filkertom: Dr. Videodiagnosis Von Catkiller Speaks

Tom Smith (

filkertom) wrote,
@ 2006-11-06 11:56:00

Entry tags:

politics, religion, wtf

Dr. Videodiagnosis Von Catkiller Speaks
Bill Frist on Face the Nation:

We need common sense judges who understand that our rights are derived from God. Those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench.

Gaaaaaaah.

(Post a new comment)

	batyatoon 2006-11-06 05:09 pm UTC (link)
	... They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	tigertoy 2006-11-06 05:31 pm UTC (link)
	Well, assuming you mean the word "common sense" (since "inconceivable" didn't appear in Tom's post) -- it's unfortunately a very uncommon level of sense that rights are derived from what we are and are the same regardless of the nature of God. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	kestrels_nest 2006-11-06 06:45 pm UTC (link)
	Actually, I suspect she meant the reference to $DEITY. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	batyatoon 2006-11-06 07:15 pm UTC (link)
	Nope, I meant "common sense." I object less to assertions of religious faith as fact than I do to assertions of religious faith as fact that anybody could figure out for themselves if they were just paying attention. "Common sense" and "revealed truth" are pretty close to polar opposites. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	admnaismith 2006-11-06 05:30 pm UTC (link)
	This gives me comfort. If our rights are derived from God, that ought to make it hard for politicians to take them away. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	tigertoy 2006-11-06 05:35 pm UTC (link)
	If we agree that our rights come from God, then we are at the mercy of those who define God. It is far harder to effectively oppose a leader who says "God says do this" than one who merely says "do this". (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	filkertom 2006-11-06 05:44 pm UTC (link)
	Which is why our rights are spelled out explicitly in the, um, Bill of Rights. :) The American system of government is specifically designed to be secular, and that's the part that these crazies keep contesting. And, yeah, I'll happily, and I think very accurately, call Bill Frist a "crazy". He's given us way more than enough evidence. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

tigertoy
2006-11-06 07:06 pm UTC (link)

Unfortunately, *some* of our rights are spelled out in the Bill of Rights, and the fact that others aren't leads many people to think that we don't actually have them. The courts are forced to come up with contorted and bizarre arguments that rights that aren't spelled out are somehow there anyway, and if they can't do it or people don't accept it, then the right disappears.

Think where we could be if the right to life were explicitly specified in such a way that basic medical care was a Constitutional obligation. Or if the right to a fair share of the benefits from what we hold in common were explicit enough to make protecting the environment a Constitutional obligation. Or if the right to honest government were explicitly specified as trumping the specious claim that political bribes are "free speech". Or if the right to privacy guaranteed that the government could not search looking for one thing, and then prosecute for any unrelated thing they happened to find along the way. Or if the explicit right to the pursuit of happiness meant that the government could restrict any activity unless they could show that someone else was actually harmed by it, and the citizen had the right to appeal for an exception to any rule if they could show that in their particular circumstances there was no harm. Or if we had the right to be governed by rules that an ordinary person could understand without years of study.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	admnaismith 2006-11-06 07:11 pm UTC (link)
	Unfortunately, some* of our rights are spelled out in the Bill of Rights, and the fact that others aren't leads many people to think that we don't actually have them.* Well, the Bill of Rights proves they're wrong. The Ninth Amendment specifically says that the listing of some rights shall not be construed to mean that we don't have others. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	tigertoy 2006-11-06 07:33 pm UTC (link)
	I'll admit I'm not a consitutional law expert, but my impression is that the Ninth Amendment gets pretty short shrift in the body of precedent and interpretation. Has any right ever been upheld by the Supreme Court based only on the Ninth Amendment? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	filkertom 2006-11-06 07:38 pm UTC (link)
	Ummm... maybe. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	filkerdave 2006-11-06 07:42 pm UTC (link)
	The problem is that we have a Bill of Rights, and they appear to not exist for the Lefts and the Middles and them funny Ay-rabs and... (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	tigertoy 2006-11-06 07:46 pm UTC (link)
	The Bill of Rights does not mean that the Rights get to leave us with the bill! (Reply to this) (Parent)

admnaismith
2006-11-06 07:15 pm UTC (link)

If we agree that our rights come from God, then we are at the mercy of those who define God.

Oh, that's OK, then. Because I define God. God told me that the Bill of Rights is scripture and that Republican politicians are heretics whose pronouncements should be met with ridicule.

