So now what?

I was talking with some friends -- liberals -- who were upset with the Boosh choice of Meirs. I said "don't be stupid, take her!" Now they have Alito. And he is the real deal. Worse for the liberals, Kennedy, Kerry and others all fawned over his AppCt. appointment, stating that he was deserving and a good judge, yada, yada, yada. Of course the conservatives have the libs over the barrel if they dissent and try to impunge him -- were you lying then, or are you lying now? This guy is a stealth Scalia. Ouch. And worse, he is a very conservative, moderate, anti-activist judge. Well spoken, concise and considered. A vote against him is a purely policital vote. As Hillary voted against Roberts: he is qualified, but I don't like his politics. At least the "Great Unindicted" was honest in her reasons not to vote for Roberts.

I am thinking that there will be more than a few Dem Senators who will cross the lines to vote for him: the meaning of advice and consent is NOT a license to third degree or "Bork" someone. That was NOT the meaning ascribed to this role until very recently. The perversion of more than 200 years of precedent and history is an exclusively Democrat fetish. I mean, did the Republicans Bork Ginsburg? And what about her "qualifications:" chief legal officer (or some such) of the ACLU. And what might her political leanings be? But conservatives took more of the meaning of the advice and consent to heart. I am dreading the circus that is bound to show up here for Alito. In Bork's case, newspapers (yes, they are liberal) sent reporters to dig through his garbage to examine his credit card bills. Did he take porn out from Blockbuster?

If we don't get back to the original track here, we will have no really qualified applicants: who in hell would want to undergo that treatment? Makes me sick.

AND THIS POINT IS IMPORTANT: if we do not like the decisions that are handed down interpreting the law, let's change the law. But if the MAJORITY of the United States, as represented by their legislators, does not want to change the law, why should a minority force such change? Even through judicial legislation? That, my friends, is undemocratic. What if political correctness is merely a figment of the imagination and desires of a small minority of shrill voters, who are mystified that the great unwashed disagrees with them? Does that mean we live in a country controlled by the great trailer park in the Red States? Yes, it does. For it is in that miraculous fact that our country continues to exist and thrive: one person, one vote. That is the ESSENCE of democracy. If that is not to your tastes, move. Join Barbra and Alec. Split. Vanish. Piss off.

Or educate them. You can do that too, in a democracy. But where you cannot express your views because of the threat of political censure, the risk exists that the same censure can be used against the right to teach. Witness the insanity of "creationism." If you set the precedent that it is OK to muzzle free speech, however hateful it may be, you set up the paradigm whereby the great unwashed can decide to believe in fiction as literal fact -- and force YOUR kids to "learn" it.

That Constitution has been a pretty wonderful concept and document. Following it and changing it only gradually has stood us in good stead over two centuries. And the mechanism for change exists. Let's not mess it up.