DIYbanter - a letter to those who voted for Bush

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On Sun, 18 Sep 2005 20:04:08 GMT, "Peter" wrote:

wrote in message oups.com...
To me, "liberal" means "misguided". A liberal judge is a scary, scary
thing.

Liberal judges are the last thing standing between our current
radical right-wing federal government and their goals of
implementing a fascist state and eliminating social progress.

The liberal judges protect everyone right including the neo-con,
and everyone in the US.

Peter wrote:
wrote in message oups.com...
To me, "liberal" means "misguided". A liberal judge is a scary, scary
thing.

Liberal judges are the last thing standing between our current
radical right-wing federal government and their goals of
implementing a fascist state and eliminating social progress.

No, you're wrong. Our government is elected and they have limited
powers as well as checks and balances. A liberal bench is very
dangerous to everyone. The courts should be reasonably predictable;
only as ambiguous as the laws they enforce. When judges go off ruling
based on their own ideas they have the power to do tremendous damage on
many levels.

wrote in message ups.com...

Peter wrote:
wrote in message oups.com...
To me, "liberal" means "misguided". A liberal judge is a scary, scary
thing.

Liberal judges are the last thing standing between our current
radical right-wing federal government and their goals of
implementing a fascist state and eliminating social progress.

No, you're wrong. Our government is elected and they have limited
powers as well as checks and balances. A liberal bench is very
dangerous to everyone. The courts should be reasonably predictable;
only as ambiguous as the laws they enforce. When judges go off ruling
based on their own ideas they have the power to do tremendous damage on
many levels.

Your understanding (?) of the American system of government
is seriously screwed up. The judicial branch's main function is to
resolve constitutional and legislative ambiguity, not maintain or
support it. And the fact they are not accountable to the legislative
and executive branches is the main check and balance on these
other two branches.

When we have a case, as today, where the views of the majority
of Americans are not being represented on many issues either in
Congress or the White House, where much of the legislation
passed by these two bodies is constitutionally questionable at best,
and where no electoral alternatives exist for the people, the function
of the judicial branch is especially critical. The radical right is now
focusing their attack on the courts because it is the last obstacle to
implemention of their horribly narrow and in many cases
unconstitutional agenda.

barbarow wrote:
In fact, the primary responsibility for the disaster response lies with New
Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and other local
officials.

As of march 1st, the Department of Homeland Security (of which FEMA is part)
is supposed to assume primary responsibility for things like this:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp
It is clear that they did not do what, according to their own website,
they needed to do: "... providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal
response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective
recovery effort."

"Goedjn" wrote in message
...

As of march 1st, the Department of Homeland Security (of which FEMA is
part)
is supposed to assume primary responsibility for things like this:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/theme_home2.jsp
It is clear that they did not do what, according to their own website,
they needed to do: "... providing a coordinated, comprehensive federal
response to any large-scale crisis and mounting a swift and effective
recovery effort."

Seems to me that the recovery effort is going fine. It's the
RESCUE effort that was screwed up.

We Failed You?

Anne Rice blames America, not local officials.

"To my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You
looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our
Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music.

Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying
on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs."

Novelist and New Orleans resident, Anne Rice.

The answer...

Let me get this straight

Ms. Rice, you live in (what was) a very attractive city which lies below sea
level. On one side you have a giant lake; on the other side you have the
Gulf of Mexico. Running through the middle is the Mississippi River. All of
which are above you.

Preventing those giant bodies of water from flooding and drowning you are
levees. These levees are described as "century-old." People have been
warning about the devastating effects of a direct hit from a hurricane for
decades.

I've heard a great deal of complaint in recent days that the federal
government may not have allocated enough money to speed up the upgrades to
those levees. This does, however, raise the question of why city and state
residents were waiting around for the federal government to send enough
money to upgrade this, instead of paying for it themselves. I mean, it was
only your homes, businesses, and lives at stake. Perhaps these upgrades
would have been expensive. If only this city had some sort of events to
attract tourists, from which to collect taxes.

Anyway, your state and local officials decided to spend your tax dollars on
something else that they (and presumably you) found more important, and then
they waited for the rest of the country to pay for these life-preserving
necessities.

Your beloved city and region has a colorful political history, in which
there is, oh, a wee bit of corruption. I'm from New Jersey, so I can't throw
stones at that glass house. But you guys have managed to pick leaders who
give you the worst of both worlds - they're scandal ridden and incompetent
in a crisis. Look, Rudy Giuliani might have run around with Judith Nathan
before his divorce, but he was a hell of a leader in our darkest hours.

