"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."Read the Constitution of the United States, to see what the current occupant of the Oval Office has sworn (or affirmed) to preserve, protect and defend.
I, [Name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [appointed position] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.
I, [Name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Today the House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin a multi-day markup on the Waxman-Markey energy tax bill. Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has been busy lobbying his own caucus for the necessary 30 votes to get the bill out of committee for weeks, but the bill's fate is still in doubt. Considering that global warming legislation is a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's agenda (he needs the tax revenues to fund his other big spending priorities), why can't the Obama administration convince their own party that their energy tax is a good deal for the American people?
First let's look at the economic costs of Waxman-Markey. Waxman-Markey attempts to limit greenhouse gas emissions by making it more expensive for greenhouse gas emitters to operate. Instead of a direct tax on greenhouse emissions, Waxman-Markey issues permits (mostly for free but some at a price paid to the federal government) that allow businesses to emit greenhouse gasses. Businesses that fail to lobby the federal government for enough permits to cover their current emission levels will then have to buy them from either the federal government or other businesses that have better lobbyists in Washington, DC.The net effect of these permits is higher costs for businesses and consumers that emit greenhouse gasses, the most prevalent being CO2. As then-candidate Barack Obama explained to the San Francisco Chronicle, this policy will cause electricity prices to "skyrocket." Since everything you consume requires energy, the higher energy costs caused by Waxman-Markey will spread throughout the entire economy. The Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis has crunched the numbers and found that by 2035, last week's version of Waxman-Markey would: 1) reduce aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) by $7.4 trillion; 2) destroy 844,000 jobs on average; and 3) raise an average family's annual energy bill by $1,500. And this week's version of the bill appears to have an even greater catastrophic effect on the economy.That's a pretty steep cost. So what do Americans get for being $7.4 trillion poorer in 2035? Other environmental legislation has helped reduce acid rain and slow the growth of asthma, so Waxman-Markey must offer some tangible benefits to the American people right? Wrong. Waxman-Markey is a truly unique piece of environmental legislation in that it does not offer a single tangible benefit to the American people.Global warming is just that: global. The United States still has the largest economy in the world, but China is now the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gasses. India also has a rapidly growing economy and neither they, nor China, have any plans to reduce their carbon emissions. So, using the left's own global warming theory, how much would Waxman-Markey actually cool the earth? Climatologist Chip Knappenberger crunched the numbers and found that even the strictest version of Waxman-Markey would reduce projected global temperatures by just 0.044ºC by 2050. That is less than one-tenth of one degree.So as this week progresses, and you hear scary story after scary story of all the hurricanes, wildfires, and flooding that will occur because of global warming, remember this: according to the left's own computer models Waxman-Markey would not prevent any of it.
Doesn't this look a more than a little bit like what we're going through right now?
I used to be what I thought was a liberal. If, at the time, anyone had asked me to explain myself, I would have said that I opposed Jim Crow laws, that I believed workers were entitled to make a decent wage and work in a safe environment, and that American citizens shouldn't be discriminated against because of their race, religion or national origin.I quit being a liberal because I didn't believe that members of particular minority groups deserved advantages denied to others, that illegal aliens weren't entitled to anything but a swift kick to the backside, that being a devout Christian didn't make you a bad person, and that capitalism was a system that worked, while socialism not only didn't work but most often turned into tyranny.I honestly don't know why there are so many liberals today and I certainly can't imagine why they have such a lousy agenda. I have come up with a theory. Here in California, roughly 30 years ago, because of budget cuts, a great many people were released from insane asylums. They wound up living in the streets, which explains the large number of homeless people, even though Democrats would have you believe that those are normal people who simply lost their jobs along the way.Even after the state became more solvent, it became almost impossible to get these poor souls back into institutions where they could be fed, clothed and given their meds, because the ACLU lawyers fought for their inalienable right to starve, freeze and use the sidewalks of your city as their combination bedroom, living room and bathroom.Inevitably, they also got to vote. As a result, the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Antonio Villaraigosa, Gavin Newsom and Jerry Brown, wound up winning all the major elections. I mean, the truth is, you'd have to be crazy to vote for those people.I have to suspect that a similar scenario took place all over the country. How else to explain that two-thirds of Americans actually believe that Barack Obama's policies will save our economy? I'm not even a Christian, but I find it bizarre that people who pooh-pooh the idea