Rightank

In New Jersey, five young Muslim men (not white, not black, but young and Muslim) were arrested. Led to the thugs’ apartment by a tip from Newark P.D., a Joint Terrorism Task Force discovered maps of the New York City subway system, train schedules, video, and $8,000 in cash. Hmmm. Obviously, they’re just saving money for college. At least four of the five are illegal aliens and the other is a fugitive. Ain’t our immigration system the goshdarned best in th’ world?

These arrests are troubling. It will be interesting to see what are the results of the investigation. I have a few questions of my own:

If they entered similar to many of the 9/11 terrorists, one could conclude that the only thing we’re doing better than we did back then is catch the terrorists before they strike. We’re not tightening our borders enough. We’re not enforcing the immigration laws that are designed to protect legal not illegal citizens.

If anything, this recent arrest illustrates the need to racially and religiously profile young Muslims who live in our Nation. I’m sorry if that offends you, but too bad. I care more about my family and friends than I do a suspect class of persons who are responsible for this terrorist age and declare allegiance to the sycophant bin Laden. Until a bunch of white grannies start blowing themselves up in malls, we need to target our limited resources to people from whom sprout the terrorist scum who desire to kill and decapitate Americans.

Sandy “Burglar” Berger, former National Security Adviser to “Slick Willy” Clinton, commented that he felt John Roberts is very conservative.

That’s interesting, coming from Burglar. If his remarks are true, it makes me feel a little better. However, coming from a guy who stole then destroyed top-secret documents from the National Archives, I’ll take his opinion with a grain of salt.

President Bush’s nomination of Judge John Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court is an interesting move. In one fell swoop, he spawned a hellish response to an accomplished lawyer who has argued an unbelievable 39 times! before the U.S. Supreme Court. According to W.:

[Judge Roberts] has profound respect for the rule of law and for the liberties guaranteed to every citizen. He will strictly apply the Constitution in laws, not legislate from the bench.

But will Roberts follow his presidential pronouncement? That is the million-dollar question. Roberts has a limited paper trail and has argued on behalf of both liberal and conservative clients. Is it true that Roberts is a constitutionalist and will interpret the laws according to the statutory text and not insert his personal policy preferences as law? Is Roberts a Scalia/Thomas jurist or will he transmogrify into a Souter or another O’Connor?

Bush’s selection of Roberts is encouraging in that he choose who he deemed most qualified without regard to race, ethnicity, or gender. His selection of a white male has infuriated some on the left, including Senator Ken Salazar, Democrat from Colorado. Salazar authored a tasteless letter to President Bush in which he expressed disappointment that Bush choose a man instead of a woman. Patronizing Bush’s relationship with his daughters, Salazar concluded his pitiful tripe:

You and I both have two daughters. The profound message we should be giving to them is that their gender creates no limitations for them to live up to their God-given potential. Yet, I fear that with the loss of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor from the United States Supreme Court, we are sending the opposite message.

Salazar’s spittle is beyond the pale. The Constitution does not require a certain number of women, men, or ethnicities dressed in black robes in order to properly hear and decide a case. Salazar’s inference that Bush is telling women there are limitations to their God-given potential is sexist and ignorant. Maybe the esteemed Senator Salazar should resign his office and give it to a woman so he can feel better about himself. That’s the real reason for his comments. Salazar wants the admiration of the feminst groups who fill the ranks of the Democratic party and to feel good that he is continuing the “battle for equality.”

I do have my reservations on the Roberts pick. What are his views on the importance of traditional marriage? Does he believe the First Amendment commands a separation of church and state? I agree with Ann Coulter: selecting a Supreme Court nominee should not be a game of Russian roulette. Bush should have picked an obvious and fiery conservative, one who is unabashedly proud of his conservatism and verifably reliable.

Unfortunately, at this point the Roberts nomination leaves more questions than answers. It is early. Hopefully, the conservatives on the judiciary committee will push Roberts to divulge more of his judicial philosophy–and that philosophy will not make conservatives want to throw up.

**Update #1**

Americans United for Separation of Church and State’s outcry on Judge Roberts’s nomination makes me happy. If Roberts believes in recognizing our Nation’s religous heritage as AU claim, then Roberts will be a welcome addition to Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, and Kennedy–Justices who properly understand what the religion clauses mean.

The vile terrorist attacks by Islamofacists in London illustrate the importance of integrating the immigrant population and instilling a love and respect for one’s country. Some of the London terrorists led seemingly nondescript lives, however, each one of the bombers did not integrate into culture of their adopted country–Great Britain.

