalyze it to death any more than that.   Except to say that I think the jokes said more about the audience than the comedienne -- they always do!  And that's is my point also about Pat Robertson's line.  You'll notice that we had to parse his statements, and MachosNachos did a great job of explaining the whole thing to us blockheads ;-) presumably because most of us aren't people who "got" what Pat was saying without any further interpretation.  

Whenever that happens to me, my natural reaction is to ask:  "...What kind of person WOULD laugh at/understand/agree with that statement??" without any kind of translation?  The people who uncritically swallowed Robertson's statement about Al Qaeda and the judiciary without batting an eyelash are also probably the same people who understood exactly what he meant when he let slip his "let's nuke the State Department" line a while ago...remember that one?  I have to wonder whether he had a ghost writer for it.  ;)

To say that the filibusters of 10 of Bush's 214 nominees is a greater threat to the US than a group that has killed 3000+ Americans (and is likely planning further attacks as I write this) would be laughable were it not so offensive to the families of those who lost their lives on that day.

Robertson's point wasn't that the filibustering of nominees was destroying the country, his point was that liberal activist judges were destroying the national consensus that has held this country together.

And that is certainly, in my mind, a debatable point.

MachoNachos

That:

a. John Kerry is the richest member of the United States Senate

AND

b. He was one of the first (who initially voted for the war) to become squeamish when people actually started dying?

I don't call that caricature, I call that an example.

MachoNachos

Both what I said and what Robertson said. His point was not that Christian morality and its virtue hold this country together, his point was that the actions of the liberal judiciary are eroding the national consensus that has made this country historically strong.

And that consensus isn't a consensus on all issues, even those related to moral matters. WHat it has been consensual is this: that whatever our differences, we could hold a dialogue, and through the democratic process our voices could be heard. This made our country is exceptional, and worth fighting for. I don't know if you would find a lower percentage of the American population at any point in history that has believed that than those who do now.

Is the liberal judiciary in large part to blame for that? Are they not the central reason that a large portion of the people feel like their democratic voice has been stolen on issues of crucial importance to them (abortion being only one?)

Again, my point in this thread is that Robertson's remarks - while you might not agree with them, are certainly within the realm of reasonable debate.

And while there are certainly valid differences between Pax Americana and Pax Romana (no two situations are exactly alike), what you will find that is consistent throughout history is that no world superpower ever fell to a hostile enemy without first experiencing an erosion of national identity from within.

MachoNachos

I'm talking about his behavior during (insert any given war we've been involved in since Vietnam).

MachoNachos

I did not parse around for a Michael Moore quote.  My point (which you totally ignore) is that our elected leaders (RNC Chair and President) do not espouse hatred of others.  The Democrat's elected leader, Howard Dean, does.

And I love that you think Robertson is the "leading religious figure in the Republican party."  He has no official capacity in the party and comments like this are probably part of the reason.  Come back when you are mature enough to admit that the left is putting into power those who hate while the right is pushing them away.

"the erosion of the national consensus?"

The Roe decision was handed down more than 30 years ago.  Casey was handed down more than a dozen years ago.  If the problem is with the judicial opinion voiced in those opinions, why haven't the conservatives proposed something along the lines of a Constitutional amendment to settle the matter completely?  If that is good for stopping gay marriage, why isn't it good for stopping abortion?

As far as the Massachusetts decision, it's not relevant in this context.  The MA Supreme Court is a state entity, not a federal entity, and the issue is still being settled legislatively.  There is a proposed state constitutional amendment that is still alive in the legislature that would reverse the court's ruling.

Robertson, Frist, Falwell, DeLay, Dobson, et. al., like to lump all the courts in together when they go on the attack against the judicial branch of government, as if it made sense to lump state courts in with federal courts.  That's about as sensible as lumping Congress in with the 50 legislatures of the states.  They are different entities.  The whole nuclear option debate has no bearing on state courts at all.

I would like to know more about how Bush and Clinton's choices of appointments were informed.  Who picks the people they pick? in other words?  I know a lot of people at a law school that were quite happy with most of Clinton's choices, and so was Nan Aron at the time.  In fact, she made a statement to the San Francisco examiner that a President has a DUTY to appoint judges who reflect his views.  Now that Bush is in office, of course, that's just heresy.  

I don't know whether there is any such thing as a "national consensus" in the judicial sense.  Has this problem ever really been any better?  Is it that the elites are moving further away from the center in both the Democratic and Republican parties?   I think the latter is closer to the truth -- yesterday Jay Cost eloquently described who the people were that made it possible for Howard Dean to become chair of the DNC:  something like 13% of the country, the activist wing of the Democratic party.  My experiences with activist law school deans taught me that some of them are very happy when that minority gets its way.  So it's not just the judges -- it's a systemic problem all the way through the legal system from academia to the ABA and the people who ultimately do the winnowing and select the candidates for these judicial appointments.

And I can tell you unequivocally that that 13% believes they're right.

Dunno if that excuses you for trollish behavior, but calling for the "quartering" or "violation" of a man , whom we both vehmently disagree with, is, imho, inappropriate.

