About the Murthy vs Missouri decision...

Regarding Murthy v. Missouri: the Supreme Court decision yesterday about government coercing social media companies to censor users' activity based on political content.  SCOTUS decided that the plaintiffs had no standing and dismissed the lawsuit.

This seems like a colossal victory for the government and social media companies.  HOWEVER...

The case was *not* dismissed.  Today's ruling dealt with the temporary injunction in the case, not the case itself.  The case was REMANDED, back down the legal chain.  It could still come before the high court where the plaintiffs can better frame their arguments with solid evidence of coercion and censorship.

I believe that such a thing is not only possible, it is almost guaranteed to happen.

Twitter, or X as it's called now, is going to be VERY interesting to watch as it pertains to the case.  When Murthy v. Missouri was first filed it was confronting a seemingly unassailable block of social media companies, especially Twitter.

But Twitter/X is no longer part of that.  It's in the hands of Elon Musk now.  Who may prove to be quite enamored with the idea of opening up Twitter's old files and shed some sunlight on how his company under previous management censored content because the government told it to.

That may be a more substantive body of evidence than a few emails were as was the crux of the plaintiff's arguments.  If not in support of the Murthy plaintiffs then almost certainly worth a case all its own.

So to those who have been frustrated by today's ruling: be of good cheer.  This sort of thing has happened before, and it will again.  Personally I believe that Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas were correct in their dissent.  But I'm not ready to throw out the bathwater with the baby quite yet.  This was a ruling on the injunction, not necessarily the case itself.  The case was sent back to the lower courts.  And might still come before the Supremes again.

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Roe v Wade... is DEAD!

Today is the REAL "Juneteenth".

Behold the wild celebration outside the United States Supreme Court a few hours ago, as pro-life activists uncorked the champagne and raised a toast to the overturning of Roe v Wade:

This gentleman is Scott Stewart.  He is the Solicitor General for the state of Mississippi.  He is the attorney who argued before the Supreme Court that Roe should be overturned in the case of Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health:

Well done, counselor!

 

This is Nancy Pelosi.  She claims to be a good Catholic but she's not really.  Why?  Because she believes unborn children can be killed in the womb.  Here you see her weeping bitter tears after the Dobbs decision was handed down:

 

 

I'm not going to bother posting a picture of President Biden.  He's not a real president anyway.

This is the man who sent three justices to the high court, who voted to get rid of Roe:

And see this guy?  This man here?  That's Clarence Thomas.  Today is the biggest day he's had on the court since he came onto it more than thirty years ago:

This is your victory as much as anybody's, Justice Thomas.  Enjoy :-)

EDIT 5:28 pm EST: a good friend found this on Facebook and it was too good not to share...

 

Happy Birthday Justice Thomas!

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What the leaked majority opinion REALLY does

 I'm seeing a lot of outrage about the leaked draft of the majority opinion overturning Roe v Wade. Much anger about destroying a "right" to abortion. But for all their screaming these people are showing us that they have NO grasp whatsoever of what they are screaming about.

Justice Alito's draft does NOT end the right to abortion. It does however articulate that the federal government has no standing in establishing such a right. The opinion is of the belief that Roe erred when it legislated into being a notion that the federal government had no constitutional basis in creating.

 

All that the majority opinion is arguing, if it is indeed the final say in the case at hand, is that the issue of abortion is one that per the Tenth Amendment is the sole province of the individual states. Which is exactly where it should have been given to almost fifty years ago.

 

So now it is going to be up to state legislators, who have been voted into office and who are beholden and accountable to their constituents (i.e. the voters), to decide if abortion will be legal in their respective states. It will NOT be a "right" whipped out of thin air by a judge or group of justices who do not answer to the people, but instead act upon their own politics.

 

This is a return to the balance of powers established in the original Constitution and then the Bill of Rights. Nothing more and nothing less.

 

This is stuff we were supposed to have learned in ninth grade civics class.

 

But I suppose too many politicians, and celebrities, and "useful idiots" in the streets, never paid attention to.

 

 

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Chris addresses the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation and declares war against hate at Elon University... with his FIFTH article for American Thinker!

Hmmm... let's see...

This past week has seen the writing of my second-ever work of short story fiction (while stranded in a motel room along with Tammy the Pup during Hurricane Florence) after trying for decades to crack that art, work begun on a one-act play, finally started plotting a children's book(?!?). And now, it's article #5 written for American Thinker!

