Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Constitution. Show all posts

Sunday, March 20, 2022

Spirit Digest stands with U.S. District Judge David Bunning




The doctrine on the necessary conformity of civil law with the moral law is in continuity with the whole tradition of the Church. This is clear from John XXIII's Encyclical: "Authority is a postulate of the moral order and derives from God. Consequently, laws and decrees enacted in contravention of the moral order, and hence of the divine will, can have no binding force in conscience...; indeed, the passing of such laws undermines the very nature of authority and results in shameful abuse". This is the clear teaching of Saint Thomas Aquinas, who writes that "human law is law inasmuch as it is in conformity with right reason and thus derives from the eternal law. But when a law is contrary to reason, it is called an unjust law; but in this case it ceases to be a law and becomes instead an act of violence". And again: "Every law made by man can be called a law insofar as it derives from the natural law. But if it is somehow opposed to the natural law, then it is not really a law but rather a corruption of the law".


This is not understood by many today.  Including many Catholics.  See here.


The owner of Spirit Digest asserts that the Judge is correct in this situation. 

Thursday, June 22, 2017

From the moment of conception, a person is entitled to protection under the law

CBN reports:


"A Harvard Law journal says one of the most important parts of the U.S. Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, protects the rights of unborn babies.

Adopted in 1868, in the wake of the Civil War, that amendment sought to protect the rights of newly freed slaves.

It declares that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

According to an article in The Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, law student Joshua Craddock argues that a person becomes a human being at the point of conception, and from that moment forward is entitled to protection under the law.

The journal is a conservative and libertarian review and one of more than a dozen publications edited by Harvard Law students.

Craddock writes, "The preborn are members of the human species from the moment of fertilization. Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment protects the preborn. If one concedes the minor premise (that preborn humans are members of the human species), all that must be demonstrated is that the term 'person,' in its original public meaning at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment's adoption, applied to all members of the human species."

Based upon the premise that the lives of the unborn are constitutionally protected, Craddock further argues that states that allow abortion are breaking the law.

"Congress or the courts must intervene," he writes, explaining that abortion must not be condoned by the courts.

He argues that legal abortion deprives a particular category of people, in this case the unborn, the equal protection of the law. In other words, it's unlawful not to prosecute people who murder the unborn while at the same time prosecuting those who murder other types of people.

Craddock asserts that the intent of the Fourteenth Amendment was to include the protection of the unborn. "A general consensus treated preborn human beings as 'persons,'" he says. "The preborn were included within the public meaning of the term 'person' at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted."

Furthermore, at that time, most states outlawed abortion in laws covering "offenses against the person" according to The Stream.  Most states referred to an unborn child as a "child" in their laws.

Finally, Craddock points out that in 1859, the American Medical Association demanded the government protect the "independent and actual existence of the child before birth." Eight years later, the Medical Society of New York called abortion at any stage of the child's life "murder."

As Dr. & Mrs. J.C. Willke explain in their book "Why can't we love them both: questions and answers about abortion," "Biologic human life is defined by examining the scientific facts of human development. This is a field where there is no controversy, no disagreement. There is only one set of facts, only one embryology book is studied in medical school. The more scientific knowledge of fetal development that has been learned, the more science has confirmed that the beginning of any one human individual's life, biologically speaking, begins at the completion of the union of his father's sperm and his mother's ovum, a process called "conception," "fertilization," or "fecundation." This is so because this being, from fertilization, is alive, human, sexed, complete and growing."

In his Encyclical Letter Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said that: "Some people try to justify abortion by claiming that the result of conception, at least up to a certain number of days, cannot yet be considered a personal human life. But in fact, "from the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. This has always been clear, and ... modern genetic science offers clear confirmation. It has demonstrated that from the first instant there is established the programme of what this living being will be: a person, this individual person with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization the adventure of a human life begins, and each of its capacities requires time-a rather lengthy time-to find its place and to be in a position to act". Even if the presence of a spiritual soul cannot be ascertained by empirical data, the results themselves of scientific research on the human embryo provide "a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of the first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person?" (No. 60).

Don't expect the liberal mainstream media, which has succumbed to a radical anti-life Culture of Death, to cover this story.  They prefer the lie to the truth.

But examine these photos of murdered babies and turn away from the liberal media.

I recommend One America News.  See here.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

The "Supreme Court's" ruling "legalizing" same-sex "marriage" has no basis in the Constitution

Our Founding Fathers had a healthy respect for Divine Revelation and Natural Law. Homosexual acts were viewed as crimes against nature. Since the Natural Law is immutable, or unchangeable, they still are.

