Posted on 12/01/2003 9:01:41 AM PST by basil
Second Amendment Sisters just received a phone call from CBS news wanting our take on the fact that the Supreme Court will not hear Locklear V Silveria. Can anybody fill in here? I did a search, and don't see it yet posted on FR.
Sure you can. That right does not come from judges, so they can not take it away, so piss on 'em.
Bush can't get a vote on his high-profile conservative judicial nominees because the Republicans only have a one-vote majority in the U.S. Senate, and it takes 60 votes to break a filibuster. Nor do Republicans have an adequate margin to "go nuclear", i.e., force through a parliamentary ruling that says that judicial confirmation votes can't be filibustered.
There's a good chance the situation will change after 2004, since Republicans are favored to make net gains of at least two or three Senate seats and possible much more (depending on whether Bush wins in a landslide and has long coat-tails). If Republicans pick up enough seats in the Senate, Bush will be able to push through most if not all of his judicial nominations. He'll be able to fill Supreme Court openings with more principled Justices, and his track record so far on lower-court nominations suggests that he will do so. Several USSC Justices, from all portions of the political spectrum, have just been hanging on and can be expected to resign before 2008.
So from an RKBA perspective, the makeup of the Supreme Court is likely to improve (perhaps dramatically improve) over the next 4 or 5 years. It's better to wait for that ideological shift than rush a bad case to them now and get a bad decision.
In the meantime, the Congress is unlikely to pass significant new gun-control legislation. Both houses are controlled by Republicans, so legislation can be bottled up in committees. And even many Democrats are not anxious to get into a scrap over gun control, convinced as they are that it cost them the Presidency in 2000 and other races since then.
Gee... don't do me any favors.
As for the illegal filibuster on an equally illegal 60 vote "majority" passed by Little Tommy, why not just change the rules back to what they were; simple majority. Hell, the Dims only passed that onerous turd of a rule because they KNEW it'd give a slim Conservative majority conniptions.
I do not trust an undereducated, stupid, easily biased public filled to the brim by the likes of Peter Lemmings, Catie Colon, and Dan Blather with their leftist Hate to hand the R's back a win next election. Not the across the board sweep that your scenario requires.
My Rights, they are your Rights to remember, should NEVER be held hostage like this.
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My Rights, they are your Rights to remember, should NEVER be held hostage like this.
Hiding your head in the sand won't change reality.
OF COURSE our rights SHOULD never be held hostage like this. That doesn't change the reality that they ARE being held hostage. Nor does it change the reality that our best hope is that a fickle voting public elects more RINOs.
I don't like it either. The Republican Party in general and George Bush in particular have shown themselves quite willing to disregard principles and contradict their own rhetoric whenever they think it will gain them a political advantage. The best one can say about them is that the Democrats are even worse. As it is I found myself rooting for the Dems during the recent Medicare vote, and hoping that political gridlock would save us. Unfortunately it didn't.
Still, Bush has demonstrated a willingness to nominate intelligent and principled judges, and then fight for them (albeit so far unsuccessfully). He clearly intends to make his mark by remaking the federal judiciary. Not all the consequences of that across a range of issues will be good, but the RKBA consequences should be very good.
It's our best chance to recover our rights. If you want to ignore the facts and beat your chest and yell loudly that we shouldn't have to put up with all this sh!t, be my guest.
It still won't change reality.
Not sure I want another four years of that crap. Is there no one else in the GOP that is worth a damn? I KNOW there isn't on the lefties side of the isle. I wouldn't even vote for Zell due to some of his lefty BS.
Failing a Bush re-election bid, a Republican majority IN BOTH HOUSES, and getting just the right justices nominated in time to hear just the RIGHT case, what other unlikely events need to unfold before you come to the rational conclusion that the system is irrevocably broken?
That's why I vote Libertarian.
I am simply analyzing the situation, and pointing out that the best chance (not necessarily a good chance) of recovering our Right to Keep and Bear Arms is if Bush appoints Justices during his second term who are more receptive to pro-2nd-Amendment arguments.
Do I like the situation? No. Am I advocating that people vote for Republicans? No. Do I think that a heavier Republican majority would have some bad effects outside of the arena of RKBA? Yes (e.g., continued runaway federal spending and pork barrel politics).
I am simply trying to objectively analyze the situation. If Silveira had been accepted by the Supreme Court, the results would likely have been disastrous -- far worse than the status quo. At least now there is a chance that a future Supreme Court with a better makeup might some day act to uphold the clear language of the Second Amendment.
History is littered with examples of trying to use the System, to fix the System in regards to government. NEVER has it actually worked without a major revolution.
Ever hear of Lucille Gallegos Kropotkin? Her kind of solutions to the thieves and scoundrels we are currently dealing with would be much more efficacious than banking on some confluence of improbable events.
L. Neil Smith writes good science fiction books, but they are only that: fiction.
The real world doesn't always have easy solutions. Sometimes particular problems don't have any good solutions. But if you are going to make a serious attempt to figure out the best possible solution, you have to first be able to analyze the situation objectively.
Reality is what it is, not what you wish it would be. There is no John Galt to lead us on strike, and no Probability Broach to take us to a preferable alternate universe. Fiction can stir our imaginations and inspire us, but it can't solve our problems for us.
The correct recourse, even though I may not agree with you on this particular case (don't know yet), is the impeachment of judges and their permanent removal from office. They have become a ruling class unto themselves, an elite among elites. They exercise tyranny in the name of justice and betray the Constitution every season.
Now, if this had something to do with the old poop shoot, well you KNOW the SCOTUS would be all over it.
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