Has the Muse roared back from her exile, or what? For awhile I thought she had gone sailing off the cliff in a convertible accompanied by Dignity a'la Thelma and Louise, but anyhoo...

"There's Poisoning the Well, and Then There's Borking the Well" is my take on the Brett Kavanaugh nomination for the United States Supreme Court. However, that's just the peripheral matter of a way bigger issue: that for sake of partisan power there are some - and I'm looking at you in particular, Senator Feinstein - who are enthusiastically willing to trample upon a millennia of legal tradition in abandoning the rule of law. And when that is allowed to transpire, all of us as a people suffer its consequences.

From the article:

The machinations currently deployed against Brett Kavanaugh stem from a heart of darkest cowardice. If his detractors cannot prevail on purely rational and intellectual grounds, then they will do so playing to the basest hysteria and hate. There will be no satisfying their bloodlust until Kavanaugh's haggard, weary face is up on the telescreens, accusing himself of crimes against Big Sister that he never committed. So it is that the yet to be substantiated claims of Ford and Ramirez are now enough, we are told, to override fair and due process. Strangely, this principle never seemed applicable to Juanita Broaddrick, but I digress.

But... that's not all, folks! Because something else gets touched on in my new article and this one is much more personal.

It is this: that in the article I'm calling attention to the fact that Elon University - the college I could once be proud to call myself an alumnus of - is now harboring, employing and celebrating someone who has been taking an active part in the harassment of many innocent people, for no reason other than their holding to political beliefs she does not agree with.

Megan Squire, an Elon computer sciences professor, was revealed earlier this year to be an Antifa activist. She is, for all intents and purposes, an enabler of domestic terrorism.

Yeah, I said it. I went there. And from where I'm sitting it's plenty enough cause for myself and other alumni to withhold our contributions to Elon.

Again from the article:

The ol' alma mater already lost my contributions earlier this year – a consequence of Wired revealing that one of Elon's computer professors is Antifa activist who has been compiling a massive database of anyone she deems Lebensunwertes Leben.  That means "Republicans," "conservatives," "Alt-Right," "white supremacists," and pretty much everyone listing starboard of Friedrich Engels.

Megan Squire is not only still employed at Elon, but applauded.  Last week Squire delivered a "Distinguished Scholar Lecture" about her work supplying the Southern Poverty Law Center with information about their common enemies.  This is the same Southern Poverty Law Center whose "hate list" has been used to target innocent people for assassination.  Curiously, Squire's work is totally absent any analogues from the left of the political spectrum.  A "scholarly oversight," no doubt.

Once upon a time, Elon University was a place that encouraged freedom of ideas and vigorous debate. But as ideological homogeneity has prevailed upon "the most beautiful campus in America," that time is now past. The school that welcomed Margaret Thatcher to dedicate its student center in 1995 would probably have the Iron Lady arrested for trespassing were she still with us.

In good conscience, I can no longer contribute to a school that has embraced intellectual intolerance and has abandoned reason for capricious "feelings." Neither can I endorse my college when it continues to have among its staff a gleeful provider of resources for domestic terrorism. But still, I held out hope that sanity there might yet prevail.

As ever, in conveying my thoughts for publication I do my best to steer away from partisan labels and identity politics. As I told a colleague today: "I deal in ideas, not ideologies."

But regardless of where you're coming from on the political spectrum, I like to believe that very, very few of us are comfortable with the knowledge that anyone is being targetted for harassment, intimidation and much worse because of their opinions.


Does Megan Squire believe herself justified in painting her enemies in such broad strokes?  Is she a fitting representative of the Elon University community in doing so?

Regardless of whether she does, well... I've no other way to put this. At times I have encountered truly hate-filled people. Like neo-Nazis (got shot at by a gang of them) and the Westboro Baptist Church (had to spent several hours with them one hot summer night in a small television studio).

From where I'm sitting, there is not a shred of difference between the "God Hates Fags" idiots and Megan Squire. One just happens to have a computer science education and a better web page.  And also potentially has had her work lead to the injury of others if not worse.

When the objective is hatred, the semantics matter none. And there can be no excuse or justifying that hatred.


So, President Connie Ledoux Book and the trustees of Elon University: in keeping with the school's expressed beliefs in diversity of ideas and backgrounds and that the school should be a safe environment... when are you going to dismiss Dr. Megan Squire from the computer sciences department?