Which is why, as "Supreme Court" Chief Justice John Roberts stressed in his dissenting view over the court's 5-4 ruling "legalizing" same-sex "marriage," "The majority's decision is an act of will, not legal judgment. The right it announces has no basis in the Constitution or this Court's precedent.."

Roberts added in his dissent. "Just who do we think we are?"  See here.

Precisely.

"It can be safely said that the attitude of the Founders on the subject of homosexuality was precisely that given by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws--the basis of legal jurisprudence in America and heartily endorsed by numbers of significant Founders. In addressing sodomy (homosexuality), he found the subject so reprehensible that he was ashamed even to discuss it. Nonetheless, he noted:

'What has been here observed . . . [the fact that the punishment fit the crime] ought to be the more clear in proportion as the crime is the more detestable, may be applied to another offence of a still deeper malignity; the infamous crime against nature committed either with man or beast. A crime which ought to be strictly and impartially proved and then as strictly and impartially punished. . . . I will not act so disagreeable part to my readers as well as myself as to dwell any longer upon a subject the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature [sodomy]. It will be more eligible to imitate in this respect the delicacy of our English law which treats it in its very indictments as a crime not fit to be named; "peccatum illud horribile, inter christianos non nominandum" (that horrible crime not to be named among Christians). A taciturnity observed likewise by the edict of Constantius and Constans: "ubi scelus est id, quod non proficit scire, jubemus insurgere leges, armari jura gladio ultore, ut exquisitis poenis subdantur infames, qui sunt, vel qui futuri sunt, rei" (where that crime is found, which is unfit even to know, we command the law to arise armed with an avenging sword that the infamous men who are, or shall in future be guilty of it, may undergo the most severe punishments).'" (Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1769, Vol. IV, pp. 215-216).

"Because of the nature of the crime, the penalties for the act of sodomy were often severe. For example, Thomas Jefferson indicated that in his home state of Virginia, "dismemberment" of the offensive organ was the penalty for sodomy. In fact, Jefferson himself authored a bill penalizing sodomy by castration. The laws of the other states showed similar or even more severe penalties:

That the detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . shall be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that every person being thereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall be hanged by the neck until he or she shall be dead.

NEW YORK

That if any man shall lie with mankind as he lieth with womankind, both of them have committed abomination; they both shall be put to death.

CONNECTICUT

Sodomy . . . shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labour in the penitentiary during the natural life or lives of the person or persons convicted of th[is] detestable crime.

GEORGIA

That if any man shall commit the crime against nature with a man or male child . . . every such offender, being duly convicted thereof in the Supreme Judicial Court, shall be punished by solitary imprisonment for such term not exceeding one year and by confinement afterwards to hard labor for such term not exceeding ten years.

MAINE

That if any person or persons shall commit sodomy . . . he or they so offending or committing any of the said crimes within this province, their counsellors, aiders, comforters, and abettors, being convicted thereof as above said, shall suffer as felons. [And] shall forfeit to the Commonwealth all and singular the lands and tenements, goods and chattels, whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time . . . at the discretion of the court passing the sentence, not exceeding ten years, in the public gaol or house of correction of the county or city in which the offence shall have been committed and be kept at such labor.

PENNSYLVANIA

[T]he detestable and abominable vice of buggery [sodomy] . . . be from henceforth adjudged felony . . . and that the offenders being hereof convicted by verdict, confession, or outlawry [unlawful flight to avoid prosecution], shall suffer such pains of death and losses and penalties of their goods.

SOUTH CAROLINA

That if any man lieth with mankind as he lieth with a woman, they both shall suffer death."


Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The Department of Defense: Assaulting the Word of God

World Net Daily is reporting:


A Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute course approved by the Department of Defense is under fire for labeling the Bible, the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence sexist materials.

The Daily Caller reported the class given by the DEOMI, an organization with a mission to provide a “world-class human relations education,” was actually removed from the group’s website upon questioning. But the fact they were there at all – and approved by the Defense Department for use – was alarming enough to some who saw irony in the fact U.S. military service members are actually required to take an oath to uphold the Constitution.

The course called the three texts “historical influences that allow sexism to continue,” a copy of one of the documents indicated. Why?

