{"id":263,"date":"2006-01-25T12:54:14","date_gmt":"2006-01-25T18:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/?p=263"},"modified":"2006-01-25T12:57:41","modified_gmt":"2006-01-25T18:57:41","slug":"not-really-americo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/not-really-americo\/","title":{"rendered":"Not really AmeriCo"},"content":{"rendered":"

In some respects, I don’t care that Alito will <\/p>\n

be the next Justice, nor that he’ll replace a more moderate Sandra Day O’Connor. I am<\/em> a little creeped out by 8 Catholics <\/p>\n

ruling like a College of Cardinals.<\/p>\n

I’m absolutely certain that I will live long enough to hear more than one Radical Righter <\/p>\n

bray against the treachery of Alito or Roberts. It is inevitable that they will be disappointed — they always have been.<\/p>\n

I also <\/p>\n

believe in the Law of Unintended Consequences and the subtle shifting of the balance of power in our three-pronged government. The Loony <\/p>\n

Right believes they are at the gates of heaven: they control the Legislature and the Presidency and are one Justice away from a <\/p>\n

generational lock on the Supreme Court — plus the corporate grip on media and the tax-free businesses of mega-churches. With a rubber-<\/p>\n

stamp Congress and Court, and the support of the church, this or the next conservative President will be more powerful than any president <\/p>\n

since Roosevelt — and it’s all about destroying the New Deal.<\/p>\n

But the Radical Right is losing its hold. The deception and <\/p>\n

corruption become more obvious every day. The intolerance does, too. Those with power believe their judgements and pronouncements are <\/p>\n

absolute and final. People are starting to fear their government — ironically, that’s one of the tenets of the Radical Right: hatred of <\/p>\n

the Beast. They have become the Beast. They are repulsing those who are not ideologically pure.<\/p>\n

America is stronger than the <\/p>\n

momentary passions of any group, no matter how powerful they think they are — as liberals who supported personal freedom in the Sixties <\/p>\n

well know. This president will leave office — thank god — thinking he was the greatest president ever. Power will shift — as it must <\/p>\n

— and the pendulum will swing. The overall trajectory of America is not in the direction of more power for the rich and for business. We <\/p>\n

are not really AmeriCo. mjh<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

JURIST – Forum: Legal Technicalities: Weighing the Alito Nomination<\/a> by David Kairys <\/p>\n

Like <\/p>\n

the rest of us, [Alito’s] for a clean environment and corporate responsibility, but he interprets environmental laws so it’s near <\/p>\n

impossible to make out a case against a polluter, and anti-trust laws so it\u2019s near impossible to make out a case of price fixing.<\/p>\n

He tells us about the importance of privacy and of limits on the government\u2019s power to intrude on individuals, which are the essence of <\/p>\n

liberty. But he accepts farfetched rationales to justify most any intrusion \u2013 even the unauthorized strip search of a 10-year-old girl <\/p>\n

and the unauthorized holding of a farmer at gunpoint and ransacking of his home.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s for balance among the three branches <\/p>\n

government, but he\u2019s taken every opportunity to strip Congress of the basic power to protect and serve the public. …<\/p>\n

In many <\/p>\n

such decisions, he was a lone dissenter, and majorities on his own court, including then-judge and now Secretary of Homeland Security <\/p>\n

Michael Chertoff, often expressed unusual displeasure with his dubious manipulations of rules and evidence. …<\/p>\n

He has a deep <\/p>\n

allegiance to government, to corporations, and to the wealthy and elite \u2013 so deep that there is no way to know what, if any, limits he <\/p>\n

might find acceptable.<\/p>\n

Alito\u2019s writings yearn for undiluted executive power and immunity of executive officials from all <\/p>\n

legal claims<\/strong> \u2013 immunity from the rule of law. At the confirmation hearings, he wouldn\u2019t accept any concrete limits on <\/p>\n

presidential power, even in general terms. …<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s very willing \u2013 eager \u2013 to limit the powers of Congress when they are used <\/p>\n

to protect the safety, health, jobs, environment or wellbeing of Americans throughout the country.<\/p>\n

Executive and legislative power <\/p>\n

matter. …<\/p>\n

Alito believes in freedom, but it’s the freedom of the most powerful and wealthiest among us and of the government to <\/p>\n

do as they please, with little or no concern for the effect on most Americans or the nation as a whole.<\/p>\n

David Kairys is a <\/p>\n

law professor at Temple University who has litigated leading civil rights cases.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In some respects, I don’t care that Alito will be the next Justice, nor that he’ll replace a more moderate Sandra Day O’Connor. I am a little creeped out by 8 Catholics ruling like a College of Cardinals. I’m absolutely certain that I will live long enough to hear more than one Radical Righter bray … Continue reading Not really AmeriCo<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}