Because having a hate-filled extremist in your faculty, and one so enthusiastically applying her work toward damaging and destroying the lives of others, is the kind of thing that - not to put too fine a point on it - might dry up the alumni contributions. It sure has mine. Having seen some of Dr. Squire's Twitter account, I cannot understand how anyone's life can contain so much anger and hatred. Much less that of a Ph.D.

As far as Squire's work from a purely academic perspective is concerned: she may be brilliant at Python databases but the bias factor of the data itself is so irredeemably out of whack that it's utterly useless beyond a political agenda. Raw data is supposed to be neutral, impartial, agnostic... and Squire's methodology is a betrayal of all of that and more. In short: she is not a serious scholar. That alone would merit reconsidering her status as a member of the faculty.

Having such a malicious person intent upon causing grief to others certainly does not reflect well at all on whatever vestige of Christian values remain from the college's founding under the oaks in 1889.

Which is more important: the reputation and integrity of an institution that many of us still hold dear in our hearts and memories? Or protecting an enabler of domestic terrorism out of some passing fad of "resistance"?

So... "Long live Elon"?

What is it going to be?

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Robert Bork has passed away

Look, I know about the guy's role in the Saturday Night Massacre. There were a number of beliefs that he held to which I do now and always will vehemently disagree with, particularly with his stance on jury nullification. He also was way off about the Second Amendment, holding to the notion that it was intended for participating in government-sanctioned militias.

But I've also long believed that in spite of those and many more qualms about the man, Robert Bork truly - as best he understood - adhered to the highest principles in respect to law and the Constitution.

And claims from petty politicians (like Ted Kennedy) aside, it must be agreed by all: Bork was a brilliant jurist in every sense.

Judge Robert H. Bork passed away this morning at the age of 85.

Thoughts and prayers going out to his family.

And I have to wonder today - as I have many times over the years - what the United States Supreme Court would have been like if Bork had been on the bench.

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A question about "affirmative action"

The United States Supreme Court is hearing the case today brought before it by Abigail Fisher, who is asserting that because of race-preferential policies at the University of Texas at Austin, she was denied enrollment at because she is white.

I want to put a question out there, because I think it's more than valid:

If a member of a racial minority can easily become the President of the United States, then what use is there for academic admission or job-hiring practices that are based on racial preference?

Come to think of it, what use is there for the NAACP? I mean, seems like it's pretty hard to advance much further than the White House. For anybody regardless of ethnicity, for that matter...

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United States Supreme Court upholds Obamacare

What. The. HELL?!?!?

HOW in the blue f--k is ANYTHING about Obamacare constitutional?!? What the #$%* are they smoking at the Supreme Court?!? Are they high on bath salts or something?!

Well, it's not like this would be the first time that the Supreme Court screwed it up, is it?

The individual mandate just became the biggest tax imposition in the history of mankind. We are now living in a socialist state that would have made the Kremlin hardliners envious.

This country is soooooooo screwed.

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Supreme Court rules on what most of us already knew...

...and decided that the Second Amendment really DOES apply to EVERY part of the United States. In other words, it affirmed that citizens do have a basic right to keep and bear arms for purposes of self defense (and, I dare say, as an incentive against government getting too big for its britches).

Glad to see the Supremes finally nodding toward something that's been public knowledge only since the Bill of Rights was ratified.

But in any case, this is a major victory for gun rights. Perhaps the tide is turning after all in this land.

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Hilarious Irony: Why Johnny Robertson MUST side with Fred Phelps before the U.S. Supreme Court!

If the local cult calling itself the "Church of Christ" (which as I've stated before has nothing to do with the mainstream Churches of Christ that most people respectfully acknowledge) has any sense at all, then its leader Johnny Robertson had better direct those mysterious attorneys of his to begin filing amicus curiae briefs with the United States Supreme Court on behalf of Shirley Phelps-Roper: his longtime nemesis (among many others) and spokesthing for the infamous Westboro Baptist Church run by her father Fred Phelps.

(Having been in the same room with both of these soulless wretches and witnessed them screeching at each other, I can only begin to imagine what the reaction of either Robertson or Phelps-Roper to that assertion would be like...)

But it's true: if Johnny Robertson and his followers want to continue harassing innocent people in what should be the comforting environments of their places of worship and even in their own homes, then Robertson's "Church of Christ" cult had better make nice with the Phelps clan and like right now.

