By William A. Mayer, Editor & Publisher June 27, 2002 If we needed any further evidence that this great nation is under the most serious assault in its history, the Wednesday June, 26 decision by the notoriously inept [reversed 19 out of 20 cases in the latest US Supreme Court session] and manifestly leftwing Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals, declaring the Pledge of Allegiance to be unconstitutional, certainly provides it.
This essay started out as an attack on the June, 20 U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Atkins v. Virginia, in which 6 activist jurists reasoned that it is unconstitutional to apply capital punishment to mildly retarded killers - but the Pledge decision is just another in a long litany of examples of courts legislating from the bench.
Fast cut to DC - sensing imminent blow back, Tom Daschle and his Stalinist cohorts sought refuge in a Senate resolution opposing the Pledge decision, of course after President Bush had already declared the Ninth Circuit finding to be “ridiculous.”
Why was the prissy little Senator from the state no one ever visits so quick to clumsily wrap himself in God, motherhood and the flag?
Because he, Jeffords, Leahy, Feinstein, Boxer, Schumer, Kennedy, Klansman Byrd and the rest of the democrat socialist thugs have been engaged in blocking President Bush’s strict constructionist judicial nominees, preferring instead to inject even more Ninth Circuit types into the legal system.
Yes two of the judges involved with the Pledge decision were appointed by Republicans – Goodwin by Nixon and Fernandez by GHW Bush – but here is the distinction; if either of these presidents had even an inkling that this would be the way they would eventually rule their nominations would have NEVER even seen the light of day.
On the other hand the Democrat party demands in advance that their judicial nominees pass litmus tests that guarantee these types of decisions – nominees whom, for example, have no problems finding a “right” to abortion which resides in a “right” to privacy hidden somewhere in the US Constitution, and they believe deep in their hearts that religion has no role in America.
They, like their trial lawyer supporters, use the court system to impose the bastard religion of Cultural Relativism on an unknowing populace and extend the power of government where mere legislation fears to tread.
They must not be allowed to get away with this, and I am not talking merely about the Pledge decision which, in the maelstrom it has created, has no chance of passing additional muster either in an “En Banc” gathering of the entire Ninth Circuit or before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The remedy is not simply to strike this preposterous decision down and call it a day - though that indeed must be done – the Bush administration and the Republicans must use this to attack the Democrat party because this judicial terrorism is what they have thrust upon us.
This nation is under physical attack by radical Islam, but possibly more importantly long term is that it is under a withering, non-stop attack from within by a leftwing establishment that never sleeps.
These forces of authoritarianism, if left to pursue its agenda, will destroy America - and the Democrat party is a willing part and parcel of this attack.
So with this perspective please consider the following, which is a bit more genteel and less heated – but read it because if we do nothing once again, I fear all may be lost eventually – a house divided against itself can not stand….
The news was delivered on Thursday afternoon - poised for easy insertion into the great vast news wasteland that extends from Friday through Sunday.
This stealthy bombshell was wrapped in the guise of a 6-3 split decision on the latest, and sneakiest, approach yet to ending capital punishment - Atkins v. Virginia - one which appears to have every chance of succeeding.
To be perfectly honest, I am having trouble understanding why there is no great hue and cry about the land over such a portentous and poorly rendered decision - but then I have similar levels of discomfort thrust upon my increasingly shell-shocked psyche daily.
For what it’s worth, the common perception is that the court is, if anything, stacked slightly to the right, especially in light of the cases arising out of the 2000 presidential election’s slight detour into the strange and twisted workings of the minds of Florida’s democrats.
What constitutes the primary determiner of a conservative or liberal court?
Judicial activism.
Is legislation by judicial fiat alive and well in the current Rhenquist court – you had better believe it!
The subject at hand - Daryl Renard Atkins
His history?
“…16 prior felony convictions for robbery, attempted robbery, abduction, use of a firearm, and maiming…The victims of these offenses provided graphic depictions of petitioners violent tendencies: He hit one over the head with a beer bottle…he slapped a gun across another victims face, clubbed her in the head with it, knocked her to the ground, and then helped her up, only to shoot her in the stomach…” - Justice Scalia
This is an appeal of the murder penalty imposed on Atkins after this event:
“…After spending the day drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, petitioner Daryl Renard Atkins and a partner in crime drove to a convenience store, intending to rob a customer. Their victim was Eric Nesbitt, an airman from Langley Air Force Base, whom they abducted, drove to a nearby automated teller machine, and forced to withdraw $200. They then drove him to a deserted area, ignoring his pleas to leave him unharmed. According to the co-conspirator, whose testimony the jury evidently credited, Atkins ordered Nesbitt out of the vehicle and, after he had taken only a few steps, shot him one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight times in the thorax, chest, abdomen, arms, and legs…” - Justice Scalia
Nice guy, huh?