The Declaration of Independence doesn’t refer to “men and women,” but rather only “men,” the Bible has references that “can be misinterpreted as having sexist influence when brought out of context and not fully understood,” and the Constitution’s reference to “we the people” only included whites, the document stated.

“Slaves and women were not included until later in history,” the course said.

Lt. Cmdr. Nate Christensen, a spokesman for the Department of Defense, said to the Daily Caller: “The content of the lesson is provided to generate academic discussion concerning how these historical documents have been included in discussions about the topic of sexism.”

Since the Daily Caller’s questioning of the matter, the content of the courses, along with a couple of others seen by some as objectionable, have been removed and placed under review.

Christensen downplayed the sudden disappearance of the course materials from the online forum.

“DEOMI online materials are periodically pulled to review to ensure accuracy and relevance,” he said, the news outlet reported. “The racism, sexism and Prejudice & Discrimination are currently undergoing that review process.”


Today we are living in the most decadent, violent and faithless period in the history of mankind. But many cannot see this because they have succumbed to satanic pride. Satan fell in love with his own beauty and wound up rebelling against God and leading other angels to do the same, drawing them to Hell. Today, bishops, priests, religious and laity, puffed up with satanic pride, have become enamored with themselves and their "intellectual prowess." And like their master, the father of all lies (John 8: 44), these too are now rebelling against God and His Holy Church. These sons of Hell spend much of their waking hours contradicting Sacred Scripture, denying dogma and popularizing immorality. These pseudo-intellectuals arrogantly divinize man's intellect while ridiculing the Word of God. Saint Paul spoke of these disciples of Lucifer in 2 Timothy 4: 1-4: "I charge you to preach the word, to stay with this task whether convenient or inconvenient - correcting, reproving, appealing - constantly teaching and never losing patience. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires, will surround themselves with teachers who tickle their ears. They will stop listening to the truth and will wander off to fables."

In Romans 1, Saint Paul emphasizes the fact that there is a connection between a refusal to acknowledge and obey God and a subsequent degeneration of morality. And yet, with all the sex abuse scandals within the Church and all the sexual immorality and dissent, there has been very little discussion about this truth. False worship and pride in one's own intellect cause spiritual blindness and subject men to the destructive and degrading drives of fallen nature - most especially in the area of sex. Saint Paul tells us that people who fall into such spiritual blindness begin to encourage others to do so. And so infidelity spreads like a cancer.

There is an increasingly hostile attitude toward Sacred Scripture on the part of many who believe that they can "correct" God's Word. Still others, as you note, alter the scriptures because a particular verse convicts them. Contrast this arrogance with the Church Fathers. When confronted with such an arrogant approach to God's Word, they responded in no uncertain terms:

"They have not feared to lay hands upon the sacred Scriptures, saying that they have corrected them. Nor is it likely that they themselves are ignorant of how very bold their offense is. For either they do not believe that the sacred Scriptures were spoken by the Holy Spirit, in which case they are unbelievers, or if they regard themselves as being wiser than the Holy Spirit, what else can they be but demoniacs." (St. Hippolytus of Rome, "Fragment" in Eusebius, History of the Church, 5, ch. 28).


Saturday, June 30, 2012

For the power to tax is the power to destroy

In his Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, Pope John Paul II warned us that, "....totalitarianism arises out of a denial of truth in the objective sense. If there is no transcendent truth, in obedience to which man achieves his full identity, then there is no sure principle for guaranteeing just relations between people. Their self-interest as a class, group or nation would inevitably set them in opposition to one another. If one does not acknowledge transcendent truth, then the force of power takes over, and each person tends to make full use of the means at his disposal in order to impose his own interests or his own opinion, with no regard for the rights of others. People are then respected only to the extent that they can be exploited for selfish ends. Thus, the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person who, as the visible image of the invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate — no individual, group, class, nation or State. Not even the majority of a social body may violate these rights, by going against the minority, by isolating, oppressing, or exploiting it, or by attempting to annihilate it.." (No. 44).


We ignore this truth at our own peril. So many are asleep as this country races toward tyranny. The ObamaCare mandate has been upheld and the socialist agenda to use the power of government to control the health decisions of Americans gains momentum.  But this is only the beginning of the socialist power grab.  Their ultimate goal is to place the power of government over the rights of citizens.

Stefano Gennarini, J.D., writing for Turtle Bay and Beyond, puts things in perspective nicely: "When you voted for this sleek, well spoken and sophisticated politician four years ago you may have never suspected it, or perhaps you knew it all along: he is an old fashioned believer in the absolute state.