To your right you see Micah Robertson - the sooo very booooring son of "Church of Christ" head magus Johnny Robertson - during the live broadcast this past Thursday evening of what many people in the Reidsville, Martinsville and Danville area refer to as "The Martinsville Taliban Show" on WGSR. See that sheet of paper that Micah Robertson is holding? That's the arrest warrant he was served from the Danville Police Department stemming from his criminal trespassing on the grounds of Westover Baptist Church in Danville earlier this year. Robertson the Lesser and Mark McMinnis (right side of photo, wearing what more than one person has called "that sh*t-eating grin") have stepped up their campaign of terror on local churches in the past several weeks, all the while trying to make themselves out to be harmless and non-threatening and only interested in "discussing". They haven't the nerve to understand that normal people don't want to discuss anything with these loons. I guess it just bothers Robertson's cult that real congregations don't want to play with them, and so their desperation is getting more and more noticeable.

But anyway, Micah Robertson now has to appear in court later this month, and could go to jail: a possibility that he claims to have gratitude for because this somehow marks him even more as a "real Christian". Strange: I never read in the Bible where the world knows us as followers of Christ because of how much we break the law and common decency. I thought the world knows we follow Him because we demonstrate love for one another. But maybe that's just my interpretation...

Would Micah Robertson's imprisonment deter Johnny Robertson, James Oldfield and the rest of their nutty enclave from bothering innocent people? I doubt it. However, THIS might put a stop to their antics once and for all: the case of Snyder v. Phelps, which the U.S. Supreme Court is to hear arguments about this coming fall.

This is the lawsuit that Albert Snyder filed against Rev. Fred Phelps, the founder and leader of Westboro Baptist Church: the bunch of inbred hooligans that go around with "GOD HATES FAGS" signs and in the past few years have been picketing at funerals of soldiers who have died in wars overseas. Mr. Snyder's son Matthew Snyder, a United States Marine Corp corporal, was laid to rest in 2006 after being killed in Iraq. The Westboro Baptist gang came to the ceremony and began acting in their typical asshole fashion. Albert Snyder sued Fred Phelps in federal court in Maryland for "defamation, invasion of privacy (intrusion on seclusion and publicity given to private life) and intentional infliction of emotional distress".

Last month the court went against all semblance of sanity by ruling for Phelps and the Westboro Baptist members! From the UPI article...

In pretrial orders, the judge found for Phelps on the defamation and publicity given to private life claims, saying the extreme comments were meant in terms of religious opinion. The jury heard the remaining privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims and awarded Snyder $10.9 million in compensatory and punitive damages. The judge cut the award in half.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the verdict and threw out the case on First Amendment grounds. Unlike the trial court, the appellate court looked solely to the nature of the speech and not to the status of the parties as public or private figures. (A private figure has an easier time proving speech-related harm.)

The 4th circuit characterized the Phelps picketers' speech as "hyperbolic rhetoric" for the purpose of igniting public debate. The appellate court said: "A distasteful protest sign regarding hotly debated matters of public concern, such as homosexuality or religion, is not the medium through which a reasonable reader would expect a speaker to communicate objectively verifiable facts. In addition, the words on these signs were rude, figurative, and incapable of being objectively proven or disproven. Given the context and tenor of these two signs, a reasonable reader would not interpret them as asserting actual facts about either Snyder or his son."

Phelps's picket signs, therefore, were protected by the First Amendment because they were found to have been a series of generalized -- albeit obnoxious -- rantings not specifically directed at Snyder or any other particular individual, they didn't disrupt the funeral and they pertained to matters of public concern, such as controversial issues like gay rights and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Albert Snyder isn't paying a nickel. He's now taking this before the U.S. Supreme Court.

So here's how I think it should play out, if there's any sense left to this world: the Supreme Court will overturn the federal court's earlier decision and rule in favor of Albert Snyder. The "free speech" argument, per the strictest interpretation of the Constitution, will be addressed as being about protection against government suppressing the right to freedom of expression. Given that no one is free to yell "fire" in a crowded theater, there is precedent for this kind of decision. At the same time the Supremes will bolster the rights to freedom of religion and religious practice: that these also are not subject to intervention by any party (per the understanding that such freedom goes as far as the rights of others to enjoy them also). As such, although the Westboro Baptist Church members will in effect be told that they can do whatever the hell they want in their own "place of worship" (which is pretty much a fortified compound in Kansas City) and traditional public venues, they have no right to inflict their "religion" on others who are seeking out of good conscience their own appeal to a higher power as best they understand it.

