Rayetta's Thought for the Day

Reflections on personal honor have so upset the boys that they have been rendered incapable of spelling. This is a common enough among Druids because of our long tradition of comitting to memory instead of spelling, but contradicts our newly formulated policy on evangelism. In any event, I, Rayetta will have to take over for Ray for the time being, until Ray and the boys can resolve some personal issues.

So, that settled to my satisfaction, today I will be o'pining, as our shriveled up little king would say, on the subtopic:

Rising above it All

There is a theory that given certain strictures, like for example a constitution, individuals can be constrained within the constitution to behave in certain ways that they would normally not behave, perhaps. Example: Most of us presume that John Roberts, our new head Supreme Court Justice, will base all his decisions on the constitution. Some of us also hope that he will not legislate from the bench, although most of us don't know or care or understand about that.

The great issue of this time, that some believe resulted from "legislation from the bench" was Roe vs. Wade. In that particular case the judges allowed that women should have the right to abort their pregancies if they wanted to. Since this decision became the law of the land, without ever having been voted on, or approved by a 2/3 majority in both the house and senate, or passed by the state legislatures, or put to a general vote of the vox populi, it was indeed perhaps, de facto "legislation from the bench".

Now we have two questions here. Is abortion good or bad?, and cobbled on to that, Is abortion constitutional? As to whether an abortion is good or bad, I would presume to say that one should ask oneself, am I safe and happy enough to raise a baby and what are its prospects going forward. As to, Is abortion constitutional?, perhaps we should put it to a vote. Let's have a direct vote on the subtopic, should the right to have an abortion be the law of the land and stick with the outcome of that vote. A court reversal might just be interpreted as more "legislation from the bench".

But all that's not really my thought for the day. My actual thought for the day concerns mere mortals and the law of the land and the potential of indivduals to "rise above it all". It is contended by some, and being a Druidess, I could hardly disagree, that disciplined strictural study of a particular subtopic allows one to become such an expert on that subtopic and so devoted to that subtopic that decisions made with regard to that subtopic are made independently of biological and cultural influences. Scientists, the honest ones anyway, do this all the time. But the crocodile tears pouring from the "intellectual" conservatives indicate their belief that Harriet Meirs has not practiced a disciplined strictural study of the constitution and may as a result of her lack of focus on constitutional law be swayed by whimsy to vote this way or that on important cases. Moreover, they are probably correct in this assessment since she does appear, from her public pronouncements and writings, a silly character and a suck-up to boot. So score one for the intellectual conservatives. (You have no idea how hard it is for me to spell "intellectual conservative").

Let's contrast all this conservative intellectual high-mindedness regarding appointments to the highest court in the land with conservative intellectual solicitude for one of their associates on the right who serves as a bulwhark for class privilege, Tom Delay. Mr. Delay has indicated that he can't get a fair trial if the judge is a Democrat. Which means that the obverse is also true, that if the judge is a Republican, Tom feels he will get a fair trial. This being the case, perhaps the intellectual conservatives, considering the formerly high station of Mr. Delay, and his potential future usefulness to them, might consider imposing a surety of some stricture at every level of the judiciary, no matter how lowly, even traffic court. I certainly would want my judge in traffic court to know all about, and be focused on, all the nuances of traffic law and not on my religion, politics, race or class.

One can not have it both ways and remain honest. It is simply immoral to advance a high premise on the one hand and with the other, to promote a take no prisoners political agenda as a universal good. And that is precisely what the intellectual conservatives are doing, by winking at the politicization of every public position, except supreme court justice, maybe.

Finally, if you have not noticed, spelling stricture and constitution together is rather comical. To whit: Due to an abnormal narrowing of the sphincter the constitution of the intellectual conservative began to fail.