The Judiciary, Academia, and the Arts oh my!
Digby has an amazing post up about how the right managed to co-op America, her politics, media and people, to some extent, with the exceptions of the judiciary, academia and the entertainment industry. Please read the entire post in it though he points out that:
We are definitely seeing a frontal assault on the remaining spheres of social influence that are not organized around or willingly complicit with the Republican agenda. This is not an accident. They, of course, see all obstacles as "liberal" which in the classical sense, I suppose they are. But these social influences of the judiciary, academia and popular culture are not explicitly partisan. In fact, they are largely independent spheres that resist co-option by partisan politics.
Tomorrow night Frist and Company are going to take to the airwaves and claim that the left, please read Democrats, do not believe that religion has any place in the "public square". That is the jest of the poster below. That fortunately/unfortunately is not true. As Democrats our religious beliefs, whatever they are, can and do lead us to make political decisions on a daily basis; they cannot on the other hand lead us to make legal decisions. Once a law has been written, the Judiciary cannot turn a blind eye to it because it offends their religious belief. If that were the case then Mr. Justice Scalia would be staunchly anti-death penalty as his religion requires(He could even find a way to do this constitutionally as Mr. Justice Marshall did but he refuses to do so).
The Republican Party, the rabid religious wing, is going to attempt this bait and switch tomorrow night and we need to be ready to point out that while we strongly support the right of people to express their religious views when it comes to the making of law, because the making of law is moralistic; when it comes to the interpretation of law, that must be as impartial as possible, and done with an eye toward the intention of the law not the intention of the Judge's personal God. (Because that Judge's God might not be the same as your God).
We are definitely seeing a frontal assault on the remaining spheres of social influence that are not organized around or willingly complicit with the Republican agenda. This is not an accident. They, of course, see all obstacles as "liberal" which in the classical sense, I suppose they are. But these social influences of the judiciary, academia and popular culture are not explicitly partisan. In fact, they are largely independent spheres that resist co-option by partisan politics.
Tomorrow night Frist and Company are going to take to the airwaves and claim that the left, please read Democrats, do not believe that religion has any place in the "public square". That is the jest of the poster below. That fortunately/unfortunately is not true. As Democrats our religious beliefs, whatever they are, can and do lead us to make political decisions on a daily basis; they cannot on the other hand lead us to make legal decisions. Once a law has been written, the Judiciary cannot turn a blind eye to it because it offends their religious belief. If that were the case then Mr. Justice Scalia would be staunchly anti-death penalty as his religion requires(He could even find a way to do this constitutionally as Mr. Justice Marshall did but he refuses to do so).
The Republican Party, the rabid religious wing, is going to attempt this bait and switch tomorrow night and we need to be ready to point out that while we strongly support the right of people to express their religious views when it comes to the making of law, because the making of law is moralistic; when it comes to the interpretation of law, that must be as impartial as possible, and done with an eye toward the intention of the law not the intention of the Judge's personal God. (Because that Judge's God might not be the same as your God).
posted by Rugo at 8:23 AM
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