MaxedOutMama
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Contemplating The News
The London authorities say that the dud bombers went back to their explosives cache to get more fuel. Not reassuring. They have arrested four more people but I gather it's not the ones who attempted the attack.
The shuttle astronauts are using a robotic arm equipped with a laser to check for damage to the shuttle's exterior
.
But this is good news - the New London homeowners have a reprieve, and Connecticut is considering limiting emininent domain. And here is an excellent post by Betsy Newmark about Dean's attempt to blame Republicans for Kelo. But there's a catch, it turns out that out of the Democrats in the house, 157 of them voted against the bill to deny federal funds to the use of emininent domain for the benefit of private interests, and only 39 of them voted for the bill.
This may be because their fearless leader, Nancy Pelosi, believes that God (a.k.a. the Supreme Court) has spoken and that Congress must therefore immediately provide funds to the states so that they can seize the property of the old minority members in the inner city and give it to wealthy white developers. This is the Democratic party? I'm having some trouble believing it.
Beldar looks at Turley's concerns as expressed in the LA Times articles and points out that this is not a unique situation affecting Roman Catholics:
I strongly recommend reading Patterico's post, because while Turley may be sincere, the way all this is playing out is getting deeply dishonest. Pro-abortion factions are trying to either institute the idea that religious people must not be appointed to the court or that they must not be allowed to judge cases in which their faith may have definite teachings.
I also really like the fact that Patterico linked to Professor Bainbridge, who disagrees with him and Judge Noonan's decision. Professor Bainbridge is wrong, IMO, because he somehow distinguishes between the mandates of faith acting upon an individual's conscience and whether that may or may not influence a person's judgement of what the law means, versus the dictates of a person's conscience, and whether that may or may not influence a person's judgement of the what the law means. Everyone has a conscience, and under our system it is rather irrelevant to attempt to distinguish between different sources of the tenets and principles that have formed a person's conscience.
This seems to me to be an obvious error. If the Catholic church were an institution which could control its adherents under our system, the issue would be different. However it is not; the only control any tenet of the Catholic church can have upon a Catholic judge would be that the Catholic judge in fact agreed with the moral principle in question. Furthermore, judges don't decide interpretations of law based on whether they personally believe the law is right or wrong, but rather upon their interpretation of what the law actually means.
Professor Bainbridge comments about the death penalty - well, what of the court's recent reference to international law in connection with the court's decision on the constitutionality of the death penalty for minors? Is international law not a codified expression of conscience external to our legal system? How is that codification different from the Catholic church's codification? Should it be a requirement that judges nominated for a seat on the federal bench should have to swear that they have no faith in or regard for trends in international law?
A judge is required to take an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of the United States. It seems to me that this is the only test of conscience we can properly apply under our system without dooming ourselves to a constant squabble over petty shades of meaning.
I believe that we are seeing an attempt to institutionalize anti-Catholic bigotry, and that this must not happen. If you don't agree, ask yourself if this question would ever have arisen if Judge Roberts were an Episcopalian? A Jew? A Buddhist? I think not. The AMA develops a list of ethical guidelines for doctors. Suppose a doctor had become a lawyer, should that person be debarred from judging any cases in which the AMA's ethical guidelines might be applicable?
The shuttle astronauts are using a robotic arm equipped with a laser to check for damage to the shuttle's exterior
.
But this is good news - the New London homeowners have a reprieve, and Connecticut is considering limiting emininent domain. And here is an excellent post by Betsy Newmark about Dean's attempt to blame Republicans for Kelo. But there's a catch, it turns out that out of the Democrats in the house, 157 of them voted against the bill to deny federal funds to the use of emininent domain for the benefit of private interests, and only 39 of them voted for the bill.
This may be because their fearless leader, Nancy Pelosi, believes that God (a.k.a. the Supreme Court) has spoken and that Congress must therefore immediately provide funds to the states so that they can seize the property of the old minority members in the inner city and give it to wealthy white developers. This is the Democratic party? I'm having some trouble believing it.