It is vital to the survival of any nation-state to integrate the immigrant population that is legally absorbed each year. For the Brits, the problem lies in their European Union membership. As a European Union member state, they cede the defense of their borders. Why? Because as a member state, any person must be admited who possesses a member state passport or identity card:

As a citizen of the European Union you have certain rights and opportunities which you may not always be aware of.

Did you know, for instance, that you can travel freely in any EU country (1) simply on condition that you are in possession of a valid passport or identity card? And are you aware what rights and opportunities are available to you as a consumer travelling in the single European market?

Every year increasing numbers of European citizens travel within the Union, for the purposes of tourism, visiting friends or relatives, or for work or training.

As a citizen of a Member State of the European Union, you are no ordinary tourist or traveller: you are entitled to certain rights, such as the right to enter and live temporarily in another Member State. You are also entitled to certain benefits and safeguards as regards purchases and private transactions, and healthcare.

There are accordingly many reasons why you should feel at home anywhere in Europe.

Perhaps, the Brits can scare the radical Muslims who either learn hate in the many mosques in the UK or flow through their borders freely if they have documentation from a EU member state. I doubt it. Their best road to minimizing terror is to instill the values of democracy, freedom, and a love for Great Britain. That is a tough road-to-hoe. According to one poll, 1/3 of Muslims desire to transform Great Britain into a Muslim state.

The insidious attack on tradition by pacifists and liberals who desire to redefine the historical origins of democratic nation-states (particularly Great Britain and the United States) leads to a blossoming of a citizenry with no allegiance to country and thus, more receptive to terrorist impulses. The longer a society refuses to acculturate its immigrants (and non-immigrants), the more likely a small, anti-nationalist scratch will turn into a festering wound that will be almost impossible to stamp out without bloodshed. It’s time for America and Great Britain to wake-up.

In the second Ten Commandments case, Van Orden v. Perry, Chief Justice Rehnquist (along with Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, & Breyer) held that a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds did not violate the Establishment Clause. This decision, inapposite of the Court’s result in McCreary, endorses a proper understanding of the historical religiousity that should govern Establishment Clause interpretation.

Van Orden recognizes what McCreary did not:

[T]he Ten Commandments are religious–they were so viewed at their inception and so remain . . . And the Ten Commandments have an undeniable historical meaning. . . . Simply having religious content or promoting a message with a religous doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause. See Chief Justice Rehnquist’s opinion, page 11 (emphasis mine).

Recognizing both the historical influence and religiousity of the Ten Commandments (in Rehnquist’s words “a dual significance”), Rehnquist found the Ten Commandments display a permissible religious acknowledgment.

Despite the jaggedness of three concurrences and one majority opinion, Van Orden creates a sense of promise and hopefulness that the Establishment Clause jurisprudence will again return to a more originalist and constitutional approach, rather than an ad hoc determination based upon the religious preferences of the individual Justices.

Justice Scalia, in his concurrence argued for the adoption of

An Establishment Clause jurisprudence that is in accord with the Nation’s past and present practices, and that can be consistently applied–the central relevant feature of which is that there is nothing unconstitutional in a State’s favoring a religion generally, honoring God through public prayer or acknowledgment, or, in a nonproselytizing manner, venerating the Ten Commandments. See Justice Scalia’s concurrence, page 1 (emphasis mine).

Hopefully, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice who replaces O’Connor will bring with him or her an originalist understanding of the Establishment Clauses like Scalia’s. If so, Van Orden will not only safeguard Ten Commandments monuments, but bolster the historical underpinnings of our Nation that respect religion, rather than demean and sequester it from the public’s eye, burying any recognition of the historical, judicially enshrined falsehood called “separation of church and state.”

If a conservative desires to irrate a liberal, one sure-fire way is to label him or her unpatriotic. Such a crass intonation creates a tinge of instant anger. Liberals (especially anti-war liberals) hate when anyone dares question their patriotism.

Yet, at times what spills out of the liberal mouth is full of distaste for our Nation’s heritage. Mark Graber, from the blog Balkanization, wrote the following:

The Fourth of July may be a difficult holiday for those with pacifist tendencies. Not the least of the bad practices associated with independence day is the American tendency to define oppression downwards. Might Americans have been better off forming an independent nation in 1776. Of course. But whether the level of injustice justified shooting a lot of people strikes me as dubious, at best. And worse, when we teach our children that conditions in 1776 were so oppressive as to justify violence, they are inclined to think of oppression indiscriminately.

The Fourth of July may be a “difficult” holiday for peace-lovers? Give me a break. Hey Mark, do you think that the Brits were going to hand us our country on a silver platter? I don’t believe George Washington and the others wanted to fight for their freedoms, but they did–valiantly. They were courageous instead of weak (like the French). Independence Day is only difficult for the feckless and those who despise our Nation’s history and forbears.

