Posted on 04/27/2005 4:17:44 AM PDT by Law
Their reasons may be corrupt. Their emotions may be out of control. Their motivations may be wrong. But insofar as the Democrats seek to block President Bush’s nomination of former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor to the federal courts, their actions should be applauded by every Christian who believes that evil should not be rewarded with good (Proverbs 17:15), that judges must fear God more than men (Exodus 18:21), and that Jesus Christ is Lord even over America’s judiciary (Psalm 2:10-12).
Mr. Pryor is remembered for five defining events in his public career:
1. According to a sworn affidavit by former Alabama Governor Fob James, Bill Pryor was appointed to Attorney General on a promise to the Governor that he would stand against unlawful decisions of judges on the Ten Commandments issue — a promise he later broke.
2. Pryor not only reversed his position on non-compliance to unlawful federal orders, he even went so far as Attorney General to nullify a state law against partial birth abortion, based on his view of the “rule of law.”
3. As Attorney General, he vigorously prosecuted and persecuted Chief Justice Roy Moore, asking him three times on the witness stand if the great Christian jurist would “continue to acknowledge God” even if a court told him not to do so. (To watch the chilling interchange between Attorney General William Pryor and Chief Justice Moore, click here.) Upon hearing his answer, Mr. Pryor declared the Chief Justice “unrepentant” and successfully demanded his expulsion from office, thus making Mr. Pryor the first man in American history to oust a sitting Chief Justice for his Christian faith.
4. As a nominee before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Pryor argued, in effect, that though he personally opposed abortion, he would enforce the rights of mothers to vivisect their children because the most important issue was not life, the law of God, nor the Constitution, but instead the decision of judges, which he terms “the rule of law.” During his hearings and throughout the debate for his position for federal judge, Bill Pryor bent over backwards to repeatedly assure liberal Senators that his personal opposition to abortion and his belief that killing babies is unconstitutional would have no bearing on his recognized duty to follow the “rule of law” by defending abortion rights as defined by the Supreme Court.
5. As acting federal judge with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, he voted against the life of Terri Schiavo, by refusing to consider new evidence in the case.
The Senate’s Dirty Little Secret
My current problem with the Democrats is that they are neither serious, nor committed to opposing Bill Pryor. There are two reasons for this. First, the current filibuster is not about judicial qualifications, but about politics. It is about positioning for future Supreme Court nominations. If the Deomocrats make a big enough stink over these federal judges, they know from experience that they will cow the President from selecting anyone who remotely appears to be a real Constitution-defending, God-honoring justice when the time comes to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court. Fearing a fight, the Administration will select relatively unknown judges with ambiguous records who they know will make it through without much of a real fight. Meanwhile, they will quietly call conservatives and appeal to them: “Hey, trust us on this one.”
The second reason why the Democrats are not serious in their opposition to Mr. Pryor is because he has established a consistent track record of being with them on the critical issues. To put it bluntly:
The Democrats are not concerned one whit about Bill Pryor and many of President Bush’s judicial nominees!
My hometown paper, the left-wing San Antonio Express-News, explained why liberals need never fear Bill Pryor:
"William Pryor is undeniably conservative. However, the test is not whether a judge has conservative or liberal views, but whether he will yield to the demands of the law despite such views. Pryor has proved he can do that. As Alabama Attorney General he vigorously prosecuted former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore... despite his personal agreement with Moore’s legal view on the issue." (“A Liberal Urges Democrats to Judge the Judges on Criteria Other Than Party Politics,” April 24, 2005, San Antonio Express-News)
Democrats know what doe-eyed, naïve Evangelical Christians have refused to acknowledge — despite overwhelming data and the fact that there is no real argument to the contrary. Namely, that regardless of a judicial nominee’s “personal convictions,” there are no practical differences of judicial result between the Republican and Democrat judges, because both subscribe to the evolutionary view of the “rule of law.” (More on the evolutionary view of the “rule of law” below.)
The Democrats remember that it was Republican appointees like O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter who have reinforced abortion, advanced the cause of sodomy, replaced original intent of the Constitution with adherence to foreign law, and insisted on judicial supremacy over the other branches of government. They know it was Republican judges like Myron Thompson who ruled against the Ten Commandments and declared unlawful the acknowledgement of God by public officials, and Republicans like Judge Greer who ordered the execution by forced starvation of Terri Schiavo.
These Democrats know that, when push comes to shove, a majority of Republican nominees who get seated will do the dirty work of the Left. These Republican judges will do it efficiently and without compromise. True, some will express personal moral disapproval with the principles they enforce, but they will advance them, all-the-while claiming that by enforcing abortion rights, sodomite marriages, and starvation of women and children, that they are (like Pontius Pilate) “absolved” of moral criticism because they are just “following orders.” These judges will firmly stand with the culture of death and the liberal court’s rejection of the Framer’s vision for the Constitution, and they will do so with impunity. Having expended so much political capital to back up the Administration’s choices, no Republican legislator will dare censure such judges for their bad behavior. They will grit their teeth, talk about judicial reform, and continue to support men with conservative personal opinions and liberal track records.