I want Michael Moore ridiculed, not torn to pieces...

to Aleks311 below - it's not a consensus on issues, per se - but rather on the way that issues are resolved, and on the exceptional nature of this country. If Americans quit believing America is great (and the surest path to that is making them believe they have no say in how it is run), then Americans will have in large part lost the will to fight for their country (either in the ideological or military sense). And that is the only circumstance in which Al Qaeda poses any real threat to our national existence.

MachoNachos

The question is...would the eventual disintegration of American culture and ideals...the very things that defeated Nazism, communism, despotism, Al Qaeda, etc. be the greatest danger?  I think so...so in that respect, I agree with Mr. Robertson.  While I don't think that the udiciary is a mortal threat to anyone (except maybe Terri Schiavo)...the consequences of the extra-constitutional behavior could have devastating effects on the only thing that keeps Al Qaeda, Nazism, communism etc. at bay.

Re: While I don't think that the judiciary is a mortal threat to anyone (except maybe Terri Schiavo)...the consequences of the extra-constitutional behavior could have devastating effects on the only thing that keeps Al Qaeda, Nazism, communism etc. at bay.

The judiciary are part and parcel of the federal government and always have been. Certainly they make bad decisions. So does Congress. So do our presidents. But unless those decisions are spectacularly bad to a degree seldom seen in human affairs, I fail to see how they damage the country to an extent that endangers us. In that regard the presidency is probably the most dangerous office with the greatest capacity to commit lethal mistakes, followed by Congress, with its ability to enact specatcularly stupid laws. But the Courts? To begin with their power is entirely negative. They can strike down laws but not create them. And most of the stuff they deal with is legal technicalities, all of it quite small potatoes in the larger scheme of things.

Your screenname, while it may be accurate, is not acceptable here at RS.  Please re-register with a new screenname if you wish to continue commenting.

The Constitutional Amendment related to abortion has been introduced dozens of times.  It doesn't make headlines because there are about zero pro-lifers in the MSM.  

1975: Rep. John D. Dingell, Jr. (D-MI)

Those were the days.

So where are these proposals now?  Fox would certainly trumpet it, O'Reilly and Limbaugh would run it 24/7, Coulter and Hannity would write long books about it, Cal Thomas and Bob Novak would be talking it up on the editorial pages, James Dobson would be printing church pamphlets, the national right to life folks would be stumping precincts, the whole system would mobilize.  If the MSM is so determinedly pro-choice, they would counter with pro-choice stuff, and it would fill the airwaves.  I don't buy your line at all, Doverspa.

I think the amendment issue doesn't come up because the pro-life votes aren't as solid as we sometimes think they are, and that Republicans fear electoral repurcussions.  But that's a great question.  If this is the holocaust, are you telling me the Republican leadership doesn't even have the stones to offer a Constitutional amendment, despite the fact it would be doomed to failure?  Why not?  Wouldn't that be the proverbial line in the sand?  If this is mass murder, is offering an amendment too much to ask?

Re: minor quibble:  So, are you saying that only a few hundred-thousand dead Americans wouldn't bother you too much?

Re: major quibble:  Traffic deaths are caused by ACCIDENTS, a small flaw in your attempt to minimize the deadly impact of abortion.  Children are not aborted by accident, even in post-Roe America.

Re: "I fail to see how anything the courts are doing erodes American will or capacity to fight back.":  Then you really must not be paying attention.  It's called learned helplessness.  When Americans see decision after momentous decision taken out of their hands and decided by a gang of black-robed, unelected, unaccountable, ideologically dogmatic lawyers...well, the demoralization factor is not hard to imagine.  Keep in mind that many Christians see duty to their country as Biblically inspired.  If they begin to see America as little more than a modern-day Gomorrah, their allegiance might very well wane.

And I'll be glad to argue that not executing a handful of teenagers weakens the country.  It's called rampant crime.  It may be a "handful" now, but once these 21st Century, drug-dealing Fabians start using teenagers for gangland executions and other violent revenge, it'll not seem so trivial.  Teenagers already evince the kind of suicidal nihilism which you are this minute arguing is not a factor in dissolving our will to fight.  Try to keep in mind that it's teenagers generally who are called on to do the fighting.  And we're talking combat here, not murder -- the former takes courage, the latter cowardice.

Besides, why is it O.K. to starve an innocent woman to death, but not execute the 17 y/o thug who abducted an equally innocent woman from her home, tied her hands and feet, covered her face with duct tape, stabbed her repeatedly, and threw her in a fast river from a high bridge?  Both of these harrowing and ridiculous decisions were made by some faceless, bloodless court.  Are you beginning to see a pattern here?

And I would hardly describe refusing to alter the millenia-old definition of marriage as "persecuting homosexuals."  Let's get real for a minute, can we?  Making life uncomfortable for a gang of murdering terrorists is not even close to "torturing prisoners."  For crying out loud, the local sheriff made several months of my life "uncomfortable," just for smoking a joint.  

Re: Traffic deaths are caused by ACCIDENTS, a small flaw in your attempt to minimize the deadly impact of abortion.

