Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven
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| Sunny Days in Heaven Spiritual/Political/Philosophical Blog on the Nature of Truth and Falsehood and Heaven |
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Saturday, April 16, 2005 Pattern Recognition The situation of activist judges has become the cause celeb of the Right these days (and for good reason). Many have a great hope that once we stop the filibustering in the Senate and start appointing a raft of conservative judges, the situation will gradually turn around and the good ship USA will resume or chart a positive course. But let's think on it for a second. Didn't Republicans elect and re-elect George Bush because he's a God fearing conservative? And what did they get? About what Californians got with Arnold. A liberal lamb in wolf's clothing. This isn't entirely fair, of course, but on the domestic side of things it is often hard to see where Bush leads. He certainly doesn't seem to engage the Congress. I never read stories about Bush meeting with congressional leaders in order to ram rod the conservative agenda. I have little sense that he leads his Party. He doesn't cut spending, he doesn't enforce immigration laws, he hasn't done tort reform or killed government over-regulation, he hasn't twisted any arms overseas in order to increase the amount of oil pumped and thus improve the economy which is taking a nose dive because of oil prices. We should have stomped OPEC decades ago as an illegal cartel, but we haven't. Why not? Why aren't we increasing production in Iraq? Dicey, perhaps, but it could be done. If we went to war for the oil as so many say, I want to enjoy the plunder. Has Bush said one word about oil prices and what he's going to do about them? What this has to do with judges is that Republicans keep thinking that if they elect or appoint people who assure them they are indeed conservative, they will get conservative office holders. But they do not. Look at all the Republican appointments to the Supreme Court. Very few have stuck to their guns. I bet you would find similar conditions in the Circuit Courts. We certainly find it in the California State courts often enough. Now, look at the Senate and all the RINOs there. Even Ronald Reagan's record as Governor and President has many embarrassments for conservatives. It's as if social position, office, and power do something to people; propelling them into an elite that requires a certain politesse that makes strong men weaker and more conforming to their class than to their principles. People whom you would think were fairly tough minded and determined would not fall prey so easily to a need to be liked by those surrounding them, but they do. Or so it seems if we look at why so many conservatives become relatively spineless when it comes to fighting for bedrock, hardcore conservative issues. It has often been noted regarding the inside the Beltway phenomena, that men come to the Capital and have their supposed rough edges rubbed off. They learn to temporize, placate, mollify, compromise, dilute their passion, and lose focus. Qualities of tolerance, friendliness, and compromise are necessary in politics, of course, but who is John McCain trying to please? His constituents? It seems not. His Party? Clearly not. Conservatism? Absolutely not. It seems that he wants to hang onto a few Republican fans and appeal to Democrats more than anyone else. Republicans have an uncanny knack of turning hard won victories into jello pudding domestic policies. How would gaining control of the courts have any different outcome? A few good decisions here or there by a Scalia or Thomas would be most welcome, but it would still never become the mainstream of decision making and rulings. Reagan, Bush, and many conservatives have well earned reputations for graciousness and decency, but for the life of me, I can't understand why those qualities should interfere with an aggressive and hard nosed approach to the fulfillment of core beliefs; unless that core is rather soft to begin with in some respect. posted by Mark Butterworth | 12:04 PM | |
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