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.

[Catspaw]

No, see, in order for Moore to win in federal court, he would've needed a judicial activist who was willing to overturn decades of legal precedence. If Thompson had done that, they would've cheered.

[EternalVigilance]

You obviously love bad precedent.

Equally obviously, I'm not going to disabuse you of that love.

[jwalsh07]

Dude, I'm Catholic. There is absolutley no gain to be made in pitting Catholics against Evangelicals, Orthodox Jews or any other religion.

[lugsoul]

Wow. Are you going to mischaracterize Shakespeare now, too?

Please, please get that one right. Look into two questions: (1) Why did they want to kill all the "lawyers"? What plan was afoot that the "lawyers" might foul? (2) In Elizabethan England, what was a "lawyer"?

[lugsoul]

See 281.

No, I love judges who follow the law and limit injecting their own personal view into their opinion of what the law ought to be. Those who don't fall prey to results-oriented judging. Apparently, you disagree. Or is that only when it serves your purposes that you embrace judicial activism?

[Ohioan]

The First Amendment clearly and simply forbids the federal government from making any laws in this area. Ergo, it is the Federal judges who are the lawbreakers in this instance.

You are correct. There has been a deliberate effort to distort the Case law on this whole subject, going back to the early days of the Fabian Socialist ACLU. (See Leftwing Word Games & Religious Freedom.)

The judicial onslaught has been carefully crafted, carefully contrived, deliberately orchestrated in the Fabian (gradualist) manner. This is part of a three generation attack on our heritage, and should be viewed in that context, to be fully understood.

William Flax

[lugsoul]

That's a good comeback, EV? Did you come up with that yourself, or was it on your blast fax?

[EternalVigilance]

Thanks. Good stuff.

[lugsoul]

Not proof that he's a 'bad guy' - more of your fabled accuracy, I see - proof that he is single-mindedly convinced of the correctness of his own view.

But I really don't expect you to exhibit a shred of honesty in this discussion, anyway. After all, most of the rest of us aren't doing this for money.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Oh, goody, "Mr. anti-semite segregationist" checks in on behalf of Roy Moore. Yo, flax-boy, still got some mocking words about the holocaust? Maybe a platitude or two against the notion of suffrage for blacks?

[EternalVigilance]

Ah, another unsupported and unsupportable personal attack.

Not surprising.

[Texas Federalist]

Settled? Lemon was decided in 1971, I believe. Allegheny and Lee were in the late 80s and early 90s. Lemon, as recently as a few years ago was criticized by the liberal majority of the Court as "widely criticized and often ignored". While I don't have the time or energy to write a legal brief here, I can think of (and I'm sure you can too) arguments for Moore's position that are completely consistent with any of these tests. It's how the judiciary has operated since they abandoned textualism in the 40s-give the judge any logical explanation distinguishing precedent and he'll write his opinion to achieve the outcome he agrees with. You know adherence to precedent is a load of bunk. When they care about an issue, district judges find a way. Of course, Moore's lawyers, in this case, didn't really give the Court much to work with.

[jwalsh07]

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

LOL, yup, there's a reason for that. It doesn't fit somebody's agenda.

But you're not a bad dissention so here you go.

Maryland v McGowan

[EternalVigilance]

After all, most of the rest of us aren't doing this for money.

I bet Morris Dees really appreciates you providing your services for free.

[lugsoul]

That is known as a "non-denial denial." Some people will accept that as proof of the accuracy of the charge. I don't. I knew it was true before I made it.

[lugsoul]

Okay - since you are in an arguing mood. Tell me which way Thompson could have gone to reach a different result?

[Looking for Diogenes]

Having said that, there are several schools of thought as to what exactly the 14th incorporstes and what it doesn't.

There's the correct interpretation and the "eccentric" interpetation. I'm guessing you're siding with the eccentric interpetation.

Between the incorporation of the Fourteenth Amendment into the Constitution and the beginning of the present membership of the Court -- a period of seventy years -- the scope of that Amendment was passed upon by forty-three judges. Of all these judges, only one, who may respectfully be called an eccentric exception, ever indicated the belief that the Fourteenth Amendment was a shorthand summary of the first eight Amendments theretofore limiting only the Federal Government, and that due process incorporated those eight Amendments as restrictions upon the powers of the States. They did not find that the Fourteenth Amendment, concerned as it was with matters fundamental to the pursuit of justice, fastened upon the States procedural arrangements which, in the language of Mr. Justice Cardozo, only those who are "narrow or provincial" would deem essential to "a fair and enlightened system of justice." Palko v. Connecticut. To suggest that it is inconsistent with a truly free society to begin prosecutions without an indictment, to try petty civil cases without the paraphernalia of a common law jury, to take into consideration that one who has full opportunity to make a defense remains silent is, in de Tocqueville's phrase, to confound the familiar with the necessary.
Justice Frankfurter, concurring

Adamson vs California 1947

[jwalsh07]

Scalia wondering how many stakes must be driven threw Lemons heart before the SCOTUS finally kills it

It's instructive here on which side posts opinions from conservatives on the court and which side posts Brennan and pals, no? :-}

[lugsoul]

Never met Mr. Dees in my life. Nor "conversed with him." Not received any print or electronic mail from him. Nor engaged in any activity whatsoever on behalf of him or any organization he is a part of. That is an actual denial, in case you were wondering what one looks like.

[jwalsh07]

Dude, why did the Blaine Amendment fail 14 times?