What the health care law has really brought home is how un-american Obama is. Here we have a president who wants to force people to buy health insurance. It is hard to believe we have been even speaking about this for the past three years! Obama has no qualms about forcing people to buy health insurance, telling us that it is perfectly within the government’s prerogative to do something like that.

Now, that sounds like a French monarch in pre-revolutionary France ordering his subjects to kneel, Napoleon Bonaparte re-writing the laws of half of Europe, or even more recently, a Communist party telling people what they can and cannot do.

Indeed, here in America we believe in government by, from, and for the people, not the other way around. The Constitution of the United States, the first Constitution, and the model for all subsequent ones, sets up a government of limited, enumerated powers. This is a peculiarly and exclusively American novelty. And we have always understood this to mean, that there are certain things that the government cannot do, like telling religious employers to pay for abortions, or forcing people to buy health insurance, stop smoking and drinking sugary drinks.

Obama instead, seems to believe in a government philosophy that is totalitarian, like those of Europe. All these things would be possible in Europe, where the government is seen as the absolute embodiment of sovereignty, just like a king was perceived as the embodiment of the will of God. But not in America, that is until Obama became King… I mean, President.

Many of us hoped Roberts would be the one to lead the charge against such a notion of absolute government. Thankfully, our chief justice has delivered us from the power to regulate commerce, which had oppressed us so for the last three quarters of a century. For the power to regulate commerce was indeed oppressive, seeing as it was used to regulate commerce between states in harmful substances like marijuana, and home grown cereals and grains. No longer shall these abuses continue because we now know that 'economic inactivity' cannot be regulated under the commerce clause of the Constitution.

After all, we have a written Constitution, and our government is one of enumerated powers. Enumerated powers indeed, except for those that are in fact unlimited. For example, the power to tax.

For the power to tax is the power to destroy, and destroy us it will. Soon there will be taxes for all those of us who do not brush our teeth five times a day, don’t exercise regularly, smoke real tobacco as opposed to strawberry flavored electric cigarettes, drink sugary drinks etc. After all, these acts or omissions will affect our health, and ultimately also affect the price of the premiums that our fellow Americans are forced to pay. The only caveat is that, when Congress will enact these new taxes, they will have originated in the Senate, they will be called penalties, the anti-injunction act will not apply, and the President will have vigorously denied that they are a tax on national TV.

But of one thing we should all be glad, the Supreme Court’s institutional integrity is preserved for generations to come. In fifty years time, Americans and the world will be able to look back on these past twenty years of Supreme Court history as the period of the Catholic US Supreme Court. 'That' they will say, 'was the Court that established definitively that abortion is a woman’s right, and upheld the Health Care Law that threatened to put Catholic hospitals, schools, and tens of thousands of Catholic charities out of business out of judicial integrity and deference.' Never mind all the new Constitutional problems for the Supreme Court to resolve in the future because of the Court’s Catholic schizophrenia."


John Marshall, in a Supreme Court opinion denying the right of the State of Maryland to impose a tax on the Bank of the United States (McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819), stressed firmly, "That the power to tax involves the power to destroy; that the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create...are propositions not to be denied." 

For the power to tax is the power to destroy.  This is the socialist agenda.  To destroy America financially, to cripple her, in the hope that many will say, along with Dr. Henry Spaak, former Secretary General of NATO, "What we want is a man of sufficient stature to hold the alliances of all people and to lift us out of the economic morass into which we are sinking. Send us such a man, and be he god or devil, we will receive him."




Sunday, March 27, 2011

Senator Frank Lautenberg's comments come as no surprise...

In a post three years ago which may be found here, I quoted from Fr. Vincent Miceli, S.J., who warned that, "Absolute humanism is the sure road to absolute despotism. Denial of God as truth begets the imprisonment of man in the self-imposed darkness of his own myths. Flight from total dependence on God guarantees for man the utter loss of his freedom in a brutal enslavement either to sheer anarchy or to the tyrant who must eventually arise to impose upon the chaos of limitless human liberty the artificial, inhuman order of the concentration camp."

Eventually this 'inner threat' manifests itself externally: in the concentration camp (which might be euphemistically referred to as a 'civilian internment camp'), in torture and in mass-genocide. But first it is necessary to demonize those ideologically unwanted people one wants to silence (or worse). Such people must be cast in the most negative light possible. They must be labelled as being somehow 'backward' or 'obsolete.' They must be portrayed as people who are delusional and even perhaps dangerous."