that Christ raised the dead or walked on water are totally convinced that a guy who's tossing trillions of dollars into the air is a financial miracle worker. Talk about blind faith!It makes me wonder if these same people, were they facing personal bankruptcy, would think that the answer to their own financial difficulties would be to give their wife an American Express card and drop her off at Tiffany's.If liberals aren't simply insane, they surely must be hypocrites. Why else would they insist that spending eight years bashing President Bush and comparing him, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, to the Nazi High Command was patriotic, but merely questioning President Obama's qualifications, judgment and policies makes one a racist?How is it that when, between 2000 and 2006, when the GOP had control of the Oval Office, the House and the Senate, on those rare occasions they didn't do the bidding of Ted Kennedy, John Murtha or Charles Schumer, they were condemned as divisive? However, when Obama and his left-wing cronies rushed through a trillion dollar stimulus package and a pork-filled budget over Republican objections, nobody in their crowd cried "Foul!" or insisted on reaching across the aisle for a group hug and a few choruses of "Kumbaya"?Before anyone bothers sending an e-mail reminding me that three Republican senators voted with the Democrats on the stimulus bill, I haven't forgotten. But, let's face it -- the two ladies from Maine are merely the east coast version of Boxer and Feinstein. As for Arlen Specter, I suspect that along the way, he'll switch to the Extraterrestial Party if, as he inches closer to being a hundred years old, he decides that's his best chance of winning an election.I know that people such as Sen. Specter and Sen. Jeffords would have us believe that they switched parties because of their principles, but I would prefer it if they only said such silly things in the hope of making me laugh. That's because I love to laugh, but I hate being taken for a fool. I mean, really, Jim Jeffords wakes up one day when he's 67 years old and Specter opens his eyes at the age of 79 and suddenly decide that the GOP isn't as conservative as they'd like, so the solution is to link left arms with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank?Something else that makes me wonder if, in a nicer, kinder world, liberals wouldn't be housed in a warm place where they'd be kept safely away from sharp objects and voting booths, is their notion of what constitutes torture. In my world, cutting off Daniel Pearl's head, throwing Anne Frank in an oven or having to listen to Chris Matthews, is torture. But by no means is it playing loud music, keeping people awake, making them share space with a caterpillar or even dousing them with water, in order to get them to cough up information that might prevent another 9/11 or keep American soldiers from being ambushed.Only a liberal could confuse actual torture with college hazing. I suspect there are members of fraternities who could share more harrowing tales than the Islamics with their Korans, their three squares and their personal prayer mats at Gitmo.Another difference that seems to escape liberals is that it's torture when the only purpose is to cause pain, not when it's done in order to pry important information from terrorists.And, finally, when did liberals decide that homosexuals get the final word when it comes to matters of morals, values or anything else, for that matter?It's bad enough that any number of self-righteous academics kept military recruiters off college campuses, pretending that their objection stemmed from the army's don't ask/don't tell policy, and not simply because left-wingers hate anything and everything that smacks of patriotism.In much the same way, those on the Left have led a crusade against the Boy Scouts of America because, so they say, they oppose the policy of not allowing homosexuals to be Scout leaders and take young boys into the woods on camping trips. Sensible people regard that as a sensible policy. It's not to suggest that every gay man is a pedophile, but simply recognizing that most pedophiles are gay men. Just as every Muslim is not a terrorist, just about every terrorist these days is a Muslim. So, why should parents take any unnecessary chances with their most precious possessions just so homosexuals won't have their feelings hurt?Liberals don't really care about homosexuals, by the way, unless they themselves happen to be gay. The truth is liberals rarely serve in the military now that service is voluntary and they don't usually let their kids join the Boy Scouts, not because they're offended by the aforementioned policy, but because the group fosters faith-based and patriotic ideals.If you want a perfect example of liberal hypocrisy, consider the recent beauty pageant when a repulsive little freak who calls himself Perez Hilton (born Mario Lavenderia), who had no business even being on stage at a competition involving beautiful women, got to ask Miss California, Carrie Prejean, how she felt about same-sex marriages. Her honest answer probably cost her the victory, while earning her the respect of most fair and decent Americans.What I find so telling about the incident was that in California, the reason that the same-sex marriage measure was defeated on the November ballot was because 70% of blacks voted that way. But the gays only demonstrated outside Catholic and Mormon churches and businesses. Furthermore, I guarantee that if Miss Prejean had been black, instead of a blue-eyed blonde, Mr. Hilton wouldn't have dared open his ugly little yap.It's also worth noting that President Obama gave the exact same answer to the exact same question during the campaign, and yet the gays voted overwhelmingly for him. Which certainly suggests that, thanks to the insane asylums being relatively empty these days, honesty can cost you a tiara, but not the presidency.
