nitrogen wrote:I'm not terribly worried about the justices. The ones he might get to replace are already liberals.
The issue isn't that they will be ideologically liberal - that's a given. The issue is that they'll be
YOUNG. Justices Roberts and Alito are going to be around for a long time. Whoever the Democrats approve will
also be around for a long time -
much longer than eight years. Presidents come and go, but SCOTUS justices live on to bedevil government and The People for 30 years or more.
What that means for the nation is that, assuming McCain loses this election, in 8 years we get a more conservative president, and
possibly a more conservative Congress; but it won't matter because we'll have a liberal court, and liberals are very well known for getting what they want through the judicial branch when they can't get it through the legislative or executive branches.
This is my observation...
Since conservatives are wedded to tort reform and are more interested in maintaining the
integrity of the political
process (there is no conservative version of ACORN creating voter fraud), there tends to be an ideological reluctance on the part of conservatives to seek relief through the courts if they can't get what they want through the legislative/executive. They are more willing to accept the will of The People, whether or not they like those results.
Liberals, on the other hand, don't give a cup of warm spit about the integrity of the process (witness ACORN's depredations) or the will of The People. They tend to be more interested in the ends than the means (witness Obama's confiscatory tax plan in the name of social "justice"). If their social ideas, for instance, cannot win in the marketplace of ideas, which is expressed in the votes of the electorate, they then seek to force their ideas onto The People through the judicial branch (witness in California the state supreme court's overthrow of virtually every socially or fiscally conservative ballot initiatives opposing gay marriage, government subsidies to illegal aliens, taxes, etc.).
Thus we have a situation in which conservative principles are at an inherent disadvantage in influencing the culture. So, you really have to take a long term view of things - most particularly the long term composition of the Supreme Court.
THAT is why it is so important.
If McCain wins, we'll get 2, maybe 3, justices that stand the potential of swinging the court into a conservative direction for the first time in, what... ...50 or 60 years? (...if McCain follows through on his promise not to nominate any more Ruth Bader Ginsbergs...) If Obama wins, we'll continue to have a liberal court for the next 30 years at least. Remember that Scalia is getting on in years too. I actually pray for that man's health so that he can remain on the court beyond an Obama administration, creating the possibility with a more conservative president of replacing Scalia with another another conservative justice when he retires.
And then consider this: McCain has repeatedly said that, as a Senator, he voted to approve Justice nominations
strictly on the candidate's qualifications, and not on their ideology. In fact, he voted for Justice Ginsberg based on her qualifications, and not her ideology - which happens to be radically liberal, and which hasn't worked out so well for us (she was in the dissent on
Heller). In contrast, liberals are all about litmus tests. For years, their litmus test has been a judicial candidate's view on abortion. Since the Democrats are about to make a full on frontal assault on the 2nd Amendment, look for Obama's judicial nominations to be litmus tested for both their views on abortion, AND their views on the 2nd Amendment. If Obama is elected, Congress will approve his judicial nominations in a New York minute. He won't get anywhere
near the treatment Congress gave Bush on
his nominations.
If those new justices have been vetted and approved based in part on their views regarding the 2nd Amendment -
they will be around to crush 2nd Amendment rights for the next 30 years or more!!! You simply cannot overlook the importance of the impact of SCOTUS nominations an Obama presidency would have on our 2nd Amendment rights. You could pretty much count on
Heller either being overturned, or being so narrowly redefined as to make the decision meaningless. McCain has promised to nominate strict constructionists. Obama has not.
If Obama wins, we may well
all lost our 2nd Amendment rights. Some people argue that we would get them back later under a conservative administration. That hasn't been the case for Great Britain or Australia. (And the other day, Australia announced that they are going to start censoring the Internet there - like the Chicoms do. Isn't liberalism wonderful???)
Bryang is right. All we can do is pray, vote, and trust God no matter what happens.