What are the other bad practices of Independence Day? Political incorrectness? Killing the enemy? Defending one’s family from harm?

Gradner’s tasteless quip implies that any type of violent aggression undertaken by any nation-state is not justifiable. In his view, because our nation and nationalism was born of a bloody Revolutionary War, the independence declared and won by the United States is not worth celebrating.

Patriotism is loyalty and love for one’s country. The United States is a Nation bred of hard work, war, determination, and allegiance to God. The Fourth of July celebrates these ideals and the freedoms we enjoy because of our progenitors. To shame their memory by whining about their heroic actions reeks of disloyalty and aversion. Such an attitude and feeling, in my view, is simply not patriotic.

Check out this excellent and source-rich article on the connection between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Read it in conjunction with Andrew McCarthy’s stellar piece on 9/11 and Iraq.

These articles demonstrate the number of potential and confirmed links between the membership of al Qaeda and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein.

Justice O’Connor’s retirement (and possibly Rehnquist’s and Steven’s as well!) present a historic opportunity to halt the social and internationalist judicial activism that froths from the court’s current opinion-making.

My beef with Justice O’Connor judical contributions is three-fold: the unconstitutional prolongment of affirmative action policies on the college admissions process; the development of the endorsement test in Establishment Clause cases; the radicalization of social policy, particularly homosexual “rights.” Two of these judicial qualities are recent incarnations, while one (the endorsement test) was O’Connor’s position over the last two decades.

In Grutter v. Bolinger (2003), Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion upheld the University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions policy even though that policy sustantially overvalued an applicant’s race (but only African-American, Latino, and Native-Americans–screw the Asians and the Caucasians). In that opinion, Justice O’Connor said the following:

We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.

In other words, an unconstitutional admissions policy is constitutional for 25 more years because Justice O’Connor gazed into the future and said so–not because the Constitution permitted or warranted the arbitrary extension.

In Lynch v. Donnelly (1984), Justice O’Connor introduced her endorsement test to “clarify” the Court’s Establishment Clause jurisprudence. However, all Justice O’Connor did was further muddy the legal waters of permitted religiousity in America. In her view, the government violates the Establishment Clause when to a reasonable or objective observer “the government intends to convey a message of endorsement or disapproval of religion.” Also, the purpose of the governmental practice must not “endorse or disapprove of religion.” This endorsement test, based upon her amalgamation of the Court’s Establishment jurisprudence and not on the Founder’s intent of the Establishment Clause’s purpose, is what held together the majority of five justices in the recent case of McCreary County v. ACLU where Justice O’Connor concurred that a courtroom display of the Ten Commandments was unconstitutional:

Given the history of this particular display of the Ten Commandments, the Court correctly finds an Establishment Clause violation. The purpose behind the counties’ display is relevant because it conveys an unmistakable message of endorsement to the reasonable observer. See Justice O’Connor’s concurrence, page 3 (citations omitted and emphasis mine).

In Lawrence v. Texas (2003), Justice O’Connor joined five other justices in finding a Texas statute criminalizing sodomy unconstitutional. In that opinion, she coughed out the following in her concurrence:

Moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate governmental interest under the Equal Protection Clause because legal classifications must not be drawn for the purpose of disadvantaging the group burdened by the law. Texas’ invocation of moral disapproval as a legitimate state interest proves nothing more than Texas’ desire to criminalize homosexual sodomy. But the Equal Protection Clause prevents a State from creating a classification of persons undertaken for its own sake. And because Texas so rarely enforces its sodomy law as applied to private, consensual acts, the law serves more as a statement of dislike and disapproval against homosexuals than as a tool to stop criminal behavior. The Texas sodomy law raise[s] the inevitable inference that the disadvantage imposed is born of animosity toward the class of persons affected. (quotations and citations omitted)(emphasis mine).

Justice O’Connor’s personal preference–that States’ cannot morally disapprove of any group’s behavior–is absurd. Her usurpation of the State’s policy interest to grant gay and lesbians reprieve from a criminal law is judical activism at its finest (apart from the fact that the Equal Protection Clause was ratified to rectify racist State practices–not protect any disadvantaged group with whom Justice O’Connor or any judge sympathizes).

These three examples of Justice O’Connor inserting her personal policy preferences in lieu of the constitutional text or deference to state sovereignity are reasons why conservatives should rejoice (as I do) that Justice O’Connor is leaving the Court. President Bush has promised to appoint a strict constructionist (i.e., a judge who will interpret the Constitution and other law according to its orginal intent and meaning) in her place. I believe Bush will keep his promise and appoint a lawyer of a Scalia/Thomas mold. If so, an originalist interpretation of the Establishment Clause is likely to take hold, admission practices that disguise racial quotas with the mantra of diversity less likely to receive the Court’s judicial blessing, and it is less likely that same-sex marriage will be thrust upon our Nation by the Court.