Democrats understand this game of doublespeak because they invented it. They hear, in the words of men like Mr. Pryor, that same “Capitol Hill Two-Step,” the virtues of which have been praised by the Ted Kennedys and the John Kerrys of the world who “personally oppose abortion,” but recognize that they must “obey the laws of the land,” and thus support abortion rights.
For these reasons, savvy Democrats really don’t care what a judicial nominee says about abortion when he is “off hours,” what church he attends, or to which party he belongs. They care about one and only one issue: Will the nominee support abortion-on-demand, homosexual marriage, international law, forced starvation of women, etc., if a higher-ranking judge declares such actions lawful? To put it another way: The only issue to be determined is whether a judge holds to the evolutionary view of the rule of law or the historical and Christian view of the rule of law.
The Logic of Bill Pryor
Mr. Pryor’s logic goes like this:
1. Abortion is murder.
2. The decision of a judge is the “rule of law.”
3. The moral law of God, and the Constitution itself, are secondary to this judge-established “rule of law.”
4. Consequently, the “rule of law” must be followed, even if it involves facilitating the continued vivisection of millions of babies, the denial of God in our public arena, the persecution of Christian leaders, and the forced starvation and dehydration of innocent women contrary to the moral law of God and the federal and state constitutions.
5. Therefore, as long as higher ranking judges say that babies may be murdered, that acknowledgements of God by public officials must be excluded, or that women may be starved, a judge should do everything in his power to enforce this “rule of law.”
6. Because a judge is just following orders, he is not morally culpable for facilitating or encouraging morally wicked activity. He may wash his hands of all guilt, knowing that any judicial actions which facilitate abortion, the denial of God, the persecution of Christian leaders, or the dehydration of women are actually righteous in the eyes of God (a point he and his staff argued during their persecution of Roy Moore).
Confusion Over the Rule of Law
One of our greatest allies is the Church itself. (The demon Screwtape to his protégé Wormwood)
Why the confusion over the “rule of law”? The answer is found in the fact that the Christian political and legal community is split down the middle on the question: who is sovereign — Caesar or God? Through a trinity of issues over the last three years (Ten Commandments, sodomite marriages, Terri Schiavo), American Christians have been challenged to think through these issues from both a Scriptural and Constitutional perspective. Two views have emerged:
The first philosophy is the historic, constitutional, and Christian doctrine that the rule of law is not the opinion of judges but the law of the land. Within this view, rights are inalienable because they are given by God, and it is the purpose of government to secure these rights, but no government may lawfully restrict them, nor is any law or rule to be considered valid which denies God as the ultimate source of law. This view holds that the Constitution, along with its preamble, the Declaration of Independence, is predicated upon and presupposes the acknowledgement of the Christian God as Lawgiver, is the supreme law of the land, and the only rule of law to be followed, notwithstanding the opinion of individual judges to the contrary.
The second philosophy is the modern view. It is upon this position that Mr. Pryor hangs his jurisprudential hat. The modern view is based on the assumption that law is not governed by fixed principles of higher and constitutional jurisprudence, but evolves based on the changing mores of society and the decrees of whatever unelected official happens to be sitting on the bench at any given time. Under this view, law is positive, meaning that law is whatever men say it is. For proponents of this school of thought, law is subject to change at the whims of judges who, according to Oliver Wendell Holmes, “guide the evolutionary participation of the law.” To follow the “rule of law” is to follow the opinions of judges, regardless of whether such opinions are (a) beyond the scope of their jurisdiction; (b) contrary to our Constitution; or (c) in clear violation of the higher revealed law of God or the Constitution of our nation.
It was this theory of the “rule of law” that was advanced by the defendants on trial during the 1945 Nuremberg proceedings and is, perhaps unwittingly, being advanced by those who argue that “Chief Justice Roy Moore broke the law.” Here is the rub: Just as the German judges and lawyers who personally opposed the mass execution of Jews in the early 1940s (but nevertheless ordered them to their deaths), present-day American judges who are personally opposed to the execution of unborn babies are also compelled to actively promote such abominations through their legal careers because they are bound by “the rule of law.”
Bill Pryor’s commitment to the evolutionary view of the rule of law has drawn praise from some of the most ardent enemies of Christianity. The Washington Post reported that Morris Dees, president of the Southern Poverty Law Center and a plaintiff against Chief Justice Moore in the Ten Commandments case, is among Pryor’s defenders. “The heat of this battle certainly matured this young man,” Dees said of Pryor. “His actions behind the scenes to orchestrate the state officials handling these things saved Alabama from constitutional crisis.”
Conclusion
The most dangerous man on the judiciary is the professing Christian who brazenly lives and acts like a persecutor of the Church and an enemy of women and children. May God give us a dozen left-wing judges before we embrace a wolf in sheep’s clothing who does the work of the enemy under the banner of the Cross.