While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal - getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and an ever-declining restraint by the Constitution of the United States.This is consistent with everything else that Obama has done in office and is consistent with his decades-long track record of alliances with people who reject the fundamentals of American society.Judicial expansion of federal power is not really new, even if the audacity with which that goal is being pursued may be unique. For more than a century, believers in bigger government have also been believers in having judges "interpret" the restraints of the Constitution out of existence.They called this "a living Constitution." But it has in fact been a dying Constitution, as its restraining provisions have been interpreted to mean less and less, so that the federal government can do more and more.For example, the Constitution allows private property to be taken for "public use" - perhaps building a reservoir or a highway - if "just compensation" was paid. But that power was expanded by the Supreme Court in 2005 when it "interpreted" this to mean that private property could be taken for a "public purpose," which could include almost anything for which politicians could come up with the right rhetoric.As for "just compensation," that is often about as just as "separate but equal" was equal. As for "empathy" for the less fortunate, it is precisely lower income and minority neighborhoods that are disproportionately bulldozed to make way for upscale shopping and entertainment centers that will bring in more taxes for politicians to spend to get themselves re-elected.This process of "interpreting" the Constitution (or legislation) to mean pretty much whatever you want it to mean, no matter how plainly the words say something else, has been called judicial activism. But, as a result of widespread objections to this, that problem has been solved by redefining "judicial activism" to mean something different.By the new definition, a judge who declares legislation that exceeds the authority of the legislature unconstitutional is called a "judicial activist."The verbal virtuosity is breathtaking. With just a new meaning to an old phrase, reality is turned upside down. Those who oppose letting government actions exceed the bounds of the Constitution - justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - are now called "judicial activists." It is a verbal coup.Not only politicians like Senator Patrick Leahy, but also law professors like Cass Sunstein and many in the media, measure how much of a judicial activist a judge is by how many laws that judge has declared unconstitutional. Professor Sunstein, incidentally, is among those being mentioned as a possible nominee for a post on the Supreme Court.When the Supreme Court in 1995 declared that carrying a gun near a school was not "interstate commerce," there was consternation and outrage in the liberal press because previous decisions of the Supreme Court in years past had allowed Congress to legislate on virtually anything it wanted to by saying that it was exercising its authority to regulate interstate commerce.When the Supreme Court decided by a narrow 5 to 4 vote that carrying a gun near a school was not interstate commerce, it was saying something that most people would consider too obvious for words. But it was considered outrageous that the Supreme Court recognized the obvious and refused to rubberstamp the sophistry that allowed Congress to pass laws dealing with things that the Constitution never authorized it to deal with.Incidentally, carrying a gun near a school was something that states had the authority to deal with, and the great majority of states had already banned it.What is at stake in Supreme Court nominations is the power of the federal government. "Empathy" is just camouflage, a soothing word for those who do not look beyond nice-sounding rhetoric.
