Tag Archives: Constitutional

Are liberal lawyers and law professors in favor of open debate?

Here’s a great post over at Stuart Schneiderman’s blog.

The topic of the post is a high-profile meeting  of lawyers and law professors at NYU Law School to discuss the recent Supreme Court decision that allow businesses to make political donations to candidates in the same way that trial lawyer organizations and teacher unions and abortion providers do. The meeting was supposed to be an open and honest debate on the issues. Was it?

Excerpt:

The most disturbing aspect of the meeting was that everyone took for granted that the the decision had been wrongly decided. There was no free trade in ideas about the correctness or incorrectness of the decision; only a discussion about how to overturn the decision.

In their modus operandi the assembled lawyers were ignoring the marketplace of ideas in favor of their own dogmatic beliefs. These defenders of the marketplace of ideas were constitutionally incapable of finding any merit whatever in an opposing viewpoint.

If you refuse to allow an idea (whether a policy or a belief) to be tested against reality, then the question becomes who has the strongest faith. True believers are willing to fight and die to prove that their strength is strongest, thus, most true.

[…]Why were the assembled liberal lawyers so lathered up about the Citizens United decision. Simply, because they believed, dogmatically and unthinkingly, that corporate money was fundamentally corrupt and corrupting. Corporations were sinners; they had acquired their money by less than idealist means; they had no right to try to influence the democratic political process.

Again, dogmatic belief leads to a fighting faith. Why? Perhaps they wanted to maintain their own monopoly control of correct opinion. The greatest enemy of free trade in ideas today is the monopoly on dogmatic belief that is maintained by the educational and media establishments.

Surely, opposing views are aired, through conservative talk radio and through Fox News. But these engines of the free market in ideas are often subject to attack. Those who prefer a more mercantilist, monopoly control over the marketplace in ideas, want to invoke the fairness doctrine to shut down much of conservative talk radio. They often try to discredit Fox News for trafficking in hate speech.

As several of the commenters on the Times site pointed out, none of these great legal minds seem to have the least problem with the influence that labor unions exert on elections through their political advertising. At a time when the political power of labor unions has brought states, cities, and counties to the brink of bankruptcy… lawyers are about to go to war to stop corporations from spending money on political advertising.

This post highlights a change in my own views. I once wanted to be a lawyer, you see. And my judicial philosophy was one of idealism and judicial activism. But after reading Thomas Sowell’s “A Conflict of Visions” three times, I am now a strict constructionist, while respecting rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Legislating from the bench now seems to me to be the wrong point of view. Injustices need to be fixed by legislators elected by the people, not by an appointed oligarchy of out-of-touch judges. So don’t ever say that I don’t change my mind when confronted with the evidence! It happens all the time. Well, sometimes.

University of St. Thomas hosts symposium on intelligent design and the law

More information here. (H/T Evolution News)

Excerpt:

The Journal of Law and Public Policy, published at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, will host a fall symposium, “Intelligent Design and the Constitution,” from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, in the Frey Moot Courtroom of at the School of Law, located on St. Thomas’ downtown Minneapolis campus.

The symposium, free and open to the public, will bring together scholars to debate and analyze various constitutional and philosophical issues surrounding evolutionism and intelligent design, particularly as they affect U.S. public schools. C.L.E. credits have been applied for. For more information, call John Sandy, (651) 245-0199.

Pro-ID scholars Casey Luskin and David DeWolf will be speaking. And two religionists from the Naturalistic Church of Sophistry and Evolutionism (NCSE) will also be there to burn anyone they can catch at the stake. (I think that’s what NCSE means)

Obama vows to repeal Defense of Marriage Act in speech to gay activists

Story here at LifeSiteNews.

Excerpt:

In his speech to the homosexualist Human Rights Campaign (HRC) Saturday evening, President Obama again professed loyalty to the homosexual agenda and criticized people who hold to “old attitudes” about homosexuality. The President also vowed to repeal the “so-called Defense of Marriage Act” and praised the U.S. House’s approval of homosexual hate crimes legislation on Thursday.

[…]”Despite the real gains that we’ve made, there’s still laws to change and there’s still hearts to open,” Obama told the cheering crowd.

“There are still fellow citizens, perhaps neighbors, even loved ones — good and decent people — who hold fast to outworn arguments and old attitudes; who fail to see your families like their families; who would deny you the rights most Americans take for granted. And that’s painful and it’s heartbreaking.”

[…]On Saturday, President Obama called the movement’s quest to normalize homosexuality on various fronts a quest for “basic equality.”

“I’m here with a simple message: I’m here with you in that fight,” he said.

Obama also praised the passage of homosexual hate crimes legislation in a House defense policy bill on Thursday, and said he was preparing to sign the law after it passes Congress.

[…]Addressing the lobby’s concern over Obama’s perceived lack of zeal in dismantling federal marriage laws and other such issues, Obama said Saturday: “I also appreciate that many of you don’t believe progress has come fast enough. I want to be honest about that, because it’s important to be honest among friends.”

He assured the group that “my commitment to you is unwavering,” and pointed out that he has called on Congress to “repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act.”

[…]The President expressed broad support for HRC’s mission to drastically alter America’s cultural perception of marriage and the family.

“My expectation is that when you look back on these years, you will see … a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just as real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman,” said Obama.

LifeSiteNews also reports on the new hate crime bill. (H/T Andrew)

Excerpt:

The United States Senate approved an amendment yesterday adding “hate crimes” legislation to the annual Defense Authorization bill, which would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of federally-protected classes.

[…]Critics have warned that the bill has a chilling effect on religious free speech against homosexuality, pointing out that similar laws in other nations have facilitated the prosecution of Christians who speak against homosexuality, particularly in Canada and the United Kingdom. More importantly, they charge, “hate crimes” laws violate the guarantees of equal protection under the law by creating preferential classes for justice.

“‘Hate crimes’ laws contradict the 14th Amendment to the Constitution and create unequal justice by elevating some groups of victims at the expense of others,” said Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. Wright pointed out that under the proposed law, “Victims who engage in homosexual, transgender, or other sexual behavior get special treatment over victims who are military officers, police officers or veterans,” such as the military recruiter who was slain in June by a Muslim convert at a shopping mall in Little Rock, Arkansas.

This is what the many Christians who voted for Obama have achieved. They voted to “tax the rich” and to “bring the troops home” based on ignorance of economics and foreign policy. But what they achieved was the silencing of Christian moral convictions on marriage and family in the public square. And the children who will now be raised without mothers or fathers will reap the whirlwind.

Here’s a refresher on why people oppose same-sex marriage.