Which is totally irrelevant. Deaths are deaths. People who die on the highways are just as dead as people who died on 9-11 or the fetuses who die in abortions. Nevertheless, terrorism (even if it kills just one American) is far more serious a problem than either abortion or highway deaths--and a terror nuke would be more serious than either by whole orders of magnitude. It isn't the fact that people die that matters. People die no matter what in this world. It's the fact that foreign enemies are killing Americans in an attempt to weaken or change American power and policy. That's not true in either abortion or traffic deaths, which have no inherent public consequences, regrettable and dreadful as the deaths may be at the individual level.

Re: And I'll be glad to argue that not executing a handful of teenagers weakens the country.  It's called rampant crime.

Well, the evidence that executing children lowers the crime rate is about the same as the evidence for the existence of goblins and vampires.

Re: And I would hardly describe refusing to alter the millenia-old definition of marriage as "persecuting homosexuals."  

I was referring to the Lawrence decision, which has nothing to do with gay marriage.

Re: Making life uncomfortable for a gang of murdering terrorists is not even close to "torturing prisoners."  

So that's all we did in Abu Ghraib and similar such cases? That's as big a euphemistic crock as someone calling "abortion" "family management".

...are filled with "this stuff."

And pro-life amendments have been proposed.

It's simply difficult to muster the overwhelming support necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment, especially when having to both debate its' merits AND defend against the incessant misinformation spewed out by the pro-death killers at NARAL and their air-headed stooges in the MSM.

But my impression is that they've been throwaways for a handful of members of Congress for consumption in their districts.  I would think at least once in 10 years of Republican majorities, at least one sessions would make it a high priority, if in fact that was what the Republican Party stood for.  It would be a news bonanza.  People would have to choose sides, instead of mouthing empty rhetoric.  Why engage in this judicial brohaha when Congress as representatives of the People holds the trump card, the real nuclear option?  Why wouldn't this come up every year?  If it is as important as its made out to be, how is it Congress snipes around the edges and never engages it head on?

Saying it's too much effort because NARAL is mean is pretty silly.  Moreover, if this is the defining issue of our times, so what?

"It's the fact that foreign enemies are killing Americans in an attempt to weaken or change American power and policy."

  -- I'd say people who kill one million Americans every year are our enemies.  Does it matter whether foreign or domestic enemies are doing the killing?  

"Well, the evidence that executing children lowers the crime rate is about the same as the evidence for the existence of goblins and vampires."

  -- Do you have evidence saying it doesn't?  Besides, a gang of 16-year-old thugs carrying tech-9's could hardly be described as "children."  Funny, you people don't like using the term children when it's the detritus of abortion's maw we're talking about.

"I was referring to the Lawrence decision, which has nothing to do with gay marriage."

  -- So then, explain why it amounts to "persecuting homosexuals."  

"So that's all we did in Abu Ghraib and similar such cases?"

 -- Compared to beheadings with a butcher knife? Yes.

I'm going home now.  I may get back to your mindless screeds today, or I may not.  But rest assured, I WILL get back to them.

...destroying our moral culture one stupid decision at a time.  Presidents and legislatures are elected and can just as easily be un-elected.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the nameless-nine and their black-robed spawn.

If you read the Constitution, and the discussions and comments of the Founding Fathers, and then compare these to the current interpretations, Pat Robertson is absolutely right.  We, as a nation, can survive any attack upon our shores, but we cannot survive endless judicial revisions to our foundation document which progressively change its meaning into something that was never intended, and would be abhored by the Founders.

The examples are many, but let me cite one of the most blatant.  For the 160 plus years from the Constitution's adoption until the mid-1950's, all but one state legislature (Nebraska) had two houses.  One was based upon population, and the other upon land area, just like our national government.  Thusly, they represented the cities, and the rural areas.

Mr. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Earl Warren (may he roast eternally in Hell), decided that everything should be based on population.  A case was "cooked up" to provide the excuse, and he drove the court into the direction of "One man, One vote."  Ultimately it was declared that all state legislatures must be based upon population.  

Let me use California as the worst example, since it is the one with which I am most familiar.  Formerly, the Assembly (lower house) was dominated by liberal population centers like Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the Senate (upper house), was controlled by the more conservative thinking country folk.

After the infamous "Warren Decision", both houses became dominated by Liberal Democrats (an epithet) from Southern California.  The current situation is that there are sufficient votes in the LA-San Diego megalopolis and the Bay Area to out-vote the remainder of the state on any issue.  The small "Blue" area is sufficiently concentrated that it has more power than the huge "Red" area.  As a consequence, about 90% of the state has been disenfranchised.  The precious balance that had existed before, was destroyed.

The "State" voted for Mr. Kerry, and has given us Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and Nancy Pelosi.  Northern and Central California are unrepresented.

Our legislature is now considering legislation to require all handguns to have their chambers individually and serially micro-etched so that the image will impress itself into any cartridge case fired by that gun.  Further, all ammunition, both bullet and cartridge case, must be serial-numbered.  All of this information, of course, is to be dutifully noted by the seller, and forwarded to the state.  Theoretically, this would allow law enforcement to trace any cartridge case or bullet related to a crime.  Of course, it conveniently overlooks the fact that criminals, by definition, do not obey laws.

If the measure is enacted, NO handgun or ammunition can be sold within the state, beginning in 2007, without these marks.  The fact that the technology to do these things doesn't exist seems not to bear upon the issue.  The measure would effectively ban sales of all handguns and their ammunition from the state on the effective date.  (I wonder what cops will use?)