There is a reason why the statue of Justice wears a blindfold. There are things that courts are not supposed to see or recognize when making their decisions-- the race you belong to, whether you are rich or poor, and other personal things that could bias decisions by judges and juries.It is an ideal that a society strives for, even if particular judges or juries fall short of that ideal. Now, however, President Barack Obama has repudiated that ideal itself by saying that he wants to appoint judges with "empathy" for particular groups.This was not an isolated slip of the tongue. Barack Obama said the same thing during last year's election campaign. Moreover, it is completely consistent with his behavior and associations over a period of years-- and inconsistent with fundamental principles of American government and society.Nor is this President Obama's only attempt to remake American society. Barack Obama's vision of America is one in which a President of the United States can fire the head of General Motors, tell banks how to bank, control the medical system and take charge of all sorts of other activities for which neither he nor other politicians have any expertise or experience.The Constitution of the United States gives no president, nor the entire federal government, the authority to do such things. But spending trillions of dollars to bail out all sorts of companies buys the power to tell them how to operate.Appointing judges to the federal courts-- including the Supreme Court-- who believe in expanding the powers of the federal government to make arbitrary decisions, choosing who will be winners and losers in the economy and in the society, is perfectly consistent with a vision of the world where self-confident and self-righteous elites rule according to their own notions, instead of merely governing under the restraints of the Constitution.If all this can be washed down with pious talk about "empathy," so much the better for those who want to remake America. Now that the Obama administration has a Congressional majority that is virtually unstoppable, and a media that is wholly uncritical, the chances of preventing the president from putting someone on the Supreme Court who shares his desire to turn America into a different country are slim or none.The only thing on the side of those who understand this, and who oppose it, is time. Reshaping the Supreme Court cannot be done overnight, the way Congress passed a vast spending bill in two days.Replacing Supreme Court justices is something that can only be done one at a time and at unpredictable intervals. What this means is that Senators who do not have enough votes to stop an Obama nominee for the High Court from being confirmed nevertheless have an opportunity - and a duty - to alert the public to the dangers of what is being done.This does not mean turning confirmation hearings into a circus or a kangaroo court with mud-slinging at judicial nominees, the way Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas were smeared. But it also does not mean taking the path of least resistance by quietly voting for people like Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer, who treat the Constitution as a grant of arbitrary power to themselves, rather than a restriction of power on the government as a whole.It is all too easy to say "a president has a right to appoint the kind of people he wants on the Supreme Court." He does. But that does not mean that those who don't have the votes to stop dangerous nominees from being confirmed are obliged to vote for them or to stand mute.Since Justice David Souter is likely to be replaced by another liberal, it is all too easy to say that it is no big deal. But with all the indications already as to how the Obama administration is trying to remake America on many fronts, the time to begin alerting the public to the dangers is now.Given the age and health of other Supreme Court justices, more replacements are likely during Obama's time in the White House. Time is an opportunity to mobilize public opinion and perhaps change the composition of the Senate that confirms judicial nominees.But time by itself does nothing. It is what we do with time that matters.
Our citizens feel they've lost control of even the most basic decisions made about the essential services of government, such as schools, welfare, roads, and even garbage collection. And they're right. A maze of interlocking jurisdictions and levels of government confronts average citizens in trying to solve even the simplest of problems. They don't know where to turn for answers, who to hold accountable, who to praise, who to blame, who to vote for or against. The main reason for this is the overpowering growth of Federal grants-in-aid programs during the past few decades.
