I wonder if you (and others) would be so placid if the judiciary was pushing an agenda that you were opposed too. Say the right wing managed to get a firm hold of the judiciary (as the left wing did) to push through THEIR agenda (pro-gun, anti-abortion, creationism in the schools, etc). Would you have the same viewpoint of the process if that were the case? I know I wouldn’t…I’m mostly placid because much of whats currently being pushed is not something I’m opposed too (well, some of it isn’t). However, I can see beyond that to what could happen if things were being pushed through that I firmly opposed.
I’m as worried by the nutballs on the left going bat shit over Bush and totally melting down as I am that those on the right are going to start lynching ‘activist judges’…which is to say I’m always worried by nutballs of any stripe but not so much that I fear to go outside. The rhetoric from both extreme’s has always been tinged with violence, but normally only the really wacked out actually follow through with said violence. And its unclear that such nutballs wouldn’t have gone bonkers anyway, reguardless of whether or not the left/right urged them on.
What chief of staff doesn’t count? Not the guy who gets coffee, the guy that runs the whole show for the boss, who echos his thoughts. That doesn’t count?
You said that GOP Senators and Congressmen had urged violence. I honestly don’t see a quote anywhere in the cites that come even close to that. Please, post the specific quotes from the specific Senators AND Congressmen that you claim urge violence.
The quote from the guy on Coburn’s staff is indeed disturbing, but even that needs to be taken in context. You’re quoting an editorial, remember, not a straight news report, and even the editorialists says that the quote was made “with a crooked smile” and in an off-the-cuff moment, not as part of some speech agitating a crowd. Are we going to expect waves of terror attacks everytime some Congressional staffer says something stupid in a passing converstation?
Perhaps not, but that’s a very separate question from whether the judiciary needs to be reined in because they are too aggressive in striking down federal legislation. (A point implied by John Mace). What I was asking John Mace to explain was why there was a need to put limits on judicial review of Congressional acts. The standard under which most legislation is reviewed is extremely deferential. Indeed, this deference was the reason why the Sonny Bono copyright extension act was upheld, a decision that drew howls of protest on this Board, as I recall. This is a sharp contrast, to the New Deal, where the Supreme Court was much more activist in striking down FDR’s economic reforms on the grounds that they arguably exceeded federal power, but more realistically because they disagreed with the economic rationale underlying those laws. Arguably, in that case, there may have been a need to put limits on the Court’s ability to review economic legislation - the country was in an economic depression, and the Court was inhibiting the legislative branch’s ability to address the problem.
A lot of the current “stop the courts” activism is driven by the parallel beliefs that the courts are not sufficiently respectful of certain rights (e.g. “the right to life”) and are too aggressive in manufacturing “new rights” (e.g. abortion, consensual sodomy). When you get right down to it, the idea that there is a privacy right at all is anathema, so they want to reach all the way back to overturning Griswold v. Connecticut (the decision striking down restrictions on contraceptives). The current dispute about allowing pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives is part of an attempt to overcome the result of Griswold by the back door. But by and large, these are not problems (to the extent you view them as such) of the Court being too activist in striking down federal legislation, which is why I don’t see the case for limiting the court’s right to review such legislation.
The statements were irresponsible and could incite others to violence. And they were made by a Congressman and a Senator. Its completely irresponsible, and it’s being done at a time when others are doing things like quoting Stalin when discussing judges: “No man, no problem”.
If by “3 quotes above”, you meant the quotes in post #3 plus the comment about impaling judges, then let me address them. (If you mean something else, then you really will have to requote.).
Delay’s comment: To me that looks like a "he’ll have to answer to his maker when he dies’ or a “we might impeach him” comment. I don’t see any indication of violence
Cornyn’s comment: Yes, that was irresponsible. He should never have said such a thing.
The staffer’s comment: Already addressed in an earlier post.
But the question remains… do such irresponsible statements lead to violence by the populace. Unclear. Radicals don’t take their direction from Congressmen, but from the leaders of radical movements. Right now we have several left wing organizations that are routinely commiting acts of violence against property. At the same time we have some right wing groups attacking abortion clinics and sometimes aborition doctors. We also have some White Supremacists attaking judges. If I had to choose one to be more afraid of, it’d be the environmentalists and animal rights nuts. They seem inclined towards violence against corporations and communities, and that could mean random acts against large numbers of private citizens.
So you’re more afraid of the left-wing wackos vandalizing property – because they might target people in the future – and less afraid of the right-wing wackos attacking judges and doctors – who are targeting people now? Ohhhhhhhhhhhh-kay…
Or is this simply a case of wearing your bias on your sleeve?
I have been opposed to rulings that have overtuned the rights of gays to marry and leaving the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance – just to give two examples. But it did not enter my mind that these judiciaries were “pushing an agenda” in making those rulings. Legislatures do and they have hissy fits when judges don’t fall into line.
Never once have I thought that the judicial system should be accountable to Congress in any way other than the ways that are already spelled out. They have to remain independent in order to protect minority rights.
I agree it’s ambiguous. However, the problem is that Delay has refused to clarify exactly what he meant. And the statement came in prepared, not off-the-cuff, remarks that he made upon the death of Terry Schiavo. They were said in an environment that included a bounty being placed on the head of one of the judges in the Schiavo case. Since Delay won’t clarify, he obviously wanted the remarks to sound sinister, and at least to me they surely do.
Thanks, appreciated.