Republicans in the legislature are helpless to stop any measure that does not require a two-thirds vote.  Only the annual budget, and amendments to the state constitution are thus affected.  They cannot do anything but watch this rediculous measure go by, according to whatever the Democrats wish to do with it.  They CANNOT AFFECT the outcome.

Mr. Warren seemed to be of the mind that we are a Democracy.  The Constitution says that we are a Representative Republic.  This did not matter to Warren; he changed it.  (Anyone who has read Plato knows what happens to Democracies).

Pat was right!

about 50-100 times.  And it is definitely in the alternative media.  I gather that you don't listen to talk radio.  But like the gay marriage amendment (which I don't support), you can have majority support without being able to pass a Constitutional Amendment.  Try the shoe on the other foot.  If the SC ruled that all unborn children are citizens and thus have a right to life like all other Americans, Democrats would never be able to pass an Abortion Amendment.

This is why I wish the SC would take the middle (and Constitutional) ground that this issue is up to the legislatures.  Let the debate happen; let the compromises prevail;  Stop dividing America on one (highly important) issue.

of destroying morality. Morality is practiced (or not) by individual human beings. Courts have no power to alter that fact any more than they can make 2+2=5. Much as I disagree with abortion not one person has been compelled by a court to have an abortion against her will. The blame for abortion ultimately rests with the woman who has it and the doctor who performs it and not with any politician.

Re: I'd say people who kill one million Americans every year are our enemies.

They are Americans. And the tragedy is that they do not (most of them) believe that the lives they are taking are truly human. The problem is an error of fact, not a lack of virtue.

Do you have evidence saying it doesn't?  Besides, a gang of 16-year-old thugs carrying tech-9's could hardly be described as "children."  Funny, you people don't like using the term children when it's the detritus of abortion's maw we're talking about.

When it comes to taking life the standard of evidence should always be set exceedingy high before we rationalize doing so.  And FYI: I am not one of "you people". If you read the threads you will usually find me arguing quite solidly with the facile pro-Choice shibboleths. But you should realize that I am one of those poor deluded folks who believes that a Culture of Life is indeed a culture of LIFE and that you can justify killing for mere convenience in one situation while condemning it another.

Re: So then, explain why it amounts to "persecuting homosexuals."  

Arresting people in their private homes for actions which have no public consequence and injure no one strikes me as persecution--just as in the bad old days in Europe when tyrants could toss you in jail, or even in the flames, for praying in the wrong manner. Human rights means, if anything at all, that each human being has an inviolable sphere of life and existence around himself which no one may trespass on without very good compelling cause, and theological disapproval is not such a cause.

An as for torture, as a hierarch of my church said a few years back to rebuke another nation for its evil ways, if our nation can only survive by such foul means, then it does not deserve to survive. Better to "America was" then "America the Tyrant Nation"

The proposal would make headlines if the President used his bully pulpit to advance it, just like he did with the anti-gay-marriage amendment last year and Social Security reform this year.

It would make headlines if enough people, especially members of Congress and religious/political leaders, started talking about it, just like they did with the whole matter of the "nuclear option."

The social conservatives are very good at getting their issues out into the mainstream one way or another.  It hardly makes sense to blame the GOP's failure to override Roe on the MSM.  My guess is that the GOP doesn't want to advance the issue directly for fear of voter backlash.

Court decisions make it easier to be immoral, not something that human beings really need.  The entire reason governments, laws, and courts were established was an attempt to keep us from giving in to our baser natures.  Think about it -- theft, murder, mayhem would all be so much more likely to be committed were there not some constraints in place.  This is really not rocket science...

that you are pro-life and I appreciate it.  I guess I argue with so many facile pro-choicers that I begin to see them in every discussion.

"...they do not (most of them) believe that the lives they are taking are truly human."

-- True, people tend to demonize and dehumanize those they plan to destroy. In this case however, I believe such endeavors ar pure PR.  I really don't buy that they are unaware they are killing human beings.  Yeah, it's a lack of virtue -- theyv'e chosen money over conscience.  Think about it, if there was even a chance you were killing somebody, would you do it?  Not to mention an enduring, loud, and continuous chorus of millions saying you were.

"...you can justify killing for mere convenience in one situation while condemning it another."

-- Do you really think executing cold-blooded murderers is killing for convenience sake?  The "Culture of Life" means valuing it to the point that society's strictest sanctions are reserved for those who take it.  I can't believe any one who claims to be pro-life can equate unborn babies with serial killers.  Call me crazy...

"Arresting people in their private homes for actions..."

-- Is this what the Lawrence decision really allows?

"Better to 'America was' then "America the Tyrant Nation"

-- That's a great rhetorical point.  Unfortunately, the reality is that an America that "was" will likely involve the torturing, slavery, and murder of you and your family.  Will you be as saguine then about high-minded principles and niceties towards enemies bent on your destruction?  Besides, I haven't seen or heard any hard evidence that Americans have practiced real torture anywhere...

Re: Traffic deaths are caused by ACCIDENTS

No they aren't. Only a small fraction of traffic collisions are caused by mechnical failure or other factors outside of anyone's control. Nearly all traffic deaths are the result of human actions which is why they are legally actionable.