You know the National Review crowd isn't a fan of Pataki, but the man was a
rock after 9/11 compared to Governor Weepy I'll-Evacuate-Eventually and
Mayor It's-Everybody's-Fault-Except-Mine. Nobody's throwing around the
adjective "Churchillian" about any of your officials these days. We didn't
pick your local officials; you guys did.

Rice asks, "how many times did Gov. Kathleen Blanco have to say that the
situation was desperate? How many times did Mayor Ray Nagin have to call for
aid?"

Ahem... What about those buses left unused, less than a mile from the
Superdome? JunkYardBlog notes that it's written in the Southeast Louisiana
Evacuation Plan that buses are supposed to be used for evacuation of those
who don't have personal vehicles.

As JYB observes, "there is something very peculiar about a city and a state
that have a plan on the books for years that outlines what to do when a
hurricane is about to strike, yet when a hurricane comes roaring in, the
responsible officials just chuck the plan and try winging it. Delaying and
then winging it in the face of a monstrous Cat 4/5 hurricane is never, ever
a good idea, especially for New Orleans."

Ironically, Nagin told CNN, "I need buses, man," when he had plenty sitting
around unused before the storm hit. Now they're flooded and useless.

But it's not like state and local officials could have seen this coming
(tongue in cheek). They have never had a hurricane bearing down on them
before and... oh, wait, there was Hurricane Ivan just last year. And after
that dodged bullet, Blanco and Nagin both acknowledged they needed a better
evacuation plan.

I would note that we've seen some pretty intense disasters in other parts of
the country, like planes crashing into skyscrapers and subsequently
collapsing, earthquakes, tornadoes, blizzards, and yet somehow, none of
these disasters had the total breakdown of law and order, civil society,
etc. Jonah Goldberg's early joke about a Mad-Max style post-apocalyptic
tribal anarchy may have been in poor taste, but it has turned out to be
nightmarishly prescient.

We failed you? No, oh brilliant creator of Exit to Eden, you failed. You
might not think of it this way, but: Your leaders failed to upgrade the
levees. You elected a bunch of weepers and blame-shifters who lost their
head in a crisis.

Over the past decades, your elected officials have let a criminal element
incubate and grow until they ruled the streets, instead of the forces of law
and order. In pop culture, a New Orleans thief is always a charming rogue
with a devilish smile. In reality, they're a bunch of thugs.

If the number of residents who are looting thugs were such a "tiny
minority," we wouldn't have seen this widespread, relentless anarchy.

Madam, a noticeable number of your neighbors saw this disaster as an
opportunity to smash a window and run away with a television, an act that
reveals much about the inadequacies of the local school system, since that
thief won't be enjoying that television with any electricity anytime soon.

I would also note that this is one hell of a police force your local
officials hired and that you and your neighbors tolerated. 50 percent turned
in their badges during the crisis and quit. Your police superintendent is
conceding that some cops were looting.

Just want to refresh your memory -
four years ago, New York and Washington, planes falling out of the sky,
thousands dead, no idea what the hell is coming next. and the cops, among
others, showed up to work.

To save you guys now, I - and a lot of other Americans - will pitch in.

We are witnessing the biggest mobilization of civilian and military rescue
and relief crews in history. But I have a sneaking suspicion you're going to
want the rest of us to pay for the rebuilding of your city. (In the near
future, we're going to have to have a little chat about the wisdom of
building below sea level, directly next to large bodies of water.)

And if you're going to come to the rest of us hat in hand, demanding the
rest of us clean up after your poor judgment, I'd appreciate a little less
"you failed us" and a little more "we've learned our lesson."

Linda Joyce McAnally

Sure it is;the claim that there is no "right to privacy",as if all
rights MUST be listed in the Constitution.

That is not the claim. The claim is that a right to privacy
is not one of the rights guaranteed by the constitution.

The Constitution does not grant rights.Rights pre-exist the Constitution.
CERTAIN rights were given specific mention and specific limits *to
government*.
That does NOT mean they are the only rights of the People.

And I DID say: "as if all rights MUST be listed in the Constitution".

The function of the supreme court is not to protect your rights.
The function of the supreme court is to protect/enforce the
constitution. The question before the supreme court was
not "do women have a right to an abortion", but "does the
constitution prevent states from outlawing abortion".

And the answer to the first question may well be "yes".
But the answer to the second question, to anyone who
both believes in a rule of law, and knows what that means,
is "no".

And so, in that decision, the SCOTUS gave a correct
answer to the wrong question.. (What should be), and
the wrong answer to the question that was before them,
(what does the law require)

Wow, I should really switch sides, because libs never appoint the wrong
people to government positions. The fool mayor and governor of La. are
much more at fault. If they had gotten their people out like they
should have, FEMA would not have even been an issue. As for post 9/11,
I'd still take 10 Bushes before I'd take one Gore or Kerry.