The great Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes is not the kind of justice who would have been appointed under President Barack Obama's criterion of "empathy" for certain groups.Like most people, Justice Holmes had empathy for some and antipathy for others, but his votes on the Supreme Court often went against those for whom he had empathy and for those for whom he had antipathy. As Holmes himself put it: "I loathed most of the things in favor of which I decided."After voting in favor of Benjamin Gitlow in the 1925 case of Gitlow v. People of New York, Holmes said in a letter to a friend that he had just voted for "the right of an ass to drool about proletarian dictatorship." Similarly, in the case of Abrams v. United States, Holmes' dissenting opinion in favor of the appellants characterized the views of those appellants as "a creed which I believe to be the creed of ignorance and immaturity."By the same token, Justice Holmes did not let his sympathies with some people determine his votes on the High Court. As a young man, Holmes had dropped out of Harvard to go fight in the Civil War because he opposed slavery. In later years, he expressed his dislike of the minstrel shows that were popular at the time "because they seem to belittle the race."When there were outcries against the prosecution of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s, Holmes said in a letter, "I cannot but ask myself why this so much greater interest in red than black. A thousand-fold worse cases of negroes come up from time to time, but the world does not worry over them."Yet when two black attorneys appeared before the Supreme Court, Holmes wrote in another letter to a friend that he had to "write a decision against a very thorough and really well expressed argument by two colored men"-- an argument "that even in intonation was better than, I should say, the majority of white discourses that we hear."Holmes understood that a Supreme Court justice was not there to favor some people or even to prescribe what was best for society. He had a very clear sense of what the role of a judge was-- and wasn't.Justice Holmes saw his job to be "to see that the game is played according to the rules whether I like them or not."That was because the law existed for the citizens, not for lawyers or judges, and the citizen had to know what the rules were, in order to obey them.He said: "Men should know the rules by which the game is played. Doubt as to the value of some of those rules is no sufficient reason why they should not be followed by the courts." Legislators existed to change the law.After a lunch with Judge Learned Hand, as Holmes was departing in a carriage to return to work, Judge Hand said to him: "Do justice, sir. Do justice."Holmes had the carriage stopped. "That is not my job," he said. "My job is to apply the law."Holmes wrote that he did not "think it desirable that the judges should undertake to renovate the law." If the law needed changing, that was what the democratic process was for. Indeed, that was what the separation of powers in legislative, executive and judicial branches by the Constitution of the United States was for."The criterion of constitutionality," he said, "is not whether we believe the law to be for the public good." That was for other people to decide. For judges, he said: "When we know what the source of the law has said it shall be, our authority is at an end."One of Holmes' judicial opinions ended: "I am not at liberty to consider the justice of the Act."Some have tried to depict Justice Holmes as someone who saw no need for morality in the law. On the contrary, he said: "The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life." But a society's need to put moral content into its laws did not mean that it was the judge's job to second-guess the moral choices made by others who were authorized to make such choices.Justice Holmes understood the difference between the rule of law and the rule of lawyers and judges.
Obama's attitude toward the rule of law is apparent in the words he used to describe what he is looking for in a nominee to replace Justice David Souter. He wants "someone who understands justice is not just about some abstract legal theory," he said, but someone who has "empathy." In other words, judges should decide cases so that the right people win, not according to the rule of law.