They are your enemies, eh Warrior?  They are a dire threat to this nation, worse than any terrorist threat.  So tell me, what would you do if a terrorist moved in next door to you, and the authorities wouldn't do anything?  If the authorities said terrorism was legal?  Or that what they did wasn't terrorism, even though it blew people up?  The logic of this rhetoric leads to very unfortunate consequences.

Accidents frequently mean, in parlance, mistakes. I assure you, mistakes are actionable.

Insofar as you use the term to mean "unavoidable event of nature or design," well, the former is usually not actionable, the latter frequently is.

Insofar as everyone else refers to traffic accidents, they use the term the way many humans do: A careless mistake made by one or both parties contributing to some sort of damage. The term for that is negligence, and that's why (broadly -- we really don't want to get into a discussion of auto accident liability law here) there's a cause of action there.

Re: Do you really think executing cold-blooded murderers is killing for convenience sake?

Yes, either that or worse. Often it is simply our own bloodlust that moves people to support executions. I don't regard that as an acceptable motive. It belongs to the Culture of Death too. While I am not a Catholic, on this matter I am with the Pope: in the modern world situations where executions can be justified by necessity are exceedingly few.

Re: "Arresting people in their private homes for actions..."

-- Is this what the Lawrence decision really allows?

This is what the Texas law that Lawrence struck down allowed, yes.

Re: Besides, I haven't seen or heard any hard evidence that Americans have practiced real torture anywhere

We are a long, long way from becoming a tyrant nation, Michael Moore and his ilk notwithstanding. Nevertheless, we have dipped a toe in that ocean and a certain strict rebuke is in order for even that much.  We Americans are not saints. History has grim lessons for us that we ignore at our peril. The ancient Athenians also began their days of greatness as warriors for freedom. Two generations later they were committing sundry atrocities up to and including genocide for "reasons of state". Let's slam that door shut right now. I do not believe that God will abandon those who take the high road and stay out of the darkness.

Yes, yes, one may negligently operate an automobile.  Nonetheles, destroying human life with that specific purpose in mind is a far cry from reaching for the radio or some other innocent distraction. Gimme a break...

the present system of endless appeals is just?

"Often it is simply our own bloodlust that moves people to support executions."

-- I don't buy it.  Valuing human life means placing the highest penalty on those who take it.  And, of course, it's easy to be high-minded when it's not anyone you know personally who's been senselessly murdered, much less a member of your own family.

"This is what the Texas law that Lawrence struck down allowed, yes."

-- If the law has been struck down, what on earth are you complaining about?

"Nevertheless, we have dipped a toe in that ocean..."

-- You evince great concern about the slippery slope of America slowly turning into Wiemar Germany, but seemed less concerned that equating innocent babies with cold-blooded murderers is quickly turning us into a Culture of Death.  And Teri Shiavo teaches us that state-sponsored murder is not just for babies anymore.  

"I do not believe that God will abandon those who take the high road and stay out of the darkness."

-- I believe God will abandon a country that shows mercy to domestic murderers and foreign terrorists, but none to innocent spirits he has created to live on earth, but never will.

...are rather non-sensical, but I'll parse them as best I can.  

"They are your enemies, eh Warrior?"

-- Er, yes, people bent on the destruction of my country and the death and dismemberment of me and my family are my enemies.  Do you have a probelm with that?  Remember, in the previous thread we were gauging the consequences of not forcefully protecting our country.  Instead, I think you may have in mind judges in the role of "your enemies."  If they continue to undermine the founding moral principles of my country, yes indeed they will become a "domestic enemy" and their victory will lead to the consequences I cited earlier.

"So tell me, what would you do if a terrorist moved in next door to you, and the authorities wouldn't do anything?  If the authorities said terrorism was legal?  Or that what they did wasn't terrorism, even though it blew people up?"

-- This non-seqitor seems related to nothing in the thread.  I can't even guess what you mean.  However, the "authorities," read judges, have let abortion clinics move in next door with their daily re-creations of the holocaust and their wholesale disregard for anything decent, much less moral.  The "authorities" have turned legions of domestic terrorists, read felons convicted of violent crimes up to and including murder, loose on the streets and in our neighborhoods.  Perhaps you've noticed the abductions, death and destruction these people leave in their wake.  

Well, maybe not.  The MSM doesn't like to mention that most of the crimes on which they are "reporting" have been committed by thugs with LONG histories of violent crimes and many releases from incarceration engineered mostly by "root causes" judges.  And we haven't even mentioned illegal immigrants, much less illegal immigrants with violent histories, who are constantly released back into society by scads of "we are the world" black-robed wonders.

No, my friend, I'm afraid you don't appreciate the chaos awaiting us just around the corner if enough of the moral structure underpining or society is obliterated by ham-fisted, ideological egotists bent on demonstrating their worthiness to the New York Times.  Visit your nearest third-world country for a sneak peek.  (BTW, did you know that 3/4 of the people who decide what's on the front page of the NYT are homosexual?)

BTW, did you know that 3/4 of the people who decide what's on the front page of the NYT are homosexual?

