Oofah. Worse than nuclear annihilation by a Soviet 1st strike? Robertson is an ass.

Pete:

The Soviets couldn't and didn't. The Cout has.

It's all a matter of tone: if Robertson said that Federal judges are out of control and are ruining the country, and then sited examples of their actions, few would argue with him--even most of the left would probably say, "I don't agree, but I know lots of conservatives who do".

But comparing judges to the other guys in robes--those who hijack planes and smash them into buildings, is really deep inside Godwin's Law territory. Especially when Robertson has a history of similar hyperbolic statements.

Ed:

Towards Osama or towards Blackmun?

Roe v. Wade didn't kill anybody, and it is an evasion of responsibility to assert that it has.

Mr. Robertson needs to redirect his ire to the women who aborted their pregnancies, many his co-religionists.

Unless, of course, like the kind of liberal nonsense that is truly a threat, he doesn't believe in personal accountability.

Jeff:

Very well. You are worse than Osama.

Jeff-

The imprimatur of the law has meaning particularly to those on the margins of morality. The concept of 'just powers' has meaning as well and in the case of Roe the central govt assumed powers never delegated to it and nearly impossible to justify in any rational way beyond the personal views of Blackmun and the concurring justices. It was an extremely harmful decision because it ended the discussion regarding abortion that was occurring at the state level, exactly like Dred Scot.

Robertson is the bete noir of the secular left although there there may be at least a kernal of truth to what he says. Is it possible that 9/11 has not changed America as much as the belief that abortion is a constitutional right or that human beings in the womb are less than human?

Jeff
Unfortunate that OJ picked Roe v Wade as an example of "disrepect" for the law that is now common with our Judiciary since apparently it's one of your favorites. Regardless Robertson (even if not a quality person) nailed the relative danger to our country, which is under greater threat from the Judiciary than the occasional pesky enemy from abroad.

The great flaw in our Constitution is the Imperial Judiciary. Ever since that two-bit hack, John Marshall, ratified his own decision in Marbury v Madison, it has been a plague on the nation. Dred Scott, Plessy, Korematsu, Miranda, Mapp, Roe, the hits just keep on coming. We need some serious means to police the judiciary, either by term-limiting them or by making them electorally accountable. Certainly, the use of any foreign precedent from after 7/4/1776 alone should be cause for impeachment.

Certainly the Court is a greater threat to the nation than some guy hanging out in St Tropez on a dialysis machine, but I doubt it is a greater threat to the US than Islam, which is an existential threat to all of civilization.

Islam can be Reformed. Secularism can't be.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Similarly with Roe v. Wade, regardless of its quality as a Court decision (BTW, Tom C., I completely agree with your anlaysis)

It is a complete evasion of personal responsibility to conclude otherwise.

And if you can't make that distinction, OJ, then perhaps you should refrain from voicing such foul invective.

Jeff:

In advocating amorality you're a far greater threat to our culture than anyone outside of it.

OJ:

Do me a favor and read what I wrote, then cite which particular lines advocate amorality. It would be nice, in so doing, that you abuse neither "advocate" nor "amorality."

It makes no more sense to say Roe v. Wade kills than to say the same of the Second Amendment.

I would think you had a better sense of personal accountability. Apparently not.

You are accountable for what you advocate--which is Evil.

According to Men in Black, which I'm reading right now ...

Blackmun wanted abortion legal. So did Planned Parenthood, in the two cases in Connecticut that laid the groundwork, Poe v. Ullman and Griswold v. Connecticut. The entire "right to privacy" argument is rooted in a friend of the court brief filed in Poe v. Ullman. Filed by -- hey what a suprise! -- an ACLU attorney.

This was all an explicit and organized attempt to make abortions easy to obtain. What it most definitely was not: an honest attempt at interpreting the Constitution.

So if a judge or five invents imaginary rights specifically to make abortion easier, and therefore more common, and imposes it on a democratic nation, how do they not have blood on their hands? Abortion today is legal because of the will of a few people, not because it was decided by a majority of, well, anybody.

The book, by the way, is excellent so far.

