Things I thought were true...
based on what I was raised to believe.
THE COURTS- We've got a government with three equal branches. I was taught that the President enforced the laws and led us in times of war, the Legislative branch made the laws, and the Judiciary was there as the counterbalance- to interpret the Constitution and to rule on the law in those cases when there was a danger that a majoritarian idea violated the Constitution in regard to some minority or other- even a single individual. So there are bills locally and nationally to limit the power of the courts. The claim is that the courts are beset with frivolous cases and that 'activist' judges are rewriting the laws against the will of the people.
It's a price of having a court system that is an EQUAL branch accessible to all people that there will be frivolous lawsuits. But my intuition tells me that the objection- if you asked to see examples- is to lawsuits that block the powerful from acting in the face of objections from the powerless or relatively powerless. I always ask myself- who would stand to gain if this were changed? Is it Joe Lunchbox? I don't think so.
And the issue of 'activist' judges? Well the courts are supposed to stop the 'will of the people' when it conflicts with the basic principles of law in our nation. We do not have an absolute majoritarian government. And our ancestors thought we didn't want one. Sometimes, the 'will of the people' must be fettered. That's the way our country works.
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE- I am struggling with the number of people I hear who stated that they voted based on a desire for their government to run on Biblical values. That's wrong, folks. This is not a Christianocracy. Again, the Founding Fathers, despite the fact that most of them were Christians, did not set the Constitution up to protect the enshrinement of their own values. If our President is going to lead us in the next four years toward a Biblical Promised Land, I think we have real problems. I won't be a party to that. What I don't understand is what logic sequence is leading people to the idea that they should vote their religious values. I don't urge them to vote against their religious values, but that's different than voting to enable their religious values to be the dominant legal code.
THE ELECTION- It's over. I find myself in as much pain about it as if I had lost a dear friend. But I need to step back and think about what happened, to be honest about where this takes us, and to be ready to act to support what I believe in. Regardless of who's president.
THE COURTS- We've got a government with three equal branches. I was taught that the President enforced the laws and led us in times of war, the Legislative branch made the laws, and the Judiciary was there as the counterbalance- to interpret the Constitution and to rule on the law in those cases when there was a danger that a majoritarian idea violated the Constitution in regard to some minority or other- even a single individual. So there are bills locally and nationally to limit the power of the courts. The claim is that the courts are beset with frivolous cases and that 'activist' judges are rewriting the laws against the will of the people.
It's a price of having a court system that is an EQUAL branch accessible to all people that there will be frivolous lawsuits. But my intuition tells me that the objection- if you asked to see examples- is to lawsuits that block the powerful from acting in the face of objections from the powerless or relatively powerless. I always ask myself- who would stand to gain if this were changed? Is it Joe Lunchbox? I don't think so.
And the issue of 'activist' judges? Well the courts are supposed to stop the 'will of the people' when it conflicts with the basic principles of law in our nation. We do not have an absolute majoritarian government. And our ancestors thought we didn't want one. Sometimes, the 'will of the people' must be fettered. That's the way our country works.
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE- I am struggling with the number of people I hear who stated that they voted based on a desire for their government to run on Biblical values. That's wrong, folks. This is not a Christianocracy. Again, the Founding Fathers, despite the fact that most of them were Christians, did not set the Constitution up to protect the enshrinement of their own values. If our President is going to lead us in the next four years toward a Biblical Promised Land, I think we have real problems. I won't be a party to that. What I don't understand is what logic sequence is leading people to the idea that they should vote their religious values. I don't urge them to vote against their religious values, but that's different than voting to enable their religious values to be the dominant legal code.
THE ELECTION- It's over. I find myself in as much pain about it as if I had lost a dear friend. But I need to step back and think about what happened, to be honest about where this takes us, and to be ready to act to support what I believe in. Regardless of who's president.
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