Good You-Know-Who above! The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco (where else?) has declared that saying the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because it contains the words “under God.” This same group of geniuses gave the go-ahead to black power-preaching Rastafarians to smoke pot on federal lands because marijuana is some kind of sacred weed in their religion. Yeah, right.
Don’t be surprised if the Ninth Circuit declares the entire Constitution unconstitutional. They have just discovered that the document was written by a bunch of white guys, all of whom may have been heterosexual.
Before you go screaming about some Clinton-era appointee sending his brain to the dry cleaners, you should know that Judge Alfred Goodwin, who wrote the majority opinion, was appointed to the judiciary by Richard Nixon, not exactly one of modern society’s leading leftists. Stephen Reinhardt, a Jimmy Carter selection, joined Judge Goodwin in this Alice-in-La La Land decision. Judge Reinhardt has the glorious distinction of being one of the most overturned judges on the federal bench.
The suit against the Pledge of Allegiance was brought by a twit in Sacramento, who earlier had lost an effort in federal court to require President Bush not to mention religion in public gatherings. He fears his daughter might go dotty from having to hear her second-grade classmates recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. He need not worry. Being dotty in California is redundant.
Maybe the ruling is the kick in the butt we need to make us understand what is happening to us. We are being nibbled to death by ducks. Instead of being the country where majority rules – it’s called a democracy, I believe – as our founders intended, we have become a nation where one person can change the rules for the rest of us, not through the legislative process but through an untouchable and out-of-touch judiciary system.
I am not a lawyer, thank You-Know-Who, but my reading of the First Amendment of the Constitution says that while Congress “shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion”, neither shall they prohibit “the free exercise thereof.” I seem to recall that our founders didn’t want a Church of England arrangement in the new United States, but I don’t think they ever intended that some California cuckoo or the American Civil Liberties Union could decide for us how or if we can worship in public.
Give the Court of Appeals credit for one thing: Their timing could not have been worse for dissing the Pledge of Allegiance. We are a little cranky right now, and their decision was all it took to pop the national cork. We have finally had enough. At least Congress seems to have heard the message. Members immediately denounced the court’s decision and then ran out to the steps of the U.S. Capitol to sing “God Bless America” for us on national television. I applaud them for their concern, but I suspect more than a little motivation came from the fact that they know you and I are angry and they don’t need an angry constituency in a re-election year.
Lawyers tell me that the judicial system isn’t concerned about how we feel; only in interpreting the law. One confided in me that John Walker Lindh, the Californian (surprise!) who was a member of the treacherous Taliban and Zacarias Moussaoui, accused of helping plan the attacks of September 11, should receive the same due process as anyone else in our court system. I disagree. I think they are war criminals and should be tried as such. If they are found guilty, they should be shot as traitors. But I fully expect some sharp lawyer to find a loophole and get these scumbags freed. The lawyers and judges will then gather at their clubs and toast each other for keeping due process alive and well, while the rest of us will be looking over our shoulder to see if that suspicious person behind us is carrying a bomb that is going to blow us and our due process to smithereens.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ otherworld decision on the Pledge of Allegiance and the upcoming terrorist trials make me wonder if our legal system works as well as my lawyer friends claim it does. If it is all the same with the legal beagles, I’d think I’d rather put my trust in You-Know-Who.
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