Justice David Souter's retirement from the Supreme Court presents President Barack Obama with his first opportunity to appoint someone to the High Court. People who are speculating about whether the next nominee will be a woman, a Hispanic or whatever, are missing the point.That we are discussing the next Supreme Court justice in terms of group "representation" is a sign of how far we have already strayed from the purpose of law and the weighty responsibility of appointing someone to sit for life on the highest court in the land.That President Obama has made "empathy" with certain groups one of his criteria for choosing a Supreme Court nominee is a dangerous sign of how much further the Supreme Court may be pushed away from the rule of law and toward even more arbitrary judicial edicts to advance the agenda of the left and set it in legal concrete, immune from the democratic process.Would you want to go into court to appear before a judge with "empathy" for groups A, B and C, if you were a member of groups X, Y or Z? Nothing could be further from the rule of law. That would be bad news, even in a traffic court, much less in a court that has the last word on your rights under the Constitution of the United States.Appoint enough Supreme Court justices with "empathy" for particular groups and you would have, for all practical purposes, repealed the 14th Amendment, which guarantees "equal protection of the laws" for all Americans.We would have entered a strange new world, where everybody is equal but some are more equal than others. The very idea of the rule of law would become meaningless when it is replaced by the empathies of judges.Barack Obama solves this contradiction, as he solves so many other problems, with rhetoric. If you believe in the rule of law, he will say the words "rule of law." And if you are willing to buy it, he will keep on selling it.Those people who just accept soothing words from politicians they like are gambling with the future of a nation. If you were German, would you be in favor of a law "to relieve the distress of the German people and nation"? That was the law that gave Hitler dictatorial power.He was just another German chancellor at the time. He was not elected on a platform of war, dictatorship or genocide. He got the power to do those things because of a law "to relieve the distress of the German people."When you buy words, you had better know what you are buying.In the American system of government, presidential term limits restrict how long any given resident of the White House can damage this country directly. But that does not limit how long, or how much, the people he appoints to the Supreme Court can continue to damage this country, for decades after the president who appointed them is long gone.Justice John Paul Stevens virtually destroyed the Constitution's restrictions on government officials' ability to confiscate private property in his 2005 decision in the case of "Kelo v. New London" - 30 years after President Ford appointed him.The biggest danger in appointing the wrong people to the Supreme Court is not just in how they might vote on some particular issues - whether private property, abortion or whatever. The biggest danger is that they will undermine or destroy the very concept of the rule of law - what has been called "a government of laws and not of men."Under the American system of government, this cannot be done overnight or perhaps even during the terms in office of one president - but it can be done. And it can be done over time by the appointees of just one president, if he gets enough appointees.Some people say that who Barack Obama appoints to replace Justice Souter doesn't really matter, because Souter is a liberal who will probably be replaced by another liberal. But, if no one sounds the alarm now, we can end up with a series of appointees with "empathy" - which is to say, with justices who think their job is to "relieve the distress" of particular groups, rather than to uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Just recently, the Environmental Protection Agency ruled that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are "pollutants that threaten public health and welfare." The "threat" comes from the effects of man-made global warming.This ruling is the first step in regulating the very gas that makes life on Earth possible. If that sounds odd to you, it should. A lot of what is going on here has little, if anything, to do with public health.The EPA's "endangerment finding" classified CO2 under the Clean Air Act as a pollutant. EPA administrator Sheila Jackson said, "Greenhouse-gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations."There are many scientists who would disagree. The agency's findings came at a time when the science surrounding man-made global warming is more hotly debated than ever.For starters, there are good reasons to doubt whether, in fact, the globe is getting warmer. The data, as opposed to computer models, strongly suggests that the globe has been cooling for the better part of a decade. This inconvenient fact may be why the preferred expression has gone from "global warming" to "climate change."But history teaches us that climate is always changing. So the question becomes: What causes climate change? Again, many leading climate scientists insist, with ample evidence to back it up, that the warming that occurred during the 20th century resulted from natural causes and cycles.Finally there are those, like the Danish researcher Bjorn Lomborg, who insist that even if human activity is contributing to a warming trend, trying to regulate CO2 is the wrong approach. Lomborg says that "cutting CO2 simply doesn't matter much for most of the world's important issues." Lomborg says the goal should be "to do better for people and the environment." Thus, we should emphasize developing technologies that mitigate the harmful effects of rising temperatures and developing alternative energy sources.While these are all good points that are worthy of serious consideration, this issue isn't principally about science and sound policy. It's about reinventing the way people, especially Americans, live. The global warming crowd wants to change where we live, what we drive, and even what we eat.The kind of coercion needed to pull that off can only come about by using what Britain's Hadley Center, itself a proponent of man-made global warming, calls "misleading . . . apocalyptic rhetoric." Rhetoric such as Congressman Harry Waxman telling NPR that the North Pole was in danger of evaporating.Sadly, the biggest victims of this misleading rhetoric will be the world's poor. As Lomborg points out, "Carbon remains the only way for developing countries to work their way out of poverty. . . . No green energy source is inexpensive enough to replace coal now." And as I've said often on BreakPoint, from a Christian point of view, morally sound approaches to the environment must consider the plight of the poor.Calling CO2, a part of the natural ecosystem, a "threat" to public health brushes aside these concerns and lets the would-be social engineers get to work - work that may create serious problems now and for future generations.