The consequence for the Church in supporting such men is that (a) the collective conscience of the Christian legal community becomes seared and their tactics pragmatic and self-destructive; (b) the resolve of good men and women to resist evil diminishes; and (c) the Church becomes savorless salt in the cultural battle of our generation.
To quote Pogo: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Christians are encouraged to call their Senators — Republican and Democrat — and voice their opposition to the nomination of Bill Pryor.
Phillips is a single-issue type who just wants to see the MINORITY party continue to stall a process until 2008 in the hopes that the Dems resume control of anything (taking control of themselves would be a huge start!).
Denying ALL of Bush's nominees the right to an up or down vote by the full Senate because Phillips has issues with one is just stupid. If Phillips' points are valid, the rest of the Senate should have the opportunity to evalute Pryor and his record and give him an up or down vote. If they agree with Phillips, Pryor will not get an up vote. There's nothing difficult about this.
Phillips' reasoning is just bogus.
What twisted reasoning. He doesn't like Pryor for an alleged twisted view of the "rule of law" so he advocates the filibuster, which is a far more twisted view of the "advise and consent" doctrine of the constitution.
This writer is one Twisted Sister.
See the movie Judgement at Numenburg for the results of this legal philosophy.
Only Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, as far as I know, holds to higher law principles.
If Bill Pryor won't keep his word to the governor who appointed him to an elected office (where the people can hold him accountable when he runs for reelection) how can we trust him to keep his word to a president who appoints him to a lifetime office?
Phillips has it in for Pryor because he took on hero, Roy Moore. Regardless of how he feels about Pryor, every nominee deserves an up or down vote.
If the Senate leadership actually made the Democrats filibuster, rather than just let them get away with verbally threatening it, there would be an up or down vote at the end of the filibuster. Phillips doesn't mind a vote; he just wants Bill Pryor to be voted down, as he explains.
He may be making a case for opposing Bill Pryor. In that case, he should urge Senators to vote against him. But that isn't the issue.
The issue here is the imposition of a non-Constitutional supermajority on the process, thus effectively preventing the Senate from doing its Constitutionally-defined job -- which is approving or rejecting these nominees.
If the Republicans force the Dems to actually filibuster a nomination, the Republicans would have to be prepared to stay at the capitol. If only one or two Dems are on the floor at 3:00 am, they could suggest the absense of a quorum, requiring that the senators, Dem and GOP, come to the floor.
If you don't read any more than the title of this article, you will see that Phillips supports the Democrat filibuster only "in part". And, even if he supported it fully, which he clearly does not, as I explain in my last post, filibusters and up or down votes aren't mutually exclusive.
As you can see, this simple question is not what many of us read in lawyer Phillip's bizarre article. Looks like to me, a judiciary filled with Phillip modeled judges would require us to know both the judge's politics and the specific religion based moral code he holds sacred.
A weegie board might work equally well.
On its face, the article is too ridiculous to read. ON ITS FACE. Which is why I refuse to read it. However, if you might be so kind as to give me a clue...exactly what "word to the President" is any court nominee supposed to give and then keep, anyway? Does this have to do with not legislating from the bench? Not being a judicial activist? I thought a person's judicial philosophy was gleaned from the record...their writings, their speeches, their decisions, etc., and was unaware that the President extracted some sort of "promise" before nominating them. Oh boy, if the promise extraction is true, imagine the outrage of a Reagan toward Sandy O'Connor and Tony Kennedy, or a George H W Bush at a David Souter!!! (If only Gerald Ford were aware enough to know what he put on the court in John Paul Stevens!!!!! But I doubt it...)
Phillips does urge Senators to vote against Bill Pryor. The very last paragraph of the article is an invitation, highlighted in italics, for readers to call their Senators and urge such a down vote. I'm sorry that Phillips's article is a bit long, but it's all worth a careful read.
Phillips wants judges to subscribe to his philosophy of jurisprudence. If you do not, you are a libertine. Unless you back Roy Moore, you hate God. Absurd.
My point is that he should do that INSTEAD OF boosting the filibuster.
Dan
Not true. The Declaration of Indepedence has been codified in the United States Code. Most people don't know this because they learned about the constitution in government schools, which don't want students to know there could be an authority higher than the state such as the "Creator" that the Declaration recognizes as the source of our "inalienable rights".
Recognizing this external, higher source for our rights is crucial because if rights come from the state (the alternative view), the state can take them away...
By that definition, requiring that all Senators conduct the debate in Koine Greek is equally "constitutional" and neutral.
But the *effect* is non-constitutional, and anti-constitutional. The Constitution requires that the Senate advise and consent -- the Senate, not 60% of it. These poltroons are not doing their job, because of a power-mad ideologically extreme minority.
It thwarts the design of the Constitution, which is representative democracy. We elect those people, God help us. We've elected an increasing Republican majority. That's an expression of the will of the governed. The minority is thwarting that.
Dan
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