Yes, I do believe that would be protecting the freedoms of speech, freedom, and assembly. Regardless of how much the Westboro Baptist idiots cry foul.

But if the Supreme Court does rule in this fashion, it will also mean that Johnny Robertson's "Church of Christ" - which has in many ways been acting worse than the Westboro Baptist Church - will be even more curtailed by the Supreme Court's ruling than Fred Phelps and his own church. Robertson and his followers will have no legal pretense for their antics at all... unless Robertson wants more of his followers to be sitting in gaol.

So he really has no choice in the matter: Johnny Robertson must support Shirley Phelps-Roper and her father Fred Phelps. Either by praying for them, or by doing everything possible to lend them legal support in what is very much their mutual crusade for the rights of insane cultists across the fruited plain.

Would Robertson overcome his hatred for Shirley Phelps-Roper by coming to the aid of her family, on principle and because he himself has much to lose if Fred Phelps gets turned down by the Supreme Court? I doubt it. But this is gonna be a downright interesting and fun thing to watch from my perspective, no doubt!

In the meantime: If a couple of cult members begin to harass you at your home, use 9-1-1. And if that fails, use 9mm.

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Scott Brown, the Republican Senator-elect, favors abortion "rights"

Read about it here.

How the hell is this going to make him any different than Ted Kennedy?

"But Chris, he couldn't get elected in Massachusetts if he were pro-life!"

There are more important things in this world than "getting elected".

I have said it before and I will say it again: the vast majority of the Republican party's leadership and elected officials do not care one iota about the abortion issue. And if they do, it's only because it never ceases to provide a carrot that gets to be dangled in front of "the faithful" to keep them voting GOP in elections.

It just so happened that this time the carrot was "health care reform", and that to many people that is more important than the abortion issue. Rather telling also, that Brown has publicly said he doesn't want the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade... and that alone tells me how much regard Brown has for the Constitution. A wiser person would have said that Roe v. Wade is the worst "legislation from the bench" ever and that abortion must be decided by the states for themselves and not the federal judiciary.

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The Supreme Court overturned parts of McCain-Feingold today

Read about it here.

Y'know, I've always thought that McCain-Feingold was horrible, horrible legislation...

...but I'm also rather troubled by the idea that corporations, labor unions etc. as artificial organisms en masse should have the same rights as actual, living citizens.

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Worst recent Supreme Court decision now wasted: Pfizer abandons New London

Few things convinced me that this country has gone completely off the rails more than did Kelo v. City of New London: the horrendous decision by the Supreme Court in 2005.

To recap: the city of New London, Connecticut set about in the late Nineties to use eminent domain to seize the land of private homeowners... so that it could lure big companies like pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to the area and sell them the same property! It was the very worst example of stealing from Peter to give to Paul.

How did the elected officials of New London justify this outrageous action? By claiming that seizing the property of Suzette Kelo and other homeowners and giving it to major industry, that they would be building up the tax base of New London. It was for a "public good", ya see. At least that's how they described it.

Suzette Kelo and her neighbors took New London to court. And it reached all the way to the United States Supreme Court. And on June 23rd 2005 the Supremes ruled 5 to 4 that... New London and any municipality has the right to seize private land and sell it to other private interests!

(The five idiots - I don't dare refer to them as "honorable Justices" - who voted for this were Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer.)

So New London seized all of the property, bulldozed the houses into rubble, and went ahead with its plans to sell the land to Pfizer.

And now, Pfizer is abandoning New London, Connecticut entirely.

All that New London has to show for its efforts is a field strewn with rubble and waste. Suzette Kelo and the rest wound up with nothing at all.

If there is no such thing as respect for property rights in this country, then there is no respect for rights at all. Kelo v. City of New London had already demonstrated that. Pfizer moving out is in many ways New London adding insult to injury.

Will the lesson be heeded by others? Probably not.

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Supreme Court feeding frenzy begins anew

A few weeks ago I arrived at a sobering conclusion, that no doubt better minds than my own have long ago already come to: that the United States government and the political processes associated with it have become a by-product of the lack of enlightenment on the part of collective America. The ability to self-govern was something that only a mature and more noble mind could take responsibility for, the Founders recognized. And for awhile, it worked pretty well... before Joe and Jane Six-Pack decided that voting for American Idol was of more pressing concern than having to worry about whether their elected officials deserved to be in office to begin with.

