Speak Out While You Can

Today, the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee approved Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. Although the full Senate will get a chance to vote on the recommendation, it is merely a formality. It is a done deal. Political ponerology in action.

With this Republican decision, the country moves one step closer to having the Supreme Court be nothing more than a rubber stamp for executive branch policies and decisions. It will not be long before the ideological line separating the presidency and a dictatorship fades, leaving the difference to mere semantics.

But, lest we lose all hope, there are some who are taking it upon themselves to express their right to privacy. Exercise your free speach NOW, while it still exists. In the not too distant future, the price of free speech will be the entry of all personal information into government databases. Breaches of privacy which would cause our fore-fathers, if they were alive today, to call for another revolution against a tyrannical government.

Photo courtesy of CNN

Technorati Categories: Current Affairs, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Politics.

Death of Democracy

We live in scary times.

Our form of government, which has served us well with checks and balances in place between Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches, may very well move one step closer to death on January 24 when the Senate Judiciary Committee votes on the Supreme Court nomination of Samuel Alito. The potential for our democracy to morph into a dictatorship has never been higher, nor closer to realization.

Alito is Bush's choice to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was the deciding vote in several individual rights decisions:

O'Connor has cast the decisive fifth vote on cases upholding the right to an abortion, affirming affirmative action and limiting the application of the death penalty.

Her position as the key swing vote heightened the political stakes for Alito's nomination, with conservatives hoping he will swing the court to the right, and liberals fearful of the same thing.

So far, none of the Senate's 55 Republicans has announced opposition to Alito's nomination, meaning he can be confirmed with GOP votes alone, barring an increasingly unlikely Democratic filibuster.
USA Today

During his confirmation hearing, Alito dodged any direct answer on his position on abortion. It is clear he considers the Roe v. Wade decision open for re-evaluation. Newsweek's Eleanor Clift makes an interesting observation:

Now that the GOP is within striking distance of overturning Roe, they're having second thoughts. The public is not ready to abandon the landmark case legalizing abortion, and neither is the Republican Party. They used abortion as a wedge issue because the politics worked; they really didn't think abortion would ever be banned.

Would it be a good thing for the GOP to have the Roe decision overturned? Such a decision would unite the pro-choice supporters, which I truly believe to be the majority of Americans (not necessarily the most vocal), to rally around Democratic candidates who would support bringing the right of a woman to make decisions affecting her body back into her hands. Republicans' support for Alito would thus lead to their own demise.

It has become obvious from last week's hearings that Samuel Alito is more interested in upholding executive powers over individual rights. Answers to questions during his nomination hearings have proven to be quite revealing.

From a New York Times editorial:

In three days of testimony, he has given the American people reasons to be worried - and senators reasons to oppose his nomination. Among those reasons are the following:

EVIDENCE OF EXTREMISM Judge Alito's extraordinary praise of Judge Bork is unsettling, given that Judge Bork's radical legal views included rejecting the Supreme Court's entire line of privacy cases, even its 1965 ruling striking down a state law banning sales of contraceptives. Judge Alito's membership in Concerned Alumni of Princeton - a group whose offensive views about women, minorities and AIDS victims were discussed in greater detail at yesterday's hearing - is also deeply troubling, as is his unconvincing claim not to remember joining it.

OPPOSITION TO ROE V. WADE In 1985, Judge Alito made it clear that he believed the Constitution does not protect abortion rights. He had many chances this week to say he had changed his mind, but he refused. When offered the chance to say that Roe is a "super-precedent," entitled to special deference because it has been upheld so often, he refused that, too. As Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York, noted in particularly pointed questioning, since Judge Alito was willing to say that other doctrines, like one person one vote, are settled law, his unwillingness to say the same about Roe strongly suggests that he still believes what he believed in 1985.

SUPPORT FOR AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENCY Judge Alito has backed a controversial theory known as the "unitary executive," and argued that the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits when he installs illegal wiretaps. Judge Alito backed away from one of his most extreme statements in this area - his assertion, in a 1985 job application, that he believed "very strongly" in "the supremacy of the elected branches of government." But he left a disturbing impression that as a justice, he would undermine the Supreme Court's critical role in putting a check on presidential excesses.

INSENSITIVITY TO ORDINARY AMERICANS' RIGHTS Time and again, as a lawyer and a judge, the nominee has taken the side of big corporations against the "little guy," supported employers against employees, and routinely rejected the claims of women, racial minorities and the disabled. The hearing shed new light on his especially troubling dissent from a ruling by two Reagan-appointed judges, who said that workers at a coal-processing site were covered by Mine Safety and Health Act protections.

DOUBTS ABOUT THE NOMINEE'S HONESTY Judge Alito's explanation of his involvement with Concerned Alumni of Princeton is hard to believe. In a 1985 job application, he proudly pointed to his membership in the organization. Now he says he remembers nothing of it - except why he joined, which he insists had nothing to do with the group's core concerns. His explanation for why he broke his promise to Congress to recuse himself in any case involving Vanguard companies is also unpersuasive. As for his repeated claims that his past statements on subjects like abortion and Judge Bork never represented his personal views or were intended to impress prospective employers - all that did was make us wonder why we should give any credence to what he says now.
January 12, 2006

How could it be possible that with all these doubts, such an individual would still be confirmed? Obviously, there exists a culture of political self-servitude and indebtedness repaid by placement based on past favors or relationships instead of qualifications.

This requires more study.

Technorati Categories: Current Affairs, News, News and Politics, Opinion, Politics.