Beldar looks at Turley's concerns as expressed in the LA Times articles and points out that this is not a unique situation affecting Roman Catholics:
Without mocking Prof. Turley's concerns, nor his or Judge Roberts' faith, I think this op-ed considerably overstates the potential problem, both in general and specifically with respect to Judge Roberts.Patterico takes a whack as well, citing Judge Noonan's refusal to recuse himself from an abortion case (he was asked to do so by those favoring abortion). Go over there to get the link to the opinion and read all of Patterico's comments. Judge Noonan referred to Article VI, and pointed out that complying with the request would institute the religious test forbidden by Article VI of the Constitution.
There are certainly non-Roman Catholic judges who are also deeply religious and deeply moral; the Roman Catholic Church does indeed have high profile public positions on some religious/moral issues that also have legal implications, but the sort of potential conflict that Prof. Turley describes could always arise with any potential nominee to any position on any judicial bench.
I strongly recommend reading Patterico's post, because while Turley may be sincere, the way all this is playing out is getting deeply dishonest. Pro-abortion factions are trying to either institute the idea that religious people must not be appointed to the court or that they must not be allowed to judge cases in which their faith may have definite teachings.
I also really like the fact that Patterico linked to Professor Bainbridge, who disagrees with him and Judge Noonan's decision. Professor Bainbridge is wrong, IMO, because he somehow distinguishes between the mandates of faith acting upon an individual's conscience and whether that may or may not influence a person's judgement of what the law means, versus the dictates of a person's conscience, and whether that may or may not influence a person's judgement of the what the law means. Everyone has a conscience, and under our system it is rather irrelevant to attempt to distinguish between different sources of the tenets and principles that have formed a person's conscience.
This seems to me to be an obvious error. If the Catholic church were an institution which could control its adherents under our system, the issue would be different. However it is not; the only control any tenet of the Catholic church can have upon a Catholic judge would be that the Catholic judge in fact agreed with the moral principle in question. Furthermore, judges don't decide interpretations of law based on whether they personally believe the law is right or wrong, but rather upon their interpretation of what the law actually means.
Professor Bainbridge comments about the death penalty - well, what of the court's recent reference to international law in connection with the court's decision on the constitutionality of the death penalty for minors? Is international law not a codified expression of conscience external to our legal system? How is that codification different from the Catholic church's codification? Should it be a requirement that judges nominated for a seat on the federal bench should have to swear that they have no faith in or regard for trends in international law?
A judge is required to take an oath to uphold the constitution and laws of the United States. It seems to me that this is the only test of conscience we can properly apply under our system without dooming ourselves to a constant squabble over petty shades of meaning.
I believe that we are seeing an attempt to institutionalize anti-Catholic bigotry, and that this must not happen. If you don't agree, ask yourself if this question would ever have arisen if Judge Roberts were an Episcopalian? A Jew? A Buddhist? I think not. The AMA develops a list of ethical guidelines for doctors. Suppose a doctor had become a lawyer, should that person be debarred from judging any cases in which the AMA's ethical guidelines might be applicable?
Comments:
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Here the catch with the catch and the reason that many democrats voted against the ban on federal funding in projects that are private in nature. Most Democrats approved of the origianl bill's idea (many democrats prosposed bills with republican co-sponsors) which only included profit making projects such as malls and hotels, but this bill includes HUD and other programs intended for poor families.
Most low income housing built is subsidised with state and federal funding, but are privately owned (more cost effective that way and better run). Now, either the housing won't get built or it will have to be run by the government. Either way, the end result sucks.
The bill was really a back end way to cut millions of dollars from HUD.
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Most low income housing built is subsidised with state and federal funding, but are privately owned (more cost effective that way and better run). Now, either the housing won't get built or it will have to be run by the government. Either way, the end result sucks.
The bill was really a back end way to cut millions of dollars from HUD.
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