Anyhoo, President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor to replace the outgoing Justice David Souter on the U.S. Supreme Court. I ain't crazy about her one bit, 'cuz she's already said that the courts are "where policy is made" and that is the absolute last thing that I ever want to hear a prospective Supreme Court justice admit. But that ain't what this post is about...

The process of nominating and confirming a new Supreme Court justice has become everything that is wrong about American politics, and I believe it affirms the notion I mentioned earlier: that it reflects how un-enlightened we have become as a people. Regardless of who is being nominated or by which president, the process of filling a vacant Supreme Court seat has become too politicized, too partisan, too emotional, too ideological, and plain ol' flat-out illogical. And why?

Because the entire concept of who it is that gets to choose who fills a Supreme Court seat has become a mad prize for the power-mad. And in the end, that is all this is about: raw, naked power and being the one to boast about having it.

Dare I or anyone ask aloud: "Are we so civilized as to carry on in this way? Are we really the enlightened people?"

Anyone wanna come back in a few weeks when we're way into the Sonia Sotomayor nomination process, and be able to say that we are?

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Supreme Court rules that individuals have right to own guns

The decision was 5-4. Which is why I'm not happy about it. That's still too close. In a saner day and age, the decision would have been 9-0 in favor of gun ownership.

Being one vote away from tyranny is still tyranny, in my book.

And then there are those of us among the citizenry who hold to the notion that this ruling has no real meaning at all, because we already know that the individual has the right to defend himself or herself. I sure as hell wasn't waiting with baited breath as to what nine justices in some marble building in D.C. had to say about it.

Here's the text of the ruling (in Adobe Acrobat format) if you're inclined to check it out for yourself.

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Supreme Court to hear Second Amendment case today

Today the Supreme Court of the United States is going to hear arguments in a case regarding the interpretation of the Second Amendment. Namely, whether possession of a gun is the right of an individual or whether it's a "collective" one.

I would like to report that I am cautiously optimistic about how they will decide on this, but I can't even muster up that much.

This is the same Supreme Court that a few years ago that effectively destroyed the security of owning personal property by way of the Kelo decision. They ruled in favor of "the community" then and against the rights of the individual. Why should we believe that they will do any differently this time, on this issue?

Actually, I must confess that part of me is secretly hoping that the Supremes will attack individual rights on this one. Maybe then some of the Christians in this country - who I am still angry toward regarding their sheepish complacency - will wake up and realize what's going on with this country. Maybe they would... but again, knowing what I do about them I can't be very hopeful on that one.

But I'm not terribly worked-up about this, however it turns out. Because I know enough about why the Founding Fathers included the Second Amendment to understand that they no doubt fully anticipated something like this happening eventually. The Second Amendment is written confirmation that the individual has the right to protect himself or herself... but that's not the main reason why the Founders made such prominent note of it. They were people who were plenty wise about human nature and its capacity for corruption and destruction in the pursuit of power.

So it is that the primary purpose of the Second Amendment is a temporal guarantee that government in America is derived by the consent of We The People, and that the People have the right and responsibility of overthrowing that government if and when government becomes abusive without restraint.

In other words, the Second Amendment is there not because we can shoot the bad politicians dead in the streets, but so the bad politicians will know that we can shoot them, if they get out of line.

Thus, the Second Amendment is the final "checks and balance" of government in the United States. It is a bulwark against human nature... because without that, this country will become something that few of us want to see.

No wonder why many who enjoy exercising the power of the state are hoping the Supreme Court will quash individual rights again in this case.

No, I am not a violent man. I just understand enough of humanity's capacity for violence to know not to trust it.

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Supreme Court upholds ban on partial-birth abortion

Some good news out of the high court, for a change.

But the Supremes still insist that there is a "constitutional right" to have an abortion.

Partial-birth abortion is one of the most stomach-turning things you could ever imagine. I'm glad that this ban is being upheld. But abortion is still legal. And I don't know if Roe v. Wade will ever be overturned in the foreseeable future. As I've noted here before, there are too many people on both "sides" of the abortion debate who have too much to lose if abortion simply "went away". The so-called "right to choose" is one of the things keeping "feminists" attached to the Democrat party and opposing abortion is one of the the few things that have the "evangelical Christians" maintaining a tenuous connection to the Republican party.

You know, abortion and the war in Iraq have something in common: in either situation, politicians use it to maneuver themselves in power and bicker pointlessly, while letting innocent people die for no reason.

Maybe that's one of the more long-term affects of abortion: it's made us come to see our fellow man as an expendable commodity, not as a precious soul.

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