Also tomatoes. As it is written that A soft answer turneth away wrath, so should Republican politicians be answered with soft tomatoes.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	realinterrobang 2006-11-07 05:28 pm UTC (link)
	Bwa-ha-ha! That is an interesting interpretation of Scripture indeed... (Reply to this) (Parent)

	sdelmonte 2006-11-06 05:48 pm UTC (link)
	Just imagine if freedom of speech or religion were in the Ten Commandments! (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	louisadkins 2006-11-06 07:48 pm UTC (link)
	How better to Honor (FITB) than to let them say their piece? (Reply to this) (Parent)

	hanabishirecca 2006-11-06 05:34 pm UTC (link)
	And our judges should wear white wigs and get into fencing and pistol duels on a regular basis. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	seanmonster 2006-11-07 01:37 am UTC (link)
	And have it televised WWE style. (Reply to this) (Parent)

morpheus0013
2006-11-06 05:51 pm UTC (link)

I saw a new campaign ad for Conrad Burns yesterday. It said we needed to re-elect him to "put more Conservative judges on the bench."

I was astounded. I know that's the point, but at least TRY to keep up the pretense of "we need fewer activist judges," not go straight for "we need more judges who think like I do."

Mmmmm...God-stuff. I want more common sense judges who understand our rights are derived from Colonial white men.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	tigertoy 2006-11-06 07:08 pm UTC (link)
	An activist judge is one who disagrees with the speaker. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

morpheus0013
2006-11-06 07:21 pm UTC (link)

Oh, I know. I just liked it better when they pandered. And my attention shot up when the ad started off with "Conrad Burns may not be politically correct..."

The man has used more than one racial slur in a public forum--this year--; bitched out some firefighters this summer; and joked that he wasn't sure his Guatemalan housepainter had a green card.

I know I live in Montana, but for pity's sake already. It's not okay to categorize someone who tosses around the term "raghead" as "politically incorrect."

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	palenoue 2006-11-06 05:52 pm UTC (link)
	Does this mean the first time a judge disagrees with Frist, he can rule that God wants Frist to be burned at the steak as a heratic? Ooooo, I want to see that trial! (Reply to this)

	Senate bschilli 2006-11-06 06:20 pm UTC (link)
	It won't happen, but I'd like to see at least fifty-three Democrats in the Senate. That way they can keep the Senate in session forever, without having a quorum. They'd need to have forty-seven or less Republicans, so they can have one Democrat presiding and another to ask for a quorum call. That would prevent fearless leader from making recess appointments. Ben (Reply to this)

	kestrels_nest 2006-11-06 06:43 pm UTC (link)
	Umm...I seem to recall something about "...governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed", don't I? Nothing in there about rights being derived from $DEITY.... (Reply to this) (Thread)

	jeffr23 2006-11-06 07:12 pm UTC (link)
	I know. Next thing you know, one of these guys will start spouting some nonsense about all men being 'created' equal, and being endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. And then where will we be? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	admnaismith 2006-11-06 07:17 pm UTC (link)
	Who said that? Some America-hating terrorist sympathiser? Why don't he go back where he came from? (Reply to this) (Parent)

tigertoy
2006-11-06 07:17 pm UTC (link)

Go back a couple of lines, and it says "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". That can be interpreted (as I believe the Deist Jefferson meant it) as meaning that the rights are inherent in what we are, so it doesn't matter if a greater intelligence created us or not, but that's a much more sophisticated interpretation than "those rights exist because God says so". The Bible is far more ambiguous and self-contradictory than America's founding documents, and Christians have thousands of years of experience in the sophistry of twisting those words to mean what they want them to.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	morpheus0013 2006-11-06 07:23 pm UTC (link)
	Could one theoretically interpret that as my biological parents endowed me with certain unalienable rights? (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	tigertoy 2006-11-06 07:42 pm UTC (link)
	One could interpret it thus if one wished, but I'm not clear on what conclusion one could draw from that interpretation. Unless it leads to a satisfying conclusion, few would go along with the interpretation. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	seanmonster 2006-11-07 01:45 am UTC (link)
	We get our rights from a god? Which one? Anubis, Poseidon, Odin? (Reply to this)

tlatoani
2006-11-07 02:35 am UTC (link)

Coming from a political historian, I'd take that as the Jeffersonian "they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights," and I'd respect where the speaker is coming from even though I'm not a believer. The intent of that phrase was that what naturally follows on it is something like "...and men cannot take them away," which at the time was a radical statement. It was the liberation theology of the age, and it was a positive move in many ways.

Coming from that scumbag Frist, I take that as a Dominionist manifesto, and the sooner his party is out of power the better.

(Reply to this)

	trdsf 2006-11-07 05:43 am UTC (link)
	And this is the kind of person I intend to work my ass off to keep away from any sort of Presidential power. I have no intention of living in a "christian" Iran. (Reply to this)

	mstrhypno 2006-11-07 05:53 pm UTC (link)
	Darrow's First Law states: "Common sense AIN'T! If it WAS, there'd be a LOT MORE OF IT AROUND!" Kind of like "honest politicians" or "strategic military planning" or "compassionate conservatism." And Frist's statement just proves it. Again. Lee Darrow, C.H. See you all at WindyCon! (Reply to this)

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