John Leo [1]argues that “Justice Sunday” will only add to polarization. Frankly, given the majority we now have, I fail to see how that is a problem. Such polarization would only reinforce how far out of the mainstream the ACLU and the left (A redundancy) are.
The premise is that Senate Democrats, by threatening to filibuster several of President Bush’s judicial choices, have attacked religious believers. “Stop the filibuster against people of faith” is the slogan. The nominees “are being blocked because they are people of faith and moral conviction,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a sponsor of Justice Sunday.
Pardon me, but this is clearly untrue. The Democrats would be delighted to approve fervently religious nominees, so long as they endorse Roe v. Wade and the party’s general strategy of using the courts as an end run around the legislative process.
OK, perhaps true, as stated, but it’s made out a lie when, remarkably, Leo doesn’t give any examples of such. Clearly there are no such examples to be HAD.
Leo cannot be serious in saying ” Framing political issues in purely religious terms is always a big mistake. “
That depends, John, on the electorate. We have an electorate in this country that has become increasingly suspicious at the left and it’s seeming obsession with seperating the people of the US from Christianity. Roe is at or near the center of this feeling, but it cannot be denied that there is more than this at work.
The left likes to tell us that the Republicans have trumped up a culture war. But a look at the kind of things the Democrats have and have not backed over the last 60 years, and particularly the last 40, tells the real story… The Electorate, the majority of which are of the Judeo-Christian ethic and value structure, are increasingly reactive to what they correctly see as a war being waged on THEM. That war is being waged now in the voting booths across this country… and is slowly being won by the social right. The left, seeing their ability to get hteir own elected to legislative offices, , becomes apoplectic when they see their only other avenue to getting their wants enshrined into policy…. the Judicial system, being removed from their control.
Which explains why the reaction from the left to DeLay’s speaking at the Justice Sunday gathering. They recognize it as an attack on the only avenue they have re,aining to them. Leo wails:
The advance rhetoric has been extreme. Perkins’ message on the Family Research Council Web site says: “For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the ACLU, have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.”
Leo seems to feel that adding polarization to this will cause the Right problems. However, I doubt it;Leo still has not gotten used to the idea that the social right has more of a majority than they have in previous years… We now have enough of majority that we can cast ths stuff in blunt, true terms.
In short, the truth.
Which I think, is what the left fears the most.
There’s this, also; We’re the majority, now. At what point do we stop cringing in our foxholes, and acting like we’ve actually WON?