Was I merely being an alarmist?  Senator Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat from New Jersey, has just gone on record as saying that pro-life advocates "..don't deserve the freedoms in the Constitution."  See here.  The Moloch State which is being prepared for the arrival of the Man of Sin will not tolerate Christian opposition to abortion and homosexuality.    As Fr. Miceli explains, "..a religious pagan state that claims total jurisdiction over man is a state directed by demons through the actions of rulers who justify their tyranny by having recourse to their Moloch god.  Such a state provides its subjects not with law and justice, but with order - a man-centered, oppressive, demonic order.  It begets the totalitarian state.  The modern world everywhere is succumbing to the power of such a Moloch state.  For secular, rational and occult humanism denies that there is any really transcendent, higher-than-human voice of authority that cares for man.  Secular and occult humanists are at one in denying the true God.  They are at one in divinizing man, the secularist through science, the occultist through demonic powers.  Both seek power.  The secularist seeks political power in the name of humanity; the occultist seeks the power of the underworld in the name of humanity.  Both seek power for their own benefit.  And both eventually come together to create the super-instrument of power, the modern omnicompetent state which claims absolute authority over the life and death of each citizen."

Friday, January 21, 2011

Perez Hilton on Rick Santorum...

I don't know why a Washington think-tank hasn't snatched up celebrity gossip suckhound Perez Hilton.  The man is obviously a wordsmith as well as an intellectual.  Responding to Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who questioned President Obama's pro-abortion stance saying, "The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn't want to answer, is that human life a person under the Constitution?..And Barack Obama says no.  Well if that human life is not a person then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say 'now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people," Mr. Hilton writes, "Dear Rick Santorum...This sucks.  Wow.  Just wow.  What makes him think that anything about what he says is okay?"  See here.

Obviously Senator Santorum has hit a nerve in the liberal anti-life community, a community which claims to be interested in civil rights while denying the civil rights of the unborn.  It was Lisa Graas, a former lobbyist for Kentucky Right to Life, who framed this issue so eloquently:

"...it’s clear that had the Dred Scott decision been allowed to stand, our world would be a far different place right now and there would be no black candidate serving in elected office anywhere in this nation, let alone running for president. Indeed, Senator Barack Obama, who claims it was the Civil Rights movement of the sixties that is responsible for his being conceived, may never have been born. How ironic, then, that Mr. Obama is such a staunch supporter of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that did the same thing to children in the womb that Dred Scott did to people of African descent – stripped them of 'personhood' status under the law."

As Dr. Germain Grisez has said, "Abortion and its legalization are great evils.  They differ in some ways from the mass murders carried out under Stalin, Hitler, and others, but also in some ways are comparable to those crimes and in other ways even worse; because of the greater numbers being killed, their total innocence and defenselessness, the essential role played by those primarily responsible for nurturing the victims, the widespread support of this slaughter by both rulers and people in so-called liberal democratic nations, and the complicity in the killings of so many religious leaders, educators, people trained in law, health care professionals, people in the mass media, and so on..Everyone who recognizes the evils of abortion and its legalization should do something to oppose them."

Yes indeed.  Mr. Hilton has a firm grasp of this issue.  And I date supermodels on the weekend.


Related reading: Stubborness and stupidity.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Fallout From Judge Vaughn Walker's Exercise In Judicial Tyranny

From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops:


WASHINGTON—Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, decried the August 4 decision of a federal judge to overturn California voters' 2008 initiative that protected marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

“Marriage between a man and a woman is the bedrock of any society. The misuse of law to change the nature of marriage undermines the common good,” Cardinal George said. “It is tragic that a federal judge would overturn the clear and expressed will of the people in their support for the institution of marriage. No court of civil law has the authority to reach into areas of human experience that nature itself has defined.”

Joining Cardinal George in his criticism of the court decision was Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Defense of Marriage. Archbishop Kurtz noted that “Citizens of this nation have uniformly voted to uphold the understanding of marriage as a union of one man and one woman in every jurisdiction where the issue has been on the ballot. This understanding is neither irrational nor unlawful,” he said. “Marriage is more fundamental and essential to the well being of society than perhaps any other institution. It is simply unimaginable that the court could now claim a conflict between marriage and the Constitution.”

