May 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The more conservatives open their mouths on the "unfairness" of the judicial filibuster that's going on right now, the less I agree with them. Consider this defense of majoritarianism untrammeled by any conception of rights:
The essence of our democratic system of government is beautiful in its simplicity: Majorities must be permitted to govern. As our nation's Founders explained in Federalist No. 22, "the fundamental maxim of republican government ... requires that the sense of the majority should prevail." And as the Supreme Court has unanimously held, our Constitution is premised on the democratic doctrine of majority rule.
Today, a minority of obstructionist senators are forcing upon the confirmation process a supermajority requirement of 60 votes. They are using the filibuster not simply to ensure adequate debate, but actually to block many of our nation's numerous judicial vacancies from being filled.
The public's historic aversion to abusive filibusters is well grounded. These tactics not only violate democracy and majority rule, but arguably offend the Constitution as well. Indeed, prominent Democrats such as Lloyd Cutler and Sens. Tom Daschle, Joe Lieberman and Tom Harkin have condemned filibuster misuse as unconstitutional. [Sen. John Cornyn, Wall Street Journal, 5/6/03]
Filibuster "misuse" presumably means "use of the filibuster to oppose things I favor."May 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
[O]n learning that her father had just died from the stab wound that she had inflicted upon him, a female parricide of my acquaintance exclaimed, "How could he do this to me!" It was as if, in dying, he were... deliberately trying to mess up her life. She seemed to think that her father might not have bled so torrentially had he tried just a little harder not to do so after she stabbed him in the spleen....
It was Aristotle who said that a man who committed a crime because of intoxication was doubly guilty: both of the crime itself and of bringing about his loss of self-control....
By now, Lemrick Nelson--a man caught holding the knife used to stab Rosenbaum, identified by the victim before he died as the attacker, and placed by witnesses in a crowd of young blacks baying "Get the Jew" at the victim before the killing--probably believes that for someone in a state of drunken excitement to stab another person to death is to be just as innocent of murder as someone who stabs no one to death. It wasn't me: it was the beer and the people I was with. Here moral irresponsibility hits bottom. [Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal, 5/2/03]
May 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
German Morality The strained relations between Germany and the United States took a turn for the worse yesterday after a senior Berlin diplomat was reported to have told Foreign Ministry colleagues that America was turning into a "police state". [London Times, 5/6/03]
Russian Morality Last month, the Russians were opposed to war on the grounds that there was no proof Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. This month, the Russians are opposed to lifting sanctions on the grounds that there's no proof Iraq doesn't have weapons of mass destruction. [Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 5/4/03]
Belgian Morality Will the Belgian government approve the complaint against Tommy Franks for ''genocide''? The petition accuses the general of ''inaction in the face of hospital pillaging,'' which apparently meets the Belgian definition of genocide, unlike the deaths of more than 3 million people, which is the lowball figure for those who've died in the current civil war in the Congo.... [Mark Steyn, Chicago Sun-Times, 5/4/03]
North Korean Morality
This from an interview with someone the news agency calls a "propagandist for the Stalinist state":
Kim Myong Chol, who styles himself executive director of the Centre for Korea-American Peace, told Australia's Channel Nine network Sunday: "It's quite obvious North Korea may have minimum 100 nuclear warheads, maximum 300. "They all lock onto American cities." ... He claimed the nuclear technology used to produce the missiles had been tested in Pakistan and the weapons had been made before Pyongyang's non-proliferation agreement.... They did not therefore breach international agreements, he maintained...."If the US attacks North Korea, North Korea will definitely use those nuclear weapons against the US mainland," he replied...."North Korea will use those nuclear weapons against the US mainland if America imposes additional economic sanctions on North Korea." [Agence France-Presse, 5/4/03]
May 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
The New York Sun today begins its defense of Newt Gingrich's attack on the State Department with a quote:
More than ever before, the State Department cannot afford to have "clientitis," a malady characterized by undue deference to the potential reactions of other countries. I have long thought the State Department needs an "America Desk." [Warren Christopher, secretary of state under Clinton, at his January 13, 1993 confirmation hearing, quoted in New York Sun, 5/6/03]
Fat lot of good it did him. The Sun goes on to explain, "[T]here are a total of 10,017 full-time foreign service personnel. Against this President Bush--or a Democratic president like the one Mr. Christopher served--has perhaps a few dozen political appointees. Some of those appointments, alas, are used to reward campaign fund-raisers with ambassadorships in sunny climes, instead of on the Washington-based jobs with real policy clout."May 7, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
According to a report in The Washington Times:The French government secretly supplied fleeing Iraqi officials with passports in Syria that allowed them to escape to Europe, The Washington Times has learned... it undermined the search for senior aides to Saddam, who fled Iraq in large numbers after the fall of Baghdad on April 9. "Now you have the French helping the bad guys escape from us." [commented a Bush administration official]..."France formally denies this type of allegation, which is not only contrary to reality but is intended to discredit our nation," [Nathalie Loiseau, a spokeswoman for the French Embassy] said...The intelligence on the French passports came after reports indicated that a French company covertly sold military spare parts to Iraq in the weeks before the war. ["France helped Iraqis escape", May 6th 2003]
All the more reason to pave France.
May 6, 2003 | Dollars & Crosses
From Cox and Forkum:
Related articles: The Geography of Palestine According to Arafat, U.N. Call for Palestinian State Spells Suicide for Palestinians, The Purpose of a Palestinian State, and We Are Either With Israel, Or We Are With the Terrorists. (For more great political cartoons check out Cox and Forkum's paperback: Black & White World.)