This a great editorial on what real torture is and why Senator Durbin’s comments were so despicable when he compared our treatment of Club Gitmo detainees to the thuggish regimes of Pol Pot, Hitler, and Stalin.

First, in response to Philo’s assertion that any State’s enactment of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman is homophobic and ignorant. I beg to differ. It’s quite irksome that advocates for same-sex marriage insist on labeling any action contra the advancement of gay/lesbian rights as homophobic. Such careless slander does nothing but infuriate those who support traditional marriage and is deterimental to gay/lesbian proponents attempt to radicalize marriage. I doubt one would be labeled racist if he or she was against affirmative action–especially if that person was black (Ward Connelly comes to mind).

The raison d’etre that States have been forced to craft and enact constitutional amendments defining marriage between one man and one woman is to prevent judges from pulling a coup d’etat Massachusetts-style and forcing same-sex marriage upon them by fiat. In other words, marriage has always been defined between a man and a woman. It does not mean anymore than that. Period. To preserve that definition from the liberalization of a scant minority and protect it from judicial usurpation is hardly homophobic. To be un-homophobic, one has to support gay and lesbian relationships not merely tolerate their existence. To tolerate one’s lifestyle choice, whether gambling or homosexuality, is not an abnormal fear.

TST, there is a big difference with interracial marriage and homosexual “marriage”–the interracial marriage is a heterosexual marriage whereas the homosexual marriage is either two women or two men. That children adopted into homosexual relationships would be confused about their unique sex roles (particularly a boy with two lesbians or a girl with two gay men) is so obvious I find it hard to believe you actually argue to the contrary.

Philo, you argue that legalizing same-sex marriage would increase the 8 reasons I cited that describe traditional marriage’s unique contribution to society. I disagree. Let me just take number two–responsible procreation. Neither the union of two men or two women can produce offspring. Gay and lesbian relationships are biologically incapable of procreating. Procreation is “to bring (a living thing) into existence by the natural process of reproduction.” See Oxford American Dictionary 713 (1980). Neither in vitro fertilization nor adoption qualify as natural processes. These are mere substitutes for procreation. Same-sex couples can never be parents of the same child. They may adopt a child (in states that allow gay/lesbian adoption or finagle the adoption via second-parent adoption) and become the parents legally, but they can never be parents genetically of the same child.

On to proof about the negative impact of same-sex marriage on society and the family. Since 1998, the Netherlands have legalized same-sex marriage. That recognition has not strengthened marriage or the family unit. Patrick Fagan and Grace Smith of the Heritage Foundation authored an article discussing homosexual marriage’s impact on the Dutch entitled “The Transatlantic Divide on Marriage: Dutch Data and the U.S. Debate on Same-Sex Unions.” They quote Dutch social scientists as follows:

[The Dutch] increasingly regard marriage as no longer relevant because they have been persuaded that marriage is not connected to parenthood and that marriage and cohabitation are equally valid lifestyle choices . . .

In addition, according to data collected by Fagan and Smith, the marriage rate has declined and the divorce rate has increased after the introduction of same-sex marriage. Thus, if one where to look at The Netherlands experience, the introduction of same-sex marriage weakens rather than bolsters same-sex marriage.

Philo and TST, both of you are eager to dismiss the stake society has in the stability of its family structure. Perhaps, it is because you continue to ignore the societal interest in preserving traditional marriage and instead focus on marriage defined by the love of two people in a monogamous relationship (as alluded to in the NY Times editorial you quote from). Marriage might be about love on a individual level–but that is irrevelant. It is society’s interest, not the individual’s that matters. Moreover, if marriage is re-defined as the union of two persons enamored with one another, what justification does society have to prevent other couplings like father/son or mother/daughter from marrying? The laws of incest would not prevent such overt discrimination from two, three, or four people in love–if love is the rationale behind society’s legal encouragement of marriage.

Traditional marriage is about much more that love, from the societal point of view. It is about the union of one man and one woman who create and nuture offspring that form the next generation and provide a stable family infrastructure. A nation-state has no business promoting love. It does, however, need to promote the optimal familial structure to maintain its population and promote social stability. Historically, traditional marriage is that structure.

Why should our Nation dismantle the definition of traditional marriage to placate the desires of a small minority of gays and lesbians? Why should their lifestyle choice be promoted or encouraged within society? A man’s love for a man or a woman’s love for a woman does not warrant such a drastic and cataclysmic change.