Jim Garlow, lead pastor of the Skyline Wesleyan Church in La Mesa, California, got it right when he said that judge Walker threw out the principle of "we the people." See here. As I said in a previous post:


In the name of "tolerance," the New World Order seeks to impose its rebellion from truth on all. It will not tolerate any dissent, any disagreement. Coercion is an acceptable tool in a dictatorship.* Soon, the New Order will use violence to achieve its goals and not just coercion and propaganda. In the end, every dictatorship must rely on violence in its vain attempt to hold onto power.


* "We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires..." - Pope Benedict XVI.


Related reading here and here.

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Judicial Arrogance: One Judge Voids More Than 7 Million Voters

"...it is now clear that it is the courts that threaten our liberty - the liberty to govern ourselves - more profoundly than does any legislature." - Robert H. Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline," p. 115.


The will of the people to preserve the traditional understanding of marriage has once again been thwarted by an activist judge, a radical ideologue bent on imposing his own agenda on the masses through judicial fabrication. The Homosexual Movement, which is nothing less a moral revolution, asserts that keeping same-sex unions illegal is discriminatory and constitutes a violation of justice since homosexual persons are equally entitled to marriage and its benefits.

The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith refuted this sophism in its 2003 document entitled "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons":

"Differentiating between persons or refusing social recognition or benefits is unacceptable only when it is contrary to justice. The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires it." (No. 8).

As I reflect on the arrogance of one judge essentially voiding the will of more than 7 million California voters, the words of Thomas Jefferson to William Jarvis in a September 28, 1820 letter come to mind: "You seem..to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so....and their power is the more dangerous, as they are in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots."

Jefferson's sober warning has been largely ignored. And today the American people are plagued with judicial despots, activist judges who are "all the more dangerous" since they are are not subject to elective control.


Judge Vaughn Walker's toppling of Proposition is nothing less than judicial arrogance and abuse of power. He should be impeached.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."

Samuel Adams

Related reading here.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr: "No place" for pro-life views


As reported in the Sentinel & Enterprise, Fitchburg City Councilor Kevin Starr, speaking of pro-life Christians who oppose Planned Parenthood opening an office in the city and who wish to express their views to local government, has said that he "will not tolerate those morals" and that "there's no place for those discussions to take place in here" [City Council meetings]. See here.

The United States Supreme Court, in its Opinion in Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District (June 7, 1993), said that, 'The principle that has emerged from our cases is that the First Amendment forbids the government to regulate speech in ways that favor some viewpoints or ideas at the expense of others." And yet, Fitchburg City government appears to be doing just that as Catholic blogger JayG reports here.
Related reading: Mayor Wong and recycling.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Opponents of same-sex "marriage" in New Hampshire seek to amend constitution

The Founding Fathers and homosexuality here. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith document "Considerations Regarding Proposals To Give Legal Recognition To Unions Between Homosexual Persons" here.


"Democracy cannot be idolized to the point of making it a substitute for morality or a panacea for immorality. Fundamentally, democracy is a 'system' and as such is a means and not an end. Its 'moral' value is not automatic, but depends on conformity to the moral law to which it, like every other form of human behavior, must be subject: in other words, its morality depends on the morality of the ends which it pursues and of the means which it employs. If today we see an almost universal consensus with regard to the value of democracy, this is to be considered a positive 'sign of the times,' as the Church's Magisterium has frequently noted. But the value of democracy stands or falls with the values which it embodies and promotes. Of course, values such as the dignity of every human person, respect for inviolable and inalienable human rights, and the adoption of the 'common good' as the end and criterion regulating political life are certainly fundamental and not to be ignored.

The basis of these values cannot be provisional and changeable 'majority' opinions, but only the acknowledgement of an objective moral law which, as the 'natural law' written in the human heart, is the obligatory point of reference for civil law itself. If, as a result of a tragic obscuring of the collective conscience, an attitude of skepticism were to succeed in bringing into question even the fundamental principles of the moral law, the democratic system itself would be shaken in its foundations and would be reduced to a mere mechanism for regulating different and opposing interests on a purely empirical basis." (Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae, No. 70).


"..right is based, not upon men’s opinions, but upon Nature. This fact will immediately be plain if you once get a clear conception of man’s fellowship and union with his fellow-men. For no single thing is so like another, so exactly its counterpart, as all of us are to one another…And so, however we may define man, a single definition will apply to all." [ Cicero, Laws I x 28-30]


Related reading: What same-sex "marriage" has done to Massachusetts; article from Mass Resistance here.

More on the Homosexual Hate Movement here.

The first Bishop of Worcester and the Common Good here.
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