Many times during the campaign for the White House
politicians, pundits and people you never even heard of talked about how
important the election of John Kerry would be to our morals and our
values. The Republicans and sadly many
of the Democrats think the G.O.P. has cornered the market on having values and
morals. The only thing they really have
cornered is the use of the words. But
that is a point for another day. What
is important today is the incredible fight we are facing over one of the most
important fundamental principles we have in our government.
One of the most important principles we have is the
protection of the minority. Not
minorities as in people, but those who are not part of the majority. It has long been the role of the courts to stand
up for the constitution without regard for the popular opinion. It has also been a longstanding part of our
legislative process that in the United States Senate a minority could stop
legislation through the use of the filibuster. The third branch of our government the Executive branch, has a power to veto which can be executed by
the President of the United States. All
of these measures are protections of the rights of minority opinion holders,
none can be the final word, but all require a great effort to reverse.
Today, the conservative powerbrokers controlling our federal
government are frustrated by the fact that they cannot simply ignore the
minority opposition. They are, by and
large, devout Christians. As devout
Christians they are not tolerant of people who do not believe the Word as they
interpret it. It is their mission to
convert all who are not of their belief into becoming their fellow
believers. Tolerance is reserved for
people who want to wear white after Labor Day, for people who find great
pleasure in building models with Popsicle sticks and those who are a little
odd. There is no tolerance for people
with different religious opinions, beliefs, value systems or faiths.
Pushing the conservative agenda through the White House and the House of
Representatives is no difficulty at all. But there are two places where conservatives face problems. The judiciary is still not on board with the
“moral majority” because many are non-conservative judges and
even more importantly are strong believers that the role of the federal judges is to
protect the constitution and the historical precedence of our court
system. So what do you do if you are
one of these “moral majority” true believers? It is simple if you truly believe your views are the only way to see
things. Change the system our Senate has used for decades by using the “nuclear
option” to eliminate the filibuster and secondly, as strongly urged by Tom DeLay, greatly expand the public
pressure put on judges by public opinion by significantly increasing congressional
review of the judiciary, its operations, its proceedings and even its legal opinions.
That would constitute the most fundamental change in our
governance that we have ever scene. It
would create a winner take all type of government where the majority can
greatly alter American life as we know it for a few years only to perhaps find
that a new group is in and life changes dramatically again for a few more
years. The stability that we all take
for granted would be gone. Because we
have never seen such dramatic change it is only possible to imagine the great
swings that could occur, if one also assumes that power will change hands, ( a large assumption). Something’s could
be legal one year and illegal the next. Religion would be a part of our public life one term and part of our
private life the next. Our role as the
world’s only superpower would be made much less predictable and would put the
rest of the world on edge.
The American people are facing a dramatic challenge to our
freedoms and our rights. It is our
obligation to stand up for them not as good Democrats, but as good Americans. If we lay down and let Bush, DeLay, Frist
and the others have their way we will have lost an America that we know and
love.
