Of course, any such law would itself be subject to judicial review.

Historically such efforts by maveric legistlators have failed and been exposed for the political grandstanding that they are.

I hope so, but it is scary that such efforts are being presented more and more often.

I believe last year, Congress wanted to do something similar and limited Judges dockets and cases.

Again, demonify the one branch you do not control and continue to do so until you find ways to control it.

Perhaps, the Dems. are right in filibustering judges, for fear once stacked, laws like this will go through and not be challenged.

(Note this post should be read with a ‘Foghorn Leghorn’ accent to achieve maximum effect.)

You gentleman will have to forgive me if I didn't take the word of the venerable 'Vermont Guardian' as, gospel, no pun intended of course, but after a quick perusal of its content it is my opinion that the 'Vermont Guardian' couldn't be trusted to give you the base ball scores without putting a left wing spin on them. As such I decided to find the bill itself and see what it says. Thankfully it was mercifully brief, unlike many such matters which come before congress.

Here is the, offending, bill in its entirety.

Now I am no lawyer, my self respect being too high for that profession, but if I may be so bold as to state my vocabulary and reading comprehension have always been most highly regarded, that I think perhaps I may have the intent of this bill translated to the point where it can be rendered in common english.

Let us look at the first part, the ‘offensive’ part if you will.

Now, I’ll be honest with you all, as this is a most confusing sentence, and made all the more confusing because that which it intends to protect does not seem to need protecting, at least not at this time. How I read this is that at no point should the Supreme Court be allowed to rule if a person is fit or unfit for duty/office due to their belief in god. Yes what this says, is that you are allowed to believe in God without fear of government interference. Now on the surface this seems a bit silly to me, after all do we not have freedom of religion? But perhaps the writers here have a bit of future vision where the secular nature of the land is such that belief in god is considered a negative thing, and something which makes one unfit. I would assume that such a law would be able to protect a Wiccan as much as a Christian. I think at worst such a law may allow a city perhaps to place the 10 commandments on the lawn of a courthouse, which as some of you may recall, caused a bit of a ruckus not too long ago, but even that would not be guaranteed.

Now this my friends, is far more reaching than the first part of this bill. While you may fret about the former, I do not see it being a threat to this land, in all fairness such a concern would not have been a concern until our more recent history. This on the other hand cuts to a bigger problem. You will have to forgive me for I do not recall the case, but not long ago members of the Supreme Court of the United States of America used foreign European law as precedence for deciding US law. I assure you I was as shocked as you upon learning this. When the court uses foreign law to decide if US law is just it is no longer a court, it is the legislative, executive, and judicial branch combined. It is not for the court to decide if it LIKES a law only that the law is just under the excising fame work. It is up to our elected officials to decide on that framework, and to change laws accordingly to the public desires, to allow the courts to write and enforce the laws is despotism.

The rest of the bill is but standard issue filler. No lower courts are allowed to rule either, and judges must abide by the new law or face removal, which is just common sense.

Now it’s a shame that the two provisions are linked as the second is far more important than the first. While the first is a reaction to what could only be described as ‘militant secularism’ where those of faith are attacked because they have faith, its implications are minor. The second provision is what is far more important to pass, to remind judges they are there to look at US law framed by the constitution. They are not there to make the laws ‘better’ based on their own whims. It is elected officials that write law, not judges.

I say, I say, Sir. Thats some good readin'.

nice to see an argument, ustwo. serious about that.

the bill you cite is really curious--it appears to be centered around the assumptions of the original intent "school" of far right jurisprudence--ratification of this bill would pass this stuff into law--the business about restricting what materials can be used in interpreting the constitution

seems patently absurd, the grounds for a kind of reactionary legal revolution--teh elimination of all precedent from the ratification of the constitution onward as guides for interpreting the constitution? isn't that a basic redefinition of the entirety of the american system of constitutional law? and how would this work exactly?

wouldnt there be basic problems of legality that would arise along with these extra- or pre-constitutional interpretive guidlines? the "logic" of the above seems problematic historically as well as legally (what about the end of the revolution? would that not put kind of a endpoint to the applicability of english constitutional and common law? what abotu the articles of confederation period?)

if american law starts with the adoption of the constitution, what relevance would traditions that predate that approval have?

it seems like the far right has decided that it woudl prefer the states live under a civil law tradition--what the above amounts to is throwing out everything about the precedent-based system that the us has worked under since 1789.

it seems like a crackpot proposal, doesnt it?

if i understand this bill correctly, it is far more dangerous than was made out to be earlier in the thread.

maybe the vermont guardian underplayed what a crackpot proposal this law is. it only get sworse when you try to explain it, ustwo.

with reference to the case at hand, if this bill were to become law, would you not have to draw on 18th century english legal precedents that define what is and is not a religion and go from there? so anything and everything not protestant would be equally not a religion, yes?

1) I just love being talked down to by Ustwo..... (read in a Foghorn Leghorn voice? was that really necessary or can I assume you are talking down to me, because I saw no humour in it, just ego and a person trying to act superior.)

2) Your explanations do not dispute anything previously mentioned, in fact as roachboy pointed out, it only proves that the fears need to exist. For example, the Godfather clause, the poll taxes, gerrymandering, and so on all laws passed and upheld by different SC would thus be thrown out? That sounds pretty damned sad to me.

This also coming from a person who chose to insinuate Wicca to Heaven's Gate and one who challenges sources yet refuses to offer up sources when asked himself. Or even on this thread where a judge legislated from the bench and you have refused to say the judge was wrong, yet you like this bill because it prevents judges from "making laws" (legislating).

So you want judges to legislate they way you want them to, but not if you don't like the outcome. That is what your silence and your insinuations and challenging of the news articles tells me. It is ok for you to have a judge tell parents they can't allow their child to partake in their religious worship (which is a RIGHT guaranteed by the Constitution) but not to have (how many judges with ALL the facts and having heard both sides equally) decide the Schiavo case?

Which judge's legislation is ok then and which isn't? One case wasn't even Federal but the GOP tried in vain (including demonizing judges and grandstanding) to make it so?

If you are to go by the Constitution, then there is an express and purposeful seperation of powers and yet this legislation supresses that seperation.

Also, sending a judge to prison because he didn't rule the way who wants? Obviously there will be a who involved to watch over and hold the judges to this law, so who is to be that power? Congress?

So when Dems. come back into power and all of a sudden judges start making calls you dislike but go by this bill, are you going to convientently forget it was the GOP who pushed for this and cry about how the Dems are misusing the law?

And how do you prevent Congress (either side) especially when they hold the executive branch from abusing the power provided from this bill?

Sorry way too many questions for me, to like this bill or to be silent about it.

Anyone who know's Foghorn Leghorn's history knows that he's a caricature of such way of speaking.... which is to say Ustwo was putting levity on himself. at least my take on it... another mod is welcome to chime in.

keep personal bashing out of this context.

As far as ustwo's post, thank you for the direct text and your interpretation of it. I find it very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff when I have to research so many layers of commentary and interpretation and prove or disprove each layer accordingly.

Hehe sometimes its good to lighten up. I decided to play with a style of speech, (and failed in many places) for fun while writing. I was in fact making a bit of fun of myself, as Foghorn Leghorn is known for being quite verbose while being very wrong and always getting the worst end of a deal in the end.

I've always wanted to be a writer, and perhaps I could have been, but 14 years of scientific text has sucked the writing ability out of me, but its fun to play with now and then.

http://www.intelligentdesign.org/behe/leghorn.jpg

Foghorn's southern gentleman accent and pomposity is perfect for reading convoluted legal material. I appreciated the translation. :)