Curtis Dahlgren
December 11, 2003
The justices' new robes: gold-threaded or cold-blooded?
By Curtis Dahlgren

Unborn baby: "Mommy, Mommy — what does abortion have to do with the 'Right to Privacy'?"

Mommy: "Shut up and leave me and your father ALONE!"

Baby (a few years later): "Mommy, Mommy — now that I survived the abortion, can you tell me what does campaign finance have to do with corruption of government?"

Mommy: "Shut up and leave me and your stepfather ALONE! And stop calling me Mommy!"

"Yes, your honor."


Well, those conversations may or may not be imaginary, but really, December 11, 2003, will go down as a day of Infamy in the history of our Republic. Five-to-four, the Supreme Court sold itself out. They confused impudence with jurisprudence. Which part of "Congress shall make no law restricting free speech" do they not understand? Even the ACLU is confused.

Not to rain on their charade, but not since the Gag Rules of 1835-1844 have all three branches of our Federal government gone on record as gung-ho against Freedom of Speech. Whatever happened to the "chilling effect" our leftist friends were decrying when CBS scuttled "The Reagans" mini-series (without any government involvement, I might add)?

The reality is, CBS and ABC, etc., will be able to use "poetic license" and "literary creativity" in the news within 60 days of a general election, and the groups they attack, such as right-to-life groups, will not be ALLOWED by law to respond! The SCOTUS has ruled that virtual child porn and cable pornography is speech "protected by the Constitution" but a group that uses soft money to mention an incumbent's name in a TV ad within 60 days of the election will be classified as a "criminal" group. What more could be "chilling"?

Even eternally optimistic conservative commentators are shocked. I'm not. Neither eternally optimistic nor shocked! History doesn't repeat itself precisely, but nothing that does happen should ever surprise us anymore! Not when perhaps 95% of our population didn't even notice this happen, let alone understand the ramifications. Now that the NRL and the NRA have, essentially, been silenced in elections, it's only a matter of time before Big Brother tries to silence or control the very media that supported this putridness!

Here's an excerpt from a daily reading I do:

    Years ago, an ambassador from another country came to Sparta, a city which, unlike most others in Greece at that time, had no walls. "The city is very fine," he said, "but where are your walls?"

    He was taken outside the city to see the Spartan army lined up all around it. . . "These are the walls of Sparta," said the guide.

    In a truer sense than that . . . the men and women and children of a nation are its defense, "the living stones" in its wall. —Today With God (December 11th)

This, the true wall of "separation" protecting the churches from the government, is being broken down chink by chink, exposing us to greater dangers than either Terrorism or the measures created to combat it. Our Founding Fathers cited Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as a sort of tri-pod of the Union, but with Life and Free Speech no longer sacred, how can the Union stand on one leg? "Happiness" so based and so pursued will soon evaporate from the earth, if this is "the last best hope for man"!

On the Jefferson Memorial are chiseled these words: "The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time." And on the facade of the Federal Court House in Sioux City, Iowa, the engraved words say: "Mercy and justice are met together" (a quote from Psalm 85:10). How vain can some people be to think that they can unchisel all these words and unchisel the Ten Commandments (which probably still exist somewhere on earth, wherever the ark of the covenant is hidden)?

Jefferson would be dumbfounded by today's anti-Jeffersonian "Judges"! His personally written epitaph says: "Author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom — and Father of the University of Virginia." I wonder if William Blythe Jefferson Clinton would be able to cite his 3 most interesting achievements without mentioning President of the United States, but anyway:

In the said statute for Religious Freedom in Virginia, it says: "We the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, OR SHALL OTHERWISE SUFFER, ON ACCOUNT OF HIS RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OR BELIEF; BUT THAT ALL MEN SHALL BE FREE TO PROFESS, AND BY ARGUMENT TO MAINTAIN, their opinions in matters of religion, and [are you ready for this?] THAT THE SAME IN NO WISE DIMINISH, ENLARGE, OR AFFECT THEIR CIVIL CAPACITIES."

And yet, two judges in the southern circus say that JUDGE MOORE MUST RECANT OR FOREVER HOLD HIS PEACE [BECAUSE: "WE MUST NOT 'acknowledge' THE NAME OF THE LORD." —Amos 6:10] By the standards of the Attorney General of Alabama, most of our early Presidents were "disqualified" from serving in a "civil capacity" because they mentioned God and actually prayed at the podium!

In his first inaugural, TJ expressed "support of the State governments in all their rights as the most competent administra[tors] for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti republican tendencies" and he closed the address with these words:

    And may that Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them favorable issue for your peace and prosperity. —March 4, 1801

Dittoes, March 4, 1805: "I shall need too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with His providence and our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to whose goodness I ASK YOU TO JOIN IN SUPPLICATIONS WITH ME THAT HE WILL SO ENLIGHTEN THE MINDS OF YOUR SERVANTS, GUIDE THEIR COUNCILS, AND PROSPER THEIR MEASURES THAT WHATSOEVER THEY DO SHALL RESULT IN YOUR GOOD, AND SHALL SECURE TO YOU THE PEACE, FRIENDSHIP, AND APPROBATION OF ALL NATIONS." —2nd inaugural address

As hinted at by my last column, there are such things as CONSEQUENCES. In "Notes on Virginia," Jefferson asked two "dumb questions": "Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are . . . the gift of God? THAT THEY ARE NOT TO BE VIOLATED BUT WITH HIS WRATH?"

Thus we have come full circle, linking McCain-Feingold to all the other "issues" being glamorized by Federal courts and the increasingly secular Supreme Court, plus the Massachusetts supreme court. We have met the enemy, within!

© Curtis Dahlgren

 

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Curtis Dahlgren

Curtis Dahlgren is semi-retired in the frozen tundra of Michigan's U.P., and is the author of "Massey-Harris 101." His career has had some rough similarities to one of his favorite writers, Ferrar Fenton... (more)

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