No reason you would want to even consider flushing this punk’s genes down the cesspool forever and follow it with a sulphuric acid chaser.
Sixteen previous felonies means that Atkins probably committed hundreds of other serious crimes without getting caught.
Atkins is an animal – a professional felon whose entire life has been devoted to criminal activity and one who enjoys inflicting pain upon his many victims.
One small problem, the court opines, Atkins isn’t the brightest bulb in the box.
Now it may come as a revelation to some that your average criminal may not be Rhodes Scholar material but to most it is a truism that criminality is the last refuge of the dim witted – hell, who else but a dummy would risk life in prison for stealing a thousand dollars from a bank – especially in light of the fact that said dummy could earn that much legally at your local McDonalds in about 3 weeks.
But now, the majority on the Supreme Court have made the very nature of criminality a plus if the crime committed happens to be grave enough.
Of course, when it comes to capital punishment, the nation’s courts have been chipping away at the concept for years.
In 1989 [PENRY v. LYNAUGH, 492 U.S. 302] the SCOTUS ruled that the jury must be made aware of both the defendant’s IQ as well as the nature of his childhood in order to form a “reasoned moral response" and that failure to do so deprived the defendant of his rights, but at that time Sandra Day O’Connor stated, in part:
“The Eighth Amendment's categorical prohibition upon the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment applies to practices condemned by the common law at the time the Bill of Rights was adopted…Since the common law prohibited the punishment of "idiots" - which term was generally used to describe persons totally lacking in reason, understanding, or the ability to distinguish between good and evil - it may indeed be "cruel and unusual punishment" to execute persons who are profoundly or severely retarded and wholly lacking in the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of their actions. Such persons, however, are not likely to be convicted or face the prospect of punishment today, since the modern insanity defense generally includes "mental defect" as part of the legal definition of insanity…Moreover, petitioner is not such a person, since the jury (1) found him competent to stand trial and therefore to have a rational as well as factual understanding of the proceedings; and (2) rejected his insanity defense, thereby reflecting the conclusion that he knew his conduct was wrong.”
Ok, mildly mentally challenged murderers could still fry as long as the jury was made aware of his mental acuity and whether mom or dad was over eager with the strap.
What happened in the intervening 13 years?
A number of states [16] have passed laws barring the imposition of capital punishment on those whom the various states define as being retarded, activists like the ACLU and other pro-criminal political pressure groups have used every opportunity to create false public perceptions and as a result quite a few opinion polls have been taken showing various degrees of public opposition to the practice.
Despite the fact that Atkins was held to be both competent to stand trial and not insane he cannot ever be held fully accountable for his horrendous criminal life because he can’t solve quadratic equations.
Scalia said:
"Seldom has an opinion of this court rested so obviously upon nothing but the personal views of its members…One need only read the definitions of mental retardation adopted by the American Association of Mental Retardation and the American Psychiatric Association in the court opinion to realize that the symptoms of this condition can readily be feigned.”
So murder trials will immediately become reduced, even more so than now, to a sleazy con-game in which the defendant’s attorneys use every device to prove to the jury that their clients are just a little bit on the dull side and therefore not responsible for their actions.
Of course it won’t end there, it’s just a start down the path towards eventual abolition of the death penalty and the idea deterrence in general.
The law will continue to be twisted and bludgeoned by the left into forms useful for further depredation of your freedoms and one day you will sit inside a re-education camp contemplating your anti-government “mind-crimes” with no real understanding of how you got to that point and absolutely no possibility of escape.
As I said in our last little essay, it will be your own damn fault because you are lazy, weak and don’t even have the desire to read or understand the writing on the wall.
I for one, will not go down like that.
Good observations, as soon as we can get people to refer to public schools as government schools an important point will have been reached.
Being older I am a little more pessimistic. However, I fear I am right.(For whatever satisfaction that is!)