Absolutes vs RelativismReligion vs non-religion/secularism/pantheologyPolitical Correctness vs Free SpeechA High view of Live vs Abortion on DemandMulti-Culturalism vs a blended, "Melting Pot" societyFeminism -- new roles for Women in our postmodern societyHomosexuality impinging on traditional marriageClass consciousness -- hatred of "The Rich"Academic Terrorism -- Whatever happened to scholarly discussion?Freedom of Conscience -- will honest men be forced to act against personal principle?
Physicians in Montana could be facing "kill-on-demand" orders from patients who want to commit suicide if a district court judge's opinion pending before the state Supreme Court is affirmed.The case has attracted nominal attention nationwide, but lawyers with the Christian Legal Service have filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the pending case because of what it would mean to doctors within the state, as well as the precedent it would set.The concern is over the attack on doctors' ethics and religious beliefs - as well as the Hippocratic oath - that may be violated by a demand that they prescribe deadly chemicals or in some other way assist in a person's death.M. Casey Mattox, a lawyer with the CLS, told WND that states allowing a "right to die" across the country - Oregon and Washington - include an opt-out provision for physicians with ethical or religious opposition to participating in killing a patient.Montana's situation, created late last year in a decision from First District Court Judge Dorothy McCarter in the Baxter et al. v. Montana case, is different. There is no provision for a doctor to refuse such "treatment" for a patient.In that case, Robert Baxter, 75, a retired truck driver from Billings who suffers from lymphocytic leukemia, filed the lawsuit along with four physicians in the state's district court system. They were aided in the case by the assisted suicide advocacy group Compassion & Choices, formerly known as the Hemlock Society.Baxter told the organization's magazine that society already provides death when animals are suffering."I just feel if we can do it for animals," Baxter said, "we can do it for human beings."The CLS, joined by the Christian Medical Association, yesterday filed briefs asking the state Supreme Court to protect the conscience rights of healthcare professionals.The groups, representing more than 18,000 Christian medical and legal professions, are urging the court to reverse the district court's decision and recognize a right not to participate in assisted suicide."The trial court's decision to create a constitutional right to 'obtain assistance from a medical care provider in the form of obtaining a prescription for lethal drugs' threatens the rights of healthcare professionals and institutions that hold sincere ethical, moral, and religious objections to participating in the intentional killing of their patients," Mattox said."Medical professionals should not be coerced to violate the Hippocratic Oath in order to practice in Montana," he said.If a "right to die" is to be recognized, it should be developed from the people through the legislative process, not imposed by a single judge, the brief also argues.The district decision, the groups also point out, would seriously undermine the relationship between doctors and patients. Patients could be uncomfortable knowing their doctor had provided a lethal dose to another patient, and doctors would have concerns about such demands from patients."At a time when states are experiencing a healthcare shortage, making Montana the only state in the union to coerce professionals to assist in suicides could jeopardize the state's healthcare system," Mattox said.He told WND that the effort clearly is part of a nationwide agenda to impose and mandate ethical standards on Americans. Similar are the Obama administration's suggestions that pharmacists may not have the right to refuse to dispense abortion-inducing medications, and doctors may not have a conscience right to refuse to do abortions, he said."I don't know where it's coming from, but there is certainly a push from government to tell people to set aside religious or ethical qualms and to abide by whatever the government tells you is appropriate," he said.Mattox said the state still has several weeks to file its briefs in the Montana case, and then there will be further arguments on behalf of requiring doctors to provide terminal treatment."A mentally competent, terminally ill Montanan should have the right to choose a peaceful death, when confronted by death," Kathryn Tucker, Compassion & Choices director of legal affairs, told KTVQ-TV, Billings.But Montana Assistant Attorney General Anthony Johnston disagrees.Johnston told the television station, "The laws governing the medical profession say the medical profession is to heal, not to kill."