This calls for a cite, please.

is that there is a good reason why the danger of terrorism is a more serious threat to America as a whole than traffic deaths even though on the indivdual level any one of of us is a far, far more likely to die in a traffic mishap than in a terrorist attack. The same point applies to abortion and terror attacks (and a terror nuke attack absolutely!), regardless of how one totes up the numbers. The question is not the number of people who die (on that basis the most serious threat to the country would be cancer, followed by arterial disease) or even how/why they die, but what the collateral effects on the nation at all levels (economic, political,etc. etc.) would be.

You are making a category error in conflating matters of individual morality with political reality. Those two areas of life ought have some nodding acquaintance, I agree, but they live in different suburbs and work in different offices.

Re: If the law has been struck down, what on earth are you complaining about?

I wasn't. I was answering your complaint about the courts.

Re: Valuing human life means placing the highest penalty on those who take it.

One cannot value something by destroying it. That is a logical impossibility.

Re: And Teri Shiavo teaches us that state-sponsored murder is not just for babies anymore.  

Having considered the Schiavo case, which played out less than 10 miles from where I live, over and over again (and gone back and forth in my opinions), I have finally decided that I can't see any difference between how Ms Schiavo passed away and how a brain-dead person whose respirator is turned off passes away. In both cases a permanently unconscious human being is being kept alive by some invasive, wholly artificial technology that is supplying some essential ingedient of life (whether oxygen or H2O). In both cases the technology is removed and the person dies a natural death because their system is no longer able to obtain that ingedient by natural processes. If Ms Schiavo had been able to ingest food and water naturally it would havce been immoral to withhold them just as it would be immoral to asphyxiate a person who can breath naturally. I realize you disagree with this, but that's where I've finally come down on this: a feeding tube and a respirator are both artificial, extraordinary measures of prolonging life and we are under no moral compulsion to employ either in cases where restoration of the reflexive functions they replace is not possible.

Re: I believe God will abandon a country

And I do not believe that God is any respecter of nations. God cares about individuals and he cares about the Church (however one defines that). But not nations. The OT case of Israel is sui generis, not to be replicated in any other people. (though I will leave open the possibility that the Jews remain in some sense a Chosen People). In the Kingdom of Heaven, or else in the Outer Darkness. It does not matter whether one is American, Somali, Samoan, or what have you. "In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek".

"I wasn't. I was answering your complaint about the courts"  

-- My "complaint" about the court is that they are undermining the moral foundation of our country - not that they are nullifying unconstitutional law (the right to be secure in one's home.)  Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

"One cannot value something by destroying it. That is a logical impossibility."

-- We value innocent life by causing those guilty of taking it to forfeit their own.  This is really not a difficult concept.

"I can't see any difference between...a  permanently unconscious human being...In both cases the technology is removed and the person dies a natural death because their system is no longer able to obtain that ingedient by natural processes... a feeding tube and a respirator are both artificial, extraordinary measures of prolonging life and we are under no moral compulsion to employ either in cases where restoration of the reflexive functions they replace is not possible."

-- I don't even know where to start on this mess.

1.) Teri Shiavo was not unconscious

2.) She was on a feeding tube

3.) Yes, I suppose starving and thirsting to death is "a natural death"

4.) And, of course, a newborn baby in "unable to obtain [those] ingredient[s] [food & water] by natural processes."  Maybe we should let infants, the infirm, and the elderly starve to death since they are "unable to obtain [sustenance]..." by themselves.

5.) Lots of people in hospitals are on feeding tubes and respirators, they are common, and many patients may or may not return to fully independent breathing, feeding, and/or eliminating.  What "moral compulsion" do we employ to "decide" those cases?

6.) Doctors often don't know when or if "reflexive functions" will return, so should the decision be turned over to judges, none of whom have visited the bedside of the "case" in question.

"In the Kingdom of Heaven, or else in the Outer Darkness. It does not matter whether one is American, Somali, Samoan, or what have you. 'In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek'".

-- Paul was speaking of the fact that all are eligible for the Salvation of Christ, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.  I really don't think He had carte blanche for abortion in mind.  He did say that He would turn away from any nation which turned away from Him.  Not a statement to be taken lightly, IMHO.

But it was written in a blog sympathetic to gays I read recently.  Surely you've heard of the Balkanization of the contemporary newsroom,  with each advocacy group pre-screening the "news," to ensure that it is not hurtful to the image they are trying to portray...  Judging by what I read in the "news" about gays, a near take-over of any newsroom by them would not surprise me at all.

The whole blow up over "Christian" judges shouldn't even exist. It just tells me that Republicans cannot understand the role of the judiciary should be to interpret laws, not agree with your ideological view points. That is the job of your legislator.

Re: 1.) Teri Shiavo was not unconscious

This is incorrect. The lady was unconscious and had been for 15 years.

Re: 2.) She was on a feeding tube

Yes, there we agree.

Re: 3.) Yes, I suppose starving and thirsting to death is "a natural death"

Is asphyxiation a natural death when a respirator is removed?

Re: 4.) And, of course, a newborn baby in "unable to obtain [those] ingredient[s] [food & water] by natural processes."  

