Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Billings Learned Hand: "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it."
I'm afraid that we're losing it. I was in my late teens and twenties during all the Viet Nam war protests. I remember how everyone had an opinion, and no one was afraid to express it. What has happened? Why have we become so complacent? Why aren't we objecting more strenuously to some of the really rotten things that have been going on? Why can't we quietly protest (T-shirts, placards, signs) anywhere a politician, or a reporter covering a politican, can see it? Why are people still being held without charges or legal representation? Why are our phones being tapped without judicial oversight? Someone said, in the '50s, referring to the fear of Communism, that the greatest threat to liberty is fear. Are we really allowing fear of terrorism to erode our liberties?
I don't understand.
Another thing that's been bugging me is the way "we" want Muslim nations to adopt our system of law and courts instead of Shari'a, and yet "we" want to inject more (radical Christian) religion into our own courts. Muslim Shari'a is not ok, but Christian religious law is?
I don't understand.
Read reports and commentary on Sandra Day O'Connor's speech to a group of lawyers, wherein she voices her fears over attacks on US democracy, which she sees as a path to dictatorship, at http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Retired_Supreme_Court_Justice_hits_attacks_0310.html
and http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1729345,00.html. Note that she is a Republican, and was appointed to the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan.
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