"Goedjn" wrote in message ...

Sure it is;the claim that there is no "right to privacy",as if all
rights MUST be listed in the Constitution.

That is not the claim. The claim is that a right to privacy
is not one of the rights guaranteed by the constitution.

The Constitution does not grant rights.Rights pre-exist the Constitution.
CERTAIN rights were given specific mention and specific limits *to
government*.
That does NOT mean they are the only rights of the People.

And I DID say: "as if all rights MUST be listed in the Constitution".

The function of the supreme court is not to protect your rights.
The function of the supreme court is to protect/enforce the
constitution. The question before the supreme court was
not "do women have a right to an abortion", but "does the
constitution prevent states from outlawing abortion".

And the answer to the first question may well be "yes".
But the answer to the second question, to anyone who
both believes in a rule of law, and knows what that means,
is "no".

Nonsense. The court said, correctly, that implicit privacy
rights in certain areas (procreation, marriage, contraception
etc) do exist in the Constitution, and have been recognized
and protected by other federal and state courts since at
least 1891.

Roe v. Wade was an incorrect decision, but for reasons that
are probably entirely opposite to what you might think. The
court erred by giving the state a foot in the door on this issue.
Had they not done so, we likely would not be seeing the
continuation of the radical right's agenda to outlaw all
abortions under all circumstances (read the current platform
of the Republican Party). Simply put, the state does not have
unwanted pregnancies, it does not go through the pains of
pregnancy and childbirth. Therefore they have no right to
dictate to any woman (or family) that she will carry a
pregnancy to term. Their error was making an artificial and
completely arbitrary distinction between the state's supposed
interest before fetal viability and after. The state HAS no
interest in unwanted pregnancies.

Goedjn wrote in
:

Sure it is;the claim that there is no "right to privacy",as if all
rights MUST be listed in the Constitution.

That is not the claim. The claim is that a right to privacy
is not one of the rights guaranteed by the constitution.

The Constitution does not grant rights.Rights pre-exist the Constitution.
CERTAIN rights were given specific mention and specific limits *to
government*.
That does NOT mean they are the only rights of the People.

And I DID say: "as if all rights MUST be listed in the Constitution".

The function of the supreme court is not to protect your rights.
The function of the supreme court is to protect/enforce the
constitution.

Wrong;it's to insure that Federal and State laws conform TO the
Constitution;IOW,that they do not erode people's rights.
It's the Executive Branch's duty to "protect/enforce" the Constitution.
The Constitution can be ALTERED by the amendment process,and the USSC must
follow the amendments.(part OF the Constitution)
That's where the current problem lies;the USSC does not consider laws in
regard to the Constitution,but uses other justifications.

The question before the supreme court was
not "do women have a right to an abortion", but "does the
constitution prevent states from outlawing abortion".

And the answer to the first question may well be "yes".
But the answer to the second question, to anyone who
both believes in a rule of law, and knows what that means,
is "no".

Wrong,as the state laws prohibiting abortion would interfere with a persons
right to privacy.

And so, in that decision, the SCOTUS gave a correct
answer to the wrong question.. (What should be), and
the wrong answer to the question that was before them,
(what does the law require)

The States laws must conform to the Federal Constitution,too.
(I don't buy the "incorporation" nonsense,that states can pick and choose
what Amendments they abide by.)

Roe v Wade equalized the poorer people who reside where abortions were
banned with the wealthy who can afford to travel to where abortions are
available(or find physicians who would perform abortions under some other
procedure);equal protection under the law.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
kua.net

Jim Yanik wrote:
Goedjn wrote in
:

Sure it is;the claim that there is no "right to privacy",as if all
rights MUST be listed in the Constitution.

That is not the claim. The claim is that a right to privacy
is not one of the rights guaranteed by the constitution.

The Constitution does not grant rights.Rights pre-exist the Constitution.
CERTAIN rights were given specific mention and specific limits *to
government*.
That does NOT mean they are the only rights of the People.

And I DID say: "as if all rights MUST be listed in the Constitution".

You seem to miss the point, Jim. The point is that if its not listed in
the consitution, it should be voted upon by the people of the State; a
concept which is part of the consitution. You can't "infer"
constitutional law. If its not in the constitution, then its not a
constitutional issue. Roe v Wade is wrong not because the supreme court
ruled one way or another; it's wrong because they shouldn't have ruled
at all, because "privacy" is not a real constitutional right.
Conservatives don't want the court to rule that abortion is illegal;
they just want it to not be a constitutional issue, because they
believe that it shouldn't be.

Jim Yanik wrote:

....
I do not see why medical procedures should be illegal in some states but
not in others.
....

It's a doctrine called "states rights"...