Vanity: My Letter to Alabama Attorney General Pryor

Self | 11/11/2003 | Self

[farmer18th]

Dear Mr. Pryor:

Your actions with respect to Judge Moore confuse me.

Is "Thou Shalt Not Steal" offensive to you? (I'm glad I don't own property in Alabama)

Is "Thou Shalt Not Murder" problematic for you? (I'm glad I don't live in Alabama)

Is "Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery" hurtful to you? (I'm glad you don't know my wife.)

Is "Thou Shalt not Bear False Witness" repugnant to you? (I'm glad I never had to seek justice in your state.)

Is "Thou Shalt Have no Other Gods Before Me" distasteful to you? (What with lightning bolts and all, I'm glad I dont worship next to you.)

We are a nation of laws, Mr. Pryor, and not of men. I'm just confused as to which laws you follow.

[jwalsh07]

Yes jackass, they left me to do it. Tell me where in the Constitution it gives the judiciary the exclusive right to interpret the Constitution.

DOn't be surprised if the anser is the omnipotent 14TH AMENDMENT. :-}

[EternalVigilance]

Ah, so that's all you've got, huh. No wonder you've been so reticent throughout this thread in doing more than smearing Moore by innuendo.

[farmer18th]

No, it's about two mortals, Roy Moore and William Pryor

and they are disagreeing about what precisely? The public display of The Ten Commandments.

[jwalsh07]

LOL, you're a windbag. The stain would no doubt be on your panties were we in the same room counselor.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Wrong again - but nice exposition on your anti-Catholic bigotry. My guess has always been that a statue of St. Thomas More wouldn't have been a welcome addition at all next to Roy's Rock.

[Looking for Diogenes]

"Can you show me where the Code of Justinian is heavily influenced by Christianity?"
From Book 1: We desire that all peoples subject to Our benign Empire shall live under the same religion that the Divine Peter, the Apostle,....
How's that?

Impressive. Can you give me the URL where you found that? Those paragraphs are not included in the edition that I consulted.
Medieval Sourcebook: The Institutes of Justinian, 535 CE

[Catspaw]

Let's see--a Creighton quoting fellow would probably be, what, oh, Catholic, right? Without detracting from the contribution many patriotic American Catholics made in World War II, just how effective was the Pope at keeping Fascism out of Italy? Tell me. Was the contemplative tradition a virtue on that occasion?

Hey, CP, did you go to Creighton? I had a friend who went there, but transferred when he realized that Nebraska was so incredibly boring.

farmer18th, nice anti-Catholic rant. Say, farmer18th, are Catholics Christian?

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Why would I have a stain?

[Catspaw]

Let's see--a Creighton quoting fellow would probably be, what, oh, Catholic, right? Without detracting from the contribution many patriotic American Catholics made in World War II, just how effective was the Pope at keeping Fascism out of Italy? Tell me. Was the contemplative tradition a virtue on that occasion?

Hey, CP, did you go to Creighton? I had a friend who went there, but transferred when he realized that Nebraska was so incredibly boring.

farmer18th, nice anti-Catholic rant. Say, farmer18th, are Catholics Christian?

[jwalsh07]

That would be when their contemporary, John Marshall, interpreted it as such in 1803. He knew them, and had a much greater ability to discern what they meant than you do.

Certainly he knew them which is why he didn't order Madison to commission Marbury because he knew Madison and Jefferson would have told him to take a hike. So he dodged, another stain maker.

[farmer18th]

Of more interest might be Madisons presenting of and getting passed "A Bill for Punishing . . . Sabbath Breakers".

Hee, hee. Good thing he didn't put that stuff in marble. Now THAT's a completely different matter.

[Viva Le Dissention]

I can't speak to this intelligently, since I know nothing about what you speak, but if it is true, I would say he is a hypocrite, as all of us are at some point or the other.

But again I take from Memorial and Remonstrance:

5. Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.

[Texas Federalist]

John Marshall was a huge proponent of Hamiltons vision of a strong central government, acted as such, and took much criticism from the same individuals at the time who viewed Hamilton negatively. His decision in Marbury has no basis in the text of the Constitution. Moreover, reliance on this decision is circular: if the judiciary didn't have the power to interpret the document in the first place, how could they interpret it to give themselves the power to interpret it?

I think Marbury was right to the extent that it stood for the proposition that the judiciary could deem a law unconstitutional. But the proposition that they have the final and only say on the matter is a relatively new one. Congress and the executive branch routinely undertook extensive analysis of the constitutionality of a law before passing or signing it until around the time of the New Deal.

[EternalVigilance]

Mario Puzo:

"A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns."

-Don Corleone, in The Godfather

[lugsoul]

My apologies for claiming that you got your talking points from Dr. James Kennedy. I should have realized you got them from Keyes.

Now, there are a couple of disturbing things about the talking points that are troublesome, but the worst is the demonization of Myron Thompson. Moore does this also - to make it seem like there is some rogue Federal judge on the loose making crazy rulings. It is shameful for you to do this when you can't articulate a single legal criticism of Thompson's ruling, and when you know that the appeals court affirmed his ruling in the most emphatic manner possible - in an opinion written by Ed Carnes, one of the most conservative judges on the 11th Circuit.

Now, I'm not saying that Thompson is the best judge around. I am saying that his ruling was exactly in line with the ruling of some who are among the best judges around. LEGALLY, he had no other way to go. The only other option was to have a sitting judge adopt Moore's omnipotent view and decide that he can overrule SCOTUS.

BTW - At least when Dr. Keyes practiced civil disobedience he did his time in an Atlanta police cruiser.

There is a tasty bio piece on Moore somewhere here on FR. It tells the story of how his troops in 'Nam tried to frag him.

[farmer18th]

farmer18th, nice anti-Catholic rant

I remind you that Chancellor, when logic fails, routinely resorts to his closet drawer of pejoratives, "TBN, hick-theology," and the like. If the pot is too hot for him, he shouldn't stir it.

[lugsoul]

"and they are disagreeing about what precisely?"

The obligations of a sitting judge to comply with the Canons of Judicial Ethics.

[EternalVigilance]

"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect.

-Sir Walter Scott

[Viva Le Dissention]

After having done an admittedly quick google search with little results, I'd actually be quite interested to see any information you might have on Madison's bill you discussed.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Thats the difference between southerners like you and southerners like me - you seek out and try to excuse notions of majoritarianism, and I see what majoritarian tyranny did to its victims and how much it warped southern culture, and prefer that it be checked by a strong judiciary.