This is incorrect. I am speaking specifically about the fact that Ms Schiavo had no physical ability to swallow or ingest food and water, not that she was unable to obtain it. When brain death has proceeded to point where even reflexive and autonomic functions cease to exist, are we under an ethical imperative to use invasive and extraordiunarfy technologies to replace them? If you say "yes" to a feeding tube, how can you not also demand respirators for those who have no natural ability to breathe?

Re: What "moral compulsion" do we employ to "decide" those cases?

"We" do not, ideally. We allow people to decide this for themselves (best case scenario), or (not so best case) we allow their next of kin to determine it.

My step-mother's brother died a few years back from ALS (AKA Lou Gehrig's Disease). His body gradually became petrified. He rejected the use of both a respirator and a feeding tube. Did he commit suicide?

Re: He did say that He would turn away from any nation which turned away from Him.

One cannot take that verse literally since it would then mean that no one could be saved in a non-Christian nation. The Apsotles and the Virgin Mary (among many, many others) lived in a non-Christian nation, and yet they were saved. Therefore your interpretation of this verse is incorrect.

I'm not buying that.  Just because it was on a blog doesn't make it true.

"This is incorrect. The lady was unconscious and had been for 15 years."

-- Nonesense.  She was in a vegetative state, she was not unconscious.  

In your "More Replies" post, referring to Teri Schiavo's death and the death caused by shutting off a patient's resirator, you said:

"In both cases the technology is removed and the person dies a natural death..."

-- Now you ask me:

"Is asphyxiation a natural death when a respirator is removed?"

You tell me - these are your own words, not mine.  Geez, try paying attention...

You said:

"...their system is no longer able to obtain that ingedient by natural processes."

-- Then you say:

"I am speaking specifically about the fact that Ms Schiavo had no physical ability to swallow or ingest food and water, not that she was unable to obtain it."

--  Perhaps you trying to convey the idea that she could no longer feed herself - something everyone has known from the beginning.  Do you have a point in this mess somewhere?

"If you say 'yes' to a feeding tube, how can you not also demand respirators for those who have no natural ability to breathe?"

-- We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  Look, this wasn't a game for rhetoricians and logicians to improve their skills.  This was someone's life we are talking about and that's the point.  Judges interpreting case law and worrying about consistency and appeals had no place in this matter.  If they wanted to rule that the husband had ulterior motives which were not in the best interests of his wife and that her parents did not have such motives, that would have made sense - common sense.  There's no law that judges HAVE to be idiots.

" 'We' do not, ideally. We allow people to decide this for themselves (best case scenario), or (not so best case) we allow their next of kin to determine it."

--  Exactly, as long as their next of kin doesn't wish for their death for some personal reason.  Look, many people have returned from Persistent Vegetative States (PVS) and stated loudly and clearly that they heard and understood everything going on around them and prayed every day that their families wouldn't give up on their recovery.  

"My step-mother's brother died a few years back from ALS (AKA Lou Gehrig's Disease). His body gradually became petrified. He rejected the use of both a respirator and a feeding tube. Did he commit suicide?"

-- Besides being totally irrelevant (patient's choice was known), this smacks of simply more rhetorical gobbledegook.  If a tree falls in the woods, blah, blah, blah,...

"One cannot take that verse literally since it would then mean that no one could be saved in a non-Christian nation. The Apsotles and the Virgin Mary (among many, many others) lived in a non-Christian nation, and yet they were saved."

-- Yes, indeed, that situation occured in the Bible several times.  And, yes, God can save anyone He wants.  So what?  The nation can still be destroyed.  Do you have a point here?

If God caused His Chosen (non-Christian) People to wander in the desert for 40 years to teach them a lesson, He wouldn't hesitate  with us.

"Patient's choice was known."  That is the crux of the Terri Schiavo debate.  A judge, following the laws of Florida, examined the evidence and found Terri's choice was known.  You think he was wrong.  Fair enough.  You think the law ought to be changed to require a higher standard to make that determination.  Also fair.  Everything beyond that, on both sides, is rhetorical gobblygook.  Rantings about judges and the culture of death, of proxy-abortion battles and the whole nine yards, Congressional intervention, political grandstanding, it's all something not connected to the facts of the situation.  If it is ok to stop feeding someone, not placing them on a respirator, at their choice, then what have we been arguing about for months?  Simply whether Greer made the correct finding.  Greer was upheld, eighteen zillion times, on the standard he used.    

The Florida legislature could change the standard.  I suppose it might even be possible for the Federal Government to establish a national standard, although that may rest uneasily with the remnant small government types.  The system is within easy control.  Instead we railed against the system and did a multitude of ineffective things to score political points.

I forgot.  So sue me.

...to you one more time.  People take a calculated risk when they drive.  They choose to rsik death for convenience sake.  Fine.  They are adults and that is their choice.  On the other hand, those who die from terrorist attacks and abortion have no say in the matter.  The actual risk to an unborn baby of dying from an abortionist's knife is far greater than from a terrorist's bomb.

The point you seem to be missing is that the child has NO voice in the matter.  But when it's our sorry behinds that are threatened by terrorists, we cry like scalded dogs and take immediate action: Attack Iraq! (and rightly so), pass the Patriot Act, establish the TSA, and on and on.  That we need a vociferous, sustained and intense movement to reverse the slaughter created by judicial fiat says a lot about our nation, both good and bad.  But it only speaks poorly of our judicial masters.

