Posted on 04/26/2005 4:33:02 PM PDT by hipaatwo
Janice Rogers Brown refuses to conduct herself under a cloister while milquetoast Republicans and hostile Democrats hold her career hostage for over two years and counting. The Los Angeles Times reports that Brown told an audience on Sunday that a cultural battle has formed in which people of faith face punishment from secularists for their beliefs:
Just days after a bitterly divided Senate committee voted along party lines to approve her nomination as a federal appellate court judge, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown told an audience Sunday that people of faith were embroiled in a "war" against secular humanists who threatened to divorce America from its religious roots, according to a newspaper account of the speech. ...
"These are perilous times for people of faith," she said, "not in the sense that we are going to lose our lives, but in the sense that it will cost you something if you are a person of faith who stands up for what you believe in and say those things out loud." ...
The Advocate quoted Brown as lamenting that America had moved away from the religious traditions on which it was founded.
"When we move away from that, we change our whole conception of the most significant idea that America has to offer, which is this idea of human freedom and this notion of liberty," she said.
She added that atheism "handed human destiny over to the great god, autonomy, and this is quite a different idea of freedom . Freedom then becomes willfulness."
Of course, the folks at PFAW and others already aligned against Brown will use this speech to claim that she is an extremist, one much too dangerous to put on a federal appellate bench. They might have a difficult time convincing the overwhelming majority of people who attend religious services on a regular basis that believing in God makes one an extremist, but they will do their best to do so nonetheless. When they do, they will go further in proving Brown's point than she dared to go herself.
In fact, Brown's speech serves as a perfect test for Ralph Neas and Nan Aron. Her implication that faith has become a litmus test for political appointments practically dares her opposition to use it against her politically over the next two weeks. If the Democrats start quoting from the speech in debating her confirmation, then the flimsy pretense of Chuck Schumer's "deeply held personal beliefs" will have been finally stripped away from their arguments. Brown has upped the ante by forcing the Democrats to attack her faith and her philosophical underpinnings.
The Democrats won't hesitate to use it, of course, and in doing so they will have demonstrated precisely what she argued -- that people of faith cannot hope to be treated equally with secular athiests by the political elite of the Left.
I think Justice Brown may have more political savvy than we realized. Not only has she proven herself an excellent jurist, but she has courage and wit. She will not remain silent while her enemies unfairly trash her reputation and her record. If our appellate courts do not have room for a Janice Rogers Brown, then it only reflects the unworthiness of the people entrusted to confirm her into that position. If the Republicans cannot muster the votes to defend her nomination, then we all should be ashamed of ourselves for putting them in those seats.
Tremendous post.
This may be an exaggeration, but the Republicans do have tunnel vision
I don't know, that's yet to be seen, for me anyway. I was switching channels and caught the tail end of the HBO documentary about Err America. The looks on their faces when Bush won was absolutely priceless. It showed how nasty and intollerant they are too.
Thanks. Capt. and Powerline do fantastic jobs.
Janice Brown had better get confirmed.
The RNC's campaign account depends on it.
1-877-762-8762
I am hanging onto the Republican Party by my fingernails.
Those folks better "Go Constitutional".... NOW.
Is she a Democrat? I hope so.
I see nothing intemperate in her remarks, unless you consider it intemperate to shine the cold light of reality into some murky corners.
It reminds me of a phrase I read somewhere about how "there shall be no religious test" for holding office in the United States. You might have read it too, somewhere but forgot that it applied to Justice Brown, et al.
Thanks! I've been using up my cell minutes! I must have tried Frists' office at least 15 different times today and all I got was a busy signal.
ping
I gave the RNC an earfull last week. Told them I left the DemoRat party to get things done, don't make me leave this party and become an Independant.
I make at least one call every day. Mostly to complain, politely of course, but on occasion to praise.
You are absolutely wrong in the view of history, and nearly as goofy to be so absent common sense.
