Today when a man puts on a black dress, he becomes the Constitution of the United States.
The Constitution stands above Congress and the President. Once a man in black dress “interprets the Constitution,” nobody else matters.
What is hilarious is that the Constitution itself declares its only authority to be “We the People of the United States… and OUR Posterity.”
“We the People of the United Staes.. and OUR Posterity” is EXACTLY what the guy in the black dress says the Constitution is NOT. He says the purpose of HIS Constitution is to keep the people in line. It’s to make sure nobody born here thinks he has any special rights.
So trial by jury is subject to the guy in the black dress.
Why?
What does he know? He knows what he calls The Law and the Opinions and The Precedents.
So what? There is no evidence that his Precidents and his Opinions and his Law have ever caused the slightest bit of justice. In fact, all the evidence is the opposite.
Who the hell IS this guy in a black dress?
Who the hell are the two and a half million lawyers in America who take up ALL the talent we could use for nurses and technologists and cost us over a million dollars each in interference with the rest of us, which is all they do.
So the judges INSTRUCT the jurors. WHY? Trial by jury means trial by JURY. Your average guy, the defendant’s peer, can figure him out better than some guy with a lifetime income and lots of years in law school.
What the hell are those judges doing for a living? What the hell are those lawyers doing for a living?
I’m paying for it, so maybe I have the right to ask.
#1 by Don on 12/14/2004 - 12:12 am
Hear hear!
#2 by Bob Whitaker on 12/14/2004 - 5:40 am
Neither Sean Hannity nor Limbaugh have asked anything of the sort. Neither one questions the right of the Supreme Court to strike down all antimiscegenation laws in 1968 without the slightest hint of a pretense that anyone doubted the right of a state to ban interracial marriage before 1940. Certainly nobody who wrote the Constitution did.
No, Hannity and Limbaugh have said it has all gone “too far.” But that is like saying that every neoconservative who has written a book about leftist bias on campus has written my book. It is not anywhere within a mile of what I said here.
#3 by Mark on 12/14/2004 - 12:07 pm
I must disagree with you Bob. I have heard, for example, both Limbuauch and Hannity discuss the “unfairness” of the courts interpreting the Constitution on several occasions. Of course they are not going to tackle miscegenation — they are, as you call them, Respectable Conservatives. But asking what right the Surpeme Court and other lesser courts have interpereting the law of the land has been discussed time and again by both — usually in conneciton with issues such as gay marriage. On occasion Limbaugh has railed against the California courts striking down voter referendumns limiting driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, which is not the same as Constitutional law that we are talking about, but along the same lines. They have said these things, but, like I said, they same then and then move on to more “relevant” topics.
#4 by Peter on 12/14/2004 - 9:25 pm
Bob said Limboob and that other guy don’t question the [i]right[/i] of the Supreme Court to overthrow Constitutional Law.
#5 by Mark on 12/15/2004 - 9:18 am
Peter, you may want to re-read Bob’s blog and my response before you make a fool of yourself again. I have a perfect right to be gay.
#6 by Don on 12/15/2004 - 9:47 am
I don’t know what Limby and Hanny have to say – we all know what they are – but “That means getting off our duffs and actually DOING SOMETHING!” is a great idea.
#7 by Richard L. Hardison on 12/15/2004 - 9:07 pm
Bob is right about Jury trials. Judges hate juries that ignore him when he tells what the law is. Often what he tells them is not the law, just opinion of what the law says. The two of the three members of the Peterson jury were probably “misbehaving” in some way, and the judge didn’t approve, so he fired them. For a jury trial to mean anything, the jury must be left alone after those doors close behind them.