Now, the larger point is that creating a culture of death, encouraging promiscuous sexual activity, re-defining marriage - all are serious threats to our country.  It is a longer term threat, we hope, but it's impact will be far more serious.  The fall of our civilization will have, in your own words, unmitigated "...collateral effects on the nation at all levels (economic, political,etc. etc.)..."

The judge examined "the evidence" and then made a wild speculation.  You seemed to be more impressed by a black robe than I am.

...with you, but the new Republican Congressional majority is like a kid who has been given his allowance before mowing the grass.  

Good luck getting any action out of them...

I have never said that I do not think abortion is a serious issue. I do however think it is considerably less serious than terrorism is,  because its public consequences are less. As for sex issues, I do not regard these as a fit matter for public legislation at all, save at the far margins (rape, pedophilia, etc.) The idea the state should be dictating private matters like sex, diet, apparel, religious faith, taste in art and entertainment, etc. is simply repugnant and belongs properly to totalitarianism, not to a free society.

I do however think it is considerably less serious than terrorism is,  because its public consequences are less.

There are about 40 million people who, if they were alive, would take a rather dim view of that statement.

Re: She was in a vegetative state, she was not unconscious.  

LOL. And what is the meaning of "vegetative state?" Last time I checked the broccoli in my back garden betrayed no signs of consciouness!

Re: Do you have a point in this mess somewhere?

Yes. And it was very clear and obvious. Being unable to ingest food and water is the exact equivalent of being unabel ti respire. If it's morally unacceptable to remove a technological device that performs the former function why is it not morally unacceptable to remove a technological device that performs the latter?

Re: We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

That bridge has been crossed many times already. The moral consensus, even among the strictest pro-Life advocates like the Roman Catholic Church is that respirators may be removed from individuals who are unable to breathe on their own and whose cases are hopeless. I see no difference between that case and Ms Sciavo's.

Re: Look, many people have returned from Persistent Vegetative States (PVS) and stated loudly and clearly that they heard and understood everything going on around them and prayed every day that their families wouldn't give up on their recovery.  

Now you are talking nonsense. If anyone has made this claim, then they were misdiagnosed and were NOT in a PVS. The latter, by definition, means that there is no consciousness or higher brain function of any kind.

Re: Do you have a point here?

Do you? If God turns away from any nation then His grace is removed from that nation and no one in that nation can be saved. Period. However we know that God will not do this since he tells us "I am with you always even unto the end of the world." Therefore your notion that God will turn away from us is impious and perhaps superititious blasphemy, and contradicts God's own promise. That promise of course was not yet given in OT times and so citing the examples of ancient Israel is irrelevant. And in any event America is NOT the Israel of the OT. No nation  is, not even modern Israel.

... when we start defining deviancy down, "...the far margins (rape, pedophilia, etc.)..." start getting closer and closer.

P.S. See "The Death of Right and Wrong" by Tammy Bruce for a full treatment of why we are slouching towards Gomorah even now ...

"...what is the meaning of 'vegetative state?'

-- You're probably thinkg of a coma, which does involve unconsciousness.  Frankly, I think the broccoli you mentioned is between your ears...

"If it's morally unacceptable to remove a technological device that performs the former function why is it not morally unacceptable to remove a technological device that performs the latter?"

-- Again, you're trying to build some sort of abstract strawman analogy which does not obtain in the real world.  If some poor woman hooked up to a respirator had a jerk-face husband who wanted her dead, the decision to remove it should be taken out of his hands and given to the next closest kin who does not have such an ambition.  BTW, if you want incautious blanket statements to pick apart, in some sophomoric attempt to "prove" your chimeric "points," you're sniffing up the wrong tree.  Try joining a high school debate team -- that is, if you're in high school yet.

"The moral consensus, even among the strictest pro-Life advocates like the Roman Catholic Church is..."

-- The "moral concensus" and the Catholic Church can think anything they like...I decide on a case by case basis.  And that's the very problem with legislating from the bench.  By necessity, every stupid law ends up being adjudicated on a one-size-fits-all basis, kind of like Hitler's Final Solution.

"If anyone has made this claim, then they were misdiagnosed and were NOT in a PVS."

--  Oh, so you're a doctor now?  And even if you are, any real doctor will tell you that they can't begin to explain the things the encounter in their practices.  Perhaps you've heard the phrase, "God heals the patient, but the doctor takes the fee"?  As a clinical psychologist, I work with EEG's everyday.  I can tell you emphatically that even WE can't explain every finding that comes along.  Perhaps you've made some sort of landmark discovery no one has heard of as yet...  

"I am with you always even unto the end of the world."

-- This is an NT covenant made with believers in Christ.  Here's a clue, the Salvation of those who profess Christ will indeed not be removed.  This has nothing to do with the destruction of our country.  

Even as you posit your rhetorical strawmen, Christians are living in third-world, non-Christian countries all over the globe.  God didn't promise, "I am with you always, as long as it's an affluent, comfortable, happy place, so that you may never have trouble all your born days."  No, no.  Quite the opposite.  Jesus said, "Pick up your cross and follow me..."  Hardly an invitation to the good life.

And you can keep your specious accusations of impiety and blasphemy to yourself.