President Obama took the occasion of his 100th day in office to publicly denounce the practice of interrogative waterboarding as torture. During his primetime press conference, the President justified his administration's ban on "enhanced interrogation techniques" by citing Winston Churchill's refusal to engage in torture during World War II: "Churchill understood, you start taking short-cuts, over time, that corrodes what's -- what's best in a people. It corrodes the character of a country."The "character of a country" - specifically America - is an issue every president grapples with. On the world stage, character - the ability to trust another nation's integrity - is critical. A country with inconsistent morals is a nation whose character cannot be trusted. Under the Obama Administration, America is perilously close to losing our moral integrity regarding basic human rights, especially the right to life.Obama has taken a seemingly unequivocal moral stand in favor of human rights by banning waterboarding, which he considers a form of torture. But juxtapose his moral outrage over torture with his nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to lead the Health and Human Services Department.During her twenty-plus years as an elected official in Kansas, Sebelius has forged strong ties to infamous abortionist George Tiller. For $5,000, Tiller will perform any abortion, for any reason - including late-term abortions. The horror stories that have emerged from Tiller's clinic describe callous acts of aborting almost-full-term children. At this point in a pregnancy, these children most certainly feel the pain and torture of chemical injections, cutting, ripping and stabbing used in the abortion process.In May 2007, Bill O'Reilly directed the nation's attention to Tiller's Wichita "death mill" when he exposed Sebelius' veto of a bill that would have required Tiller to provide a specific medical reason for the late-term abortions he performed on viable fetuses. O'Reilly also brought to light the thousands of dollars Tiller had donated to Sebelius' various campaigns and related political action committees. "Now America is a great country, but this kind of barbaric display in Kansas diminishes our entire nation," stated O'Reilly. Indeed, the way we treat innocent life says just as much about our moral character as how we interrogate terrorists.Legislative attempts to end the brutality perpetrated by Tiller and his ilk have been repeatedly thwarted by Governor Sebelius. In fact, just prior to her Senate confirmation, Sebelius vetoed legislation in Kansas that would have provided greater oversight of late-term abortions such as those performed by Tiller. Refusing to hold accountable those with young life in their hands is - in the words of President Obama - "taking short-cuts" that corrode "what's best in a people."It is the height of hypocrisy to ban interrogation techniques on militant enemies of innocent life while refusing to ensure innocent life isn't carelessly discarded by ruthless abortionists.A few moments after President Obama was asked about the torture issue at his press conference, another reporter inquired about the controversy surrounding his commencement address at the staunchly pro-life University of Notre Dame. Now in a much higher pay grade than when he was last asked about his position on abortion, the reporter asked whether the president still intended to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would effectively remove all restrictions on abortion nationwide. Once again, President Obama hemmed and hawed, rambling on about what a difficult decision abortion is for women.As a state legislator in Illinois, Obama opposed the Illinois Born Alive Infants Protection Act - a legislative response to botched late-term abortions where babies were left to die by starvation.The President wants to appear unequivocal about his "moral" decision to ban torture because he considers it inhumane. But his equivocal response to the issue of abortion, and his votes against banning the barbaric partial-birth abortion - which constitutes true torture by any reasonable standard - reveal an inconsistency at best.Congressional Democrats have been quick to call for investigations of and possible criminal prosecution for "harsh interrogations" of terrorists. But many of these same politicians have remained mute on Sebelius' connection to a notorious abortionist engaged in abominable abortion practices.As the President explained the torture ban during his recent press conference, he observed, "In some cases, it may be harder, but part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals even when it's hard, not just when it's easy."Perhaps we walk a thin line in determining the definition of torture and its use in national security, but when it comes to preventing the needless pain and suffering of children, America should hold true to our ideal of protecting all innocent life.
