Oh, Fuck Me.
Remember about... Half a year ago, when I mentioned in my post-election epression post ( http://www.livejournal.com/users/honormac/19435.html ) what a disaster was possible if our disaster of a President were to get the opportunity to appoint a disiaster of a supreme court justice or two while a disaster of a sycophantic republican majority ruled in both houses of congress...? Remeber myself and others mentioning that this could devastate our system of freedoms like no other event in the past hundred years has even threatened to do?
Well, Justice Rhenquist has been sick, and I haven't been as nervous on a long term basis since the cold war. And then what do I read today...?
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has resigned.
Talk about a blindside... Talk about a heart-attack surprise... Talk about a bolt from the blue...
To be very clear and frank... Her replacement will be nominated by a man who has absolutely no respect for your freedoms or well-being. A man who, if you do not share his evangelical Christian views and/or monetary peer-group barely even thinks of you as human. Even if you -do- share his evagelical Christian views (and do NOT make the mistake of confusing thosee with REAL Christian views) do you agree with him that nobody else - Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Athiest, Homosexual of any stripe - should be allowed to live and be free?
Perhaps 90% of those who bother to read this may well think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not - not one bit - when I say this one fact could very well alter for all time the fabric and direction of the freedom of our society.
If a Congress dominated by myopic neo-conservative radicals writes the laws, a court system dominated by neo-conservative radicals interprets the laws, and an executive branch ruled by an evangelical, radical neo-conservative enforces the laws... What do you think the future of freedom and civil liberty looks like?
Please try to remember that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal, and that the US Supreme Court is the body charged with the interpretation and determination of what is legal in the US. Please try to remember that Hitler's Nazi Party, Stalin's Communist Party, Osama Bin Laden's Taliban, and Bush's Republican party all share one important thing in common... All are or were radical, ultra-conservative movements who feel or felt the higher right and authority of a diety, destiny, fate, or natural law on thier side to justify thier monstrous actions.
If you're intellectually, ethically, & morally awake at all, there's a knot in your stomach right now. It's a fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. It means now, right now, is the time to either fight, flee, or lie down and die.
Which will it be?
Well, Justice Rhenquist has been sick, and I haven't been as nervous on a long term basis since the cold war. And then what do I read today...?
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has resigned.
Talk about a blindside... Talk about a heart-attack surprise... Talk about a bolt from the blue...
To be very clear and frank... Her replacement will be nominated by a man who has absolutely no respect for your freedoms or well-being. A man who, if you do not share his evangelical Christian views and/or monetary peer-group barely even thinks of you as human. Even if you -do- share his evagelical Christian views (and do NOT make the mistake of confusing thosee with REAL Christian views) do you agree with him that nobody else - Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Athiest, Homosexual of any stripe - should be allowed to live and be free?
Perhaps 90% of those who bother to read this may well think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not - not one bit - when I say this one fact could very well alter for all time the fabric and direction of the freedom of our society.
If a Congress dominated by myopic neo-conservative radicals writes the laws, a court system dominated by neo-conservative radicals interprets the laws, and an executive branch ruled by an evangelical, radical neo-conservative enforces the laws... What do you think the future of freedom and civil liberty looks like?
Please try to remember that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal, and that the US Supreme Court is the body charged with the interpretation and determination of what is legal in the US. Please try to remember that Hitler's Nazi Party, Stalin's Communist Party, Osama Bin Laden's Taliban, and Bush's Republican party all share one important thing in common... All are or were radical, ultra-conservative movements who feel or felt the higher right and authority of a diety, destiny, fate, or natural law on thier side to justify thier monstrous actions.
If you're intellectually, ethically, & morally awake at all, there's a knot in your stomach right now. It's a fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. It means now, right now, is the time to either fight, flee, or lie down and die.
Which will it be?