The corruption of the legal system isone of our biggest problems. It is feeding into EVERYTHING now and it will be a large factor in killing us if it is not brought under control. My own experience with this trash is in the medical system. A pinched nerve in my neck manifested on June 21. It took a month to get an MRI scheduled and because I was not able lay flat long enough I had to come back a load up with valium to relax my muscles enough to lay still for the 20 minutes required. That was July 29th. I was finally able to get a neurosurgeon to work on me on November 11th. Why did it take so long? Black robed idiots on the “Supreme” court of Ohio knocked down tort reform as “unconstitutional.” I read the Ohio constitution and their “logic” was illogic. In short, they lied so their trial attorney buddies could keep killing the medical profession. My experience is typical in Ohio. Doctors are leaving because they are having a hard time making a living as it is all gobbled up in malpractice insurance premiums. Many GPs make less than the 73K I make as an Engineer! Why go to 8 years of college, then an internship, and if you are going into a specialty, a residency that will kill your health, your marriage, if you were stupid enough to think you could have a normal life in resident status, if only to see all your hard work and long hours taken by some nonproducer who is nothing more than a wood tick on the body politic? I think you know the answer, although the average man on the street isn’t even thinking about it.
#8 by Bob Whitaker on 12/15/2004 - 9:51 pm
Mark, Limbaugh and Hannity agree the court has the power to do absolutely anything it feels like in the case of miscegenation. Then, when their constituents don’t like what the court does, they object. Liberals do that. Remember the 2000 election?
EVERYBODY does that. So what’s so special about Limbaugh and Hannity? They have said precisely nothing except that they don’t like some of what the court does.
Big deal.
#9 by Mark on 12/16/2004 - 5:31 pm
Bob, once again your mountain high ego has shown through. No where did I say Limbaugh and Hannity were “special.” Perhaps YOU are the one who is upset that Limbuagh and Hannity are “special” in the eyes of 9 million radio listeners. Perhaps YOU are angry that you don’t have a nationally syndicated talk show. Perhaps — and whether true or not, I don’t care. I don’t like Limbuah or Hannity — and NEVER SAID I DID, NOW DID I?
Did I not say Limbaugh and Hannity were Respectible Conservatives who would not touch miscegenation? Why are you repeating yourself and trying to infer that I missed your point? I get the point just fine: You hate miscegenation and no Respectable Conservative will join your (our) camp. Okay — I have it! We have it!! BIG DEAL!!!
You dissapoint me, Bob. I would have thought you would understand what was written instead of making assumptions about the underlying thoughts behind my words. My main point was not about Limbaugh and Hannity — it was about people like you and me and the readers of the Blog taking action. Perhaps you have a guilty consicience about not doing anything but writing blogs lately?
I come from a family of school teachers like yourself (forgive me for equating public school teachers with college professors — I know how thin your academic egos are) and I can smell a “I KNOW EVERYTHING BECAUSE I’M AN EDUCATOR” attitude with a head cold. Get over yourself, Bob, and read what was written instead of trying to sound like god for once. You may think you are winning the battle, but instead your attitude is losing the war.
#10 by Bob Whitaker on 12/17/2004 - 10:18 am
Mark, none of this matters except that I have offended you. That bothers me, but there is nothing I can do about it.
I was angry that you said Limbaugh and Hannity had talked about the same thing that I did just because they criticized the courts. In fact, that was EXACTLY the point I was making: they have either to object to a decision that turns total power over to the courts or they have no objections to make.
Respectability, as you say, means that all power has to go to the court. That is the problem I am pointing out. Respectability trumps freedom, so that’s that.
What you did was exactly like those who say “they agree with my book” as if it were just another neoconservative critique of academic bias. The left today is based entirely on pretense. It has to be laughed to death.
That sort of trivialization of the few fundamental points I am trying to make is destructive.
This is a CRITICAL matter.
#11 by Horace on 12/18/2004 - 6:22 pm
What Bob calls a “Respectable Conservative” I prefer to call a Mealy-mouthed Effete Dissembling Conservative Jackass.
I do not let such people into my house, since at my house we take out the garbage.
I think someone needs to launch CA, Conservatives Anonymous, to help speed along recovery and prevent relapses.