Jeff (Guinn):

I missed that part of the Second Amendment where people demand a right to use their guns indiscriminately against their (helpless) victims, totally under the protection of the courts.

Speaking of, those judges are also trying to gut the 2nd Amendment. And extend full constitutional rights to terrorists. And...ad nauseum.

Roe is just one example; how 'bout the tens of thousands of Americans murdered, raped, robbed and assaulted by criminals released under Miranda and other such rulings?

Robertson can be loopy, but even if you think him a fool, "The greatest lesson in life is that even a fool is right sometimes."--Winston Churchill.

Churchill was right--and so is Robertson.

Jim:

I missed that same part about Roe v. Wade.

The point is simple: Roe v. Wade doesn't procure abortions, women do. That is where the responsibility lies.

OJ:

Advocating assigning responsibility where it truly lies is evil how?

It's not, per se. You're responsible for what you advocate. And in this instance you're victimizing the women as well as the children.

What do I advocate?

Murder of the unborn, elderly, and infirm. Homosexuality. Etc.

No, this:

"[G]overning is recognized as a specific and limited activity; not the management of an enterprise, but the rule of those engaged in a great diversity of self-chosen enterprises. It is not concerned with concrete persons, but with activities; and with activities only in respect of their propensity to collide with one another. It is not concerned with moral right and wrong, it is not designed to make men good or even better; it is not indispensable on account of the "natural depravity of mankind" but merely because of their current disposition to be extravagant; its business is to keep its subjects at peace with one another in the activities in which they have chosen to seek their happiness. And if there is any general idea entailed in this view, it is, perhaps, that a government which does not sustain the loyalty of its subjects is worthless; and that while one which (in the old puritan phrase) "commands for truth" is incapable of doing so (because some of its subjects will believe its "truth" to be error), one which is indifferent to "truth" and "error" alike, and merely pursues peace, presents no obstacle to the necessary loyalty." - Michael Oakeshott

Yes, amorality.

No.

Understanding this: Divine Truth, thy name is not OJ.

Jeff:

To be "not concerned with moral right and wrong" is to serve Evil.

No, it isn't.

In fact, quite the opposite, as Hayek noted in Road to Serdom (the pertinent section, IIRC, is somewhere between page 86 and 88 in the latest edition) in noting the dangers to society from seeing one's picture next to the words Divine Truth. Funny you missed Hayek serving Evil, since you gave the book an A+

The opposite of imposing a particular variant of Absolute Truth is not to serve Evil--that is a false dichotomy.

Rather, the reliance on coercion where persuasion has failed is what leads to state sponsored Evil.

You make absolute the enemy of good.

But all this is really beside my original point: the astonishing avoidance of assigning responsibility where it is due--on individual decisions.

Astonishing, because that is where the solution lies. And why persuasion, in the long term, is far preferable to coercion.

Hayek and Oakeshott offer perceptive critiques of the Left, because Euroipean and having lived under it. Neither understands how to create a decent society. The state exists to coerce and to impose morality. It doesn't try to persuade you not to kill your wife and kids.

They offer perceptive critiques of the imposition of Absolute Truth.

Everywhere the state decides to impose a particular version of Absolute Truth, some version of the Taliban results.

You would burn to death homosexuals. So would they.

You demonize any deviation from your Absolute Truth. So did they.

The Taliban did not create a decent society, and your desire to impose Absolute Truth where none exists--even among your co-religionists--would lead to the same end.

The only decent societies are pluralistic. The only way to a decent pluralistic society is through persuasion, not coercion.

And the way to that end is not misdirecting responsibility for those things you find abhorrent.

So you'd allow someone to sodomize your child? And then persuade them not to do it again? The idea is too stupid to credit.

OJ:

Clearly, I am talking about the role of government in personal decisions, particularly in realms both complex and devoid of consensus.

So your response has nothing to do with point at hand.

I just checked my calendar. As it turns out, I can spare a few minutes for a reasoned discussion, but am far too busy today to engage in empty slanging matches.

Which will it be?

Ah, so suddenly you can differentiate right from wrong? Funny how that works.

I see. It will be empty slanging and evading the point at hand.