It was an editorial, but it was also a first hand account, not hearsay. So I’ll accept it as an accurate account of what was said. I agree, it’s somewhat exculpatory that this was not a statement made to rile up a group of people, but made in private. But, it’s horrifying nevertheless that this man, the chief of staff to a Senator, makes this sort of off-the-cuff “joke” about murdering judges, and it speaks volumes to what sort of speech goes on both in the Senators office and amongst this group of activists against the judiciary.
But if even mainstream leaders speak radically, mightent this embolden the radical leaders to speak more radically? I don’t know, but since Delay’s remark, we’ve been hearing increasingly more pointed suggestions regarding from the non-elected wingnuts.
As I said in post #3, I’m not convinced that there was a strong, or even any connection to OKC and some of the radical speech heard from the right at that time. (And, in fact, I don’t see anyone trying to make that case very forcefully either way in this thread.) I started my quote-fest in response to Mr. Moto’s post:
This basically asserts an equivalence between the fringe-left and fringe right – “sure, theres fringe nuts out there, but cooler heads will prevail. Nothing new here.” This is an empty argument when we have the leaders on the right making statements that are at best ambiguous about violence against the judiciary. This takes things to a quite different level than some anti-war nuts talking out of their asses in 2003. Asserting equivalence is absurd.
In this case, the context is irrelevant. More on that in a minute.
As far as domestic terrorism goes, I don’t think we’ll see anything close to Oklahoma City scale. What we are more likely to see is the targeting of judges who have made less than favorable rulings by some of the more fanatical members.
In this case, any statement that is not an outright condemnation of attacks can be seen as a justification. If it happens to be mildly threatening, it is practically a golden ticket. Context doesn’t matter because the sort of person that would commit these attacks is friggin’ loony and will supply their own context.
This doesn’t meant that I think the people making these vague statements would be to blame. I do think that it would be helpful to drop the more edged rhetoric.
You left-wingers are laughing now, but you won’t be laughing when those minks that PETA members let out of their cages start to overrun the world.
In all seroiusness, folks, let me reiterate what I said at the start of the thread. Right now we have some Republican members of Congress who have been on the borderline of advocating violence against judges, and one not-too-well-known conservative commentator being more direct and less amibguous. So not too much to worry about. My point was that it’s indicative of changes in their rhetoric. Comments of that sort would not have been tolerated at all in the months after 9/11, or after the Oklahoma City bombing. If the right wing sees that they can get away with this, they will push further towards more openly violent statements. It’s all part of a strategy. We know from that infamous memo (that actually was written by a Republican staffer) that the Pubs’ entire stance on the Schiavo case was created to get the most extreme elements of their party all riled up, and then pander to those extreme elements. So if it worked one time, common sense tells they’ll pull similar stunts in the future, with similar appeals that may cross the border into outright calls for violence.
Folks, what you’ve got to realize is that wacko acts of terrorism don’t exist in a vacuum. These people don’t just wake up one day and decide that it’s time to shoot a judge or bomb a building. It’s the end result of listening to the extreme right’s steam of propaganda day in and day out that does it. One Congressman demanding that judges “answer for their decision” won’t do it. But if many members of Congress and many right-wing commentators and leaders continuously talk like that, it will be trouble brewing.
I know this is a total tangent, but I don’t think there is any reason whatsoever to consider the Unabomber left in any manner. I’ve only read the first half or so of his manifesto, but it’s clear that the one thing he hates more than anything is “Leftists”. (His word.)
Small excerpt from his manifesto:
If you were to suggest to him that he was left-wing anything, he’d, I dunno, probably send you a ticking package.
If there is a right-wing terrorist attack, presumably against a left-wing target, will the left then wring their hands and ask, ‘Why do they hate us?’ or ‘Which of our policies brought this attack on us’?
I’ll admit, I don’t see direct commentary from the “left” side of the aisle, but I also don’t see a lot of this or this coming from the right wing, either. Yes, there are a lot of calls to “defeat them” and some “intolerance” as viewed from the “left,” but no one on the right, to my knowledge, has called for outright assassination of a political figure.
Dirk – give me a break. A “cafe press” t-shirt isn’t an example of “the left”. We don’t know who put that up. It could have been Brutus, for all you know.
That’s ridiculous. For one, the Schiavo memo was written by a staff member for one Senator. A Senator who, incidently, didn’t even read the memo. So I don’t think you can say that an unread memo written by one staff member proves anything.
Two, you may choose to believe that there is a conspiracy that basically consists of Republicans getting together and saying, “if we make some veiled threats to the judiciary and no one calls us on them, then we can make overt threats to the judiciary and then. . .” And then what, ITR? We’ll have Tom Delay going into the Supreme Court with an AK-47? Or maybe just Coburn’s chief of staff? Or an army of conservative warriors swarming courthouses around the country killing judges and saying “Tom Delay told us to do it!”
It’s a ridiculous premise. No elected official is seriously advocating violence against any judges. Liberals like to twist the words of a few people to make it seem like conservatives are doing so, but that doesn’t make it so. And even if what they said was threatening (and, to be fair, I can see how some could possibly perceive some comments as such), that certainly does not mean there is some sort of conspiracy to escalate the rhetoric and provoke the killing of judges.
I’ll admit there may be one or two nuts who may kill a judge because they get riled up listening to talk radio or whatever. However, you can’t blame others for the actions of a crazy person. Hell, John Hinckley shot at Reagan because he watched *Taxi Driver * too many times. A kid shot himself because he thought Ozzie Osbourne’s “Suicide Solution” song told him to do so. Just because some unbalanced person decides to do something after listening to a song, watching a movie, or reading a book, does not mean that the song, movie, or book is to blame.
