Monday, March 21, 2005
Conyers: Democracy has died
When the senior member of the Judiciary Committee uses language this strong, take it seriously:
By passing legislation which takes sides in an ongoing legal dispute, we will be casting aside the principle of separation of powers. We will be abandoning our role as a serious legislative branch, and take on the role not only of Judge, but of Doctor, Priest, Parent and Spouse....By passing this law, it should be obvious to all that we are no longer a nation of laws, but have been reduced to a nation of men.
The Constitutional mess that the right has created is so serious that it will only be repaired by declaring that the American Republic has ceased to exist and reconstituting it anew. Every executive, judicial and legislative act committed since December 12, 2000 should be expunged. The abuses include both the commission of war crimes and the attempt to pretend that they are legal. They include the looting of the Treasury for perhaps a trillion dollars and counting. And now, with the Schiavo case, they include the use of a Bill of Attainder, clearly violating Article I of the Constitution. This insult to the Constitution began with the highest court declaring that the "law" they were making in installing George Bush was not a law and could therefore not be used as precedent.
If the right believed its rhetoric, that our liberties are given by God and not human beings, if they believed that God places limitations on human arrogance, they would tremble.
But they do not believe in God. Not really.
Nor do all their protestations of faith make them Christians. They trample the poor and cozen the rich and self-righteous. They make war on unarmed people, and torment innocent people who they have in their grasp. They lie. Who would Jesus bomb?
This attempt to subvert the courts is simply the first foray. Tom DeLay has long believed that Congress should impeach judges whose decisions it does not like. As the hubris reaches higher and higher, watch as he and men like him pass "laws" to give themselves total power... as if there were no Higher Power, who they offend.
December 12, 2000. Mark it on your calendar. Write it on your hand. Tie tefillin with that date to your hair and sleeves. That was the day America died, and its leaders began looting the corpse.
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