Religion is the basis for Judicial Oaths, as Blackstone wrote:
Basis of Judicial Oaths. The belief in a future state of rewards and punishments, the entertaining just ideas of the attributes of the Supreme Being, and a firm persuasion that He superintends and will finally compensate every action in human life, are the grand foundation of judicial oaths, which call God to witness the truth of those facts, which perhaps may only be known to him and the party attesting. All moral evidence, all confidence in human veracity [are] weakened by apostasy, and overthrown by total infidelity.Religious motive is stated as the ultimate basis for the complaints for cause listed in the Declaration of Independence (religious terms highlighted):
http://personal.pitnet.net/primarysources/blackstone.html
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Consider how a Rabbi quotes the famous US Judge Learned Hand:
Freedom is not, as so many have thought, a matter of political or military victories alone. It involves "habits of the heart." Unless children know about Egypt and the exodus, they will not understand the entire structure of Jewish law. They will not grasp the fact that Judaism is an infinitely subtle set of laws designed to create a society of free individuals serving the free G-d in and through the responsible exercise of freedom. The American judge Learned Hand put it well:The men and women include Judges and Jurors, Legislator, Executive and Prosecutor, Lawyer and Police. All must operate according to the most fundatmental, precedent and primary of laws -- that of religion. Without that religious restraint and guidance applied by each individual in each duty -- public and private, any attempt at law and laws is folly, is doomed.I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.Chief Rabbi (England) Professor Jonathan Sacks, Thoughts on the Story of the Exodus (Parsha Bo)
Senator Bill Frist, M.D.
Senate Majority Leader
Phone 202-224-3344
Fax 202-228-1264
509 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
I have notified them that my checkbook is closed until they get these judges confirmed.
ALL these judges.
I take great exception to your comment calling the President a coward at heart. You should be ashamed for making such an asinine and foolish comment.
A coward wouldn't have flown jets, walked out onto the mound in Yankee Stadium, or tried to reform Social Security. You wouldn't have the stones to call George W. Bush a coward to his face; doing it on Free Republic behind a screen name is a cowardly act IMHO.
In addition, your comment that your are disappointed in his second term provides more proof (not that we need any) that you are being blatantly unfair. The President's Second Term is just over three months old! Admit it, you don't want to give him a chance; you just hate him because he comes from a successful family. Envy is a pretty ugly quality to have.
The President's nominees will win confirmation despite the cynical hatred expressed from folks like you. Next time you feel the urge to call someone a coward, look in the mirror first pal.
I am FED UP with cheap attacks on our President. Disagreement is OK; calling him a coward is unconscionable.
That is a hell of a lot of words to say you believe this judge can't be impartial because she reads the Bible. Psycho-babble like this is what gives the one percent of good lawyers a bad name.
The President may not like it but I'm glad she's speaking up. She certainly knows what's going on.
You can be as exercised as you wish but the President hasn't shown the will or the desire to protect our nation from an invasion of illegal immigrants nor has he shown the will or character to fight for his judicial appointments. The same may be said of his appointment of Mr.Bolton as our U.N. ambassador.
Throwing a pitch from the mound in Yankee Stadium doesn't take courage. How in the hell do you feel that doing such involves courage. It is what it is, a political event, nothing more and nothing less. Furthermore, nothing I have posted on FR hasn't been stated in letters to the White House, nor would I hesitate to say exactly the same thing to the President if I were given the opportunity.
The Geo.Bush who flew jet fighters in the 60s is far removed from the man who now sets in the White House. The current man will not push for the reforms in Social Security that were his initial proposal. He is back tracking and will compromise until very little will remain of the great hope that was offered.
It is true that his second term is short in its history but he has clearly shown his domestic agenda is listless and without form. No fight for judicial nominees from the White House, no more heart for the fight for Social Security reform. His view is more focused upon benefiting illegal aliens than working Americans. His slur against American workers by declaring that illegals only take jobs Americans won't do is clealy the sign of a man out of touch with those who elected him. It's that country club DNA at work.
In the same vein his declaration that the Minutemen on the Arizona/Mexico border are vigilantes is just the statement of a man seeking to minic a horse's ass and doing so very well.
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