www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Alito Confirmed and Sworn in as Supreme Court Justice

Dear Father Anthony,

I should have worded it differently. Please see my post under the Democrat Response to the Union thread below.

Zenovia: I might say that characterization of all Liberals here as "crying" does a disservice to loving and open debate on these matters.

Peace and Love,
Nonna

Guess what?

In his first act as the newest member of the Supreme Court, Justice Alito splits with the "conservative bloc" and votes to stop the State of Missouri from executing a death-row inmate (for kidnapping and murder) who was questioning the propriety of lethal injection in putting him to death, i.e., the inmate argued that it was an "unjust and cruel punishment!"

Earlier, the Supreme Court, without Justice Alito who was awaiting confirmation by the Senate, affirmed the constituionality of the death penalty in Missouri, which was the other issue raised by the said inmate.

So, in this particular case, Justice Alito voted in favor of the maintenance of life, albeit temporarily, in order to determine whether "lethal injection" is a form of "unjust and cruel punishment" proscribed by the U.S. Constitution.

It is not clear whether he would have voted to keep the death penalty in Missouri.

Full story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11136502/

Amado

"Original Intent versus Legislating from the Bench"

Who here has studied jurisprudence? What do you understand "original Intent" to mean? How do judges discern original intent from words and sentences that are at times deliberately ambiguous and at times organically ambiguous?

Judges are called judges because they must make judgements, they must make decisions when faced with greyness. Is it closer to Black or White in this instance, they must ask themselves.

Certainly the Warren court (I believe that's the court that decided Roe v. Wade) was creative in its interpretation of the law, but so was the Rehnquist court.

As to what state courts have done with respect to the interpretation of state laws I haven't read those decisions. Can any of you objecting to them provide me with a citation? (you know it would be in the form of somthing like this:Czapinski v. St. Francis Hosp., Inc., 2000 WI 80, 236 Wis. 2d 316, 613 N.W.2d 120.)

And we can talk about legislating from the bench.

With regard to homosexual "marriage" Don't make the error of confusing the Religious sanctified marriage practiced by the Church with the State's action of recognizing civil unions.
Iknew a priest in fact who refused to sign the State marriage license. He performed the marriage, the couple was married in the eyes of God and the church. The state thing was not his concern.

Dear Nonna you said:

"The politicians don't care about abortion, what they care about is pushing federal rights over individual rights, the power of the police over the people, the power of big business over little business, the power of the executive over the congress."

I say:

Actually, Judge Alito was chosen by Pres. Bush and I always believed that the Republican Party is the party for state rights...which basically means more rights for the people and less for the Federal government.

I also believe that the Republican Party is the party for small businesses rather than corporations. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me they have always ran on those programs.

As for large corporations, if I recall, small family owned farms were being bought up by large corporations because of inheritance taxes. Also, small businessmen are really stifled by all the regulations and taxes which have been imposed on them by the Democrats.

These small businesses must pay exorbitant amounts to companies for medical insurance in order to cover their workers. I believe this admistration has passed legislation to help solve that problem by allowing them to combine with others, and thereby lower their insurance. Mind you, more small businesses means more jobs in this country.

Now to get to the bottom of some of this, the high price of medical insurance is due to law suits. Obviously we have too many lawyers, and they can only subsist through law suits. Unless I'm sadly mistaken, (I'm sure I'm not on this one), the lawyers lobby supports the Democratic Party.

Now Hillary Clinton a lawyer, wanted a government funded medical insurance. My logic tells me that if we were to have had that happen at that time, without the 'tort' reform (that certainly the Democrats would not have wanted since they were being supported by the lawyers lobby), we tax payers would have been helping the lawyers become wealthy overnight. Also wouldn't that have increased the size of the Federal government...including taxes and all that goes with it?

I'm going to give you a personal example of womething I received once. One day something came from a law firm asking me to sign a paper so that they can proceed with a lawsuit against a very well known auction house. They said I was due more money for something I sold, because of some small legality.

Well I signed it, and lo and behold, one day I received $300. Well what I sold was worth $12,000, and yet this auction house sold things worth millions. I could just imagine the losses they incurred, or rather the losses their insurance company incurred. Now tell me, when the insurance rates go up, who pays for it? We do!

By the way, that was not the only time I received such papers for law suits. When I read the fine print on one of them, I realized that each lawyer involved, (and there were many), was making something in the amount of ten million. Again I ask, what party backs them?

Of course this is only one of many things I could mention. We also have the teachrs union with it's agenda's, and AARP and it's agenda, and so on.

I just read your new post, and I have to say: Okay, okay! I'm sorry for the labeling of 'crying liberals'.

You said:

"With regard to homosexual "marriage" Don't make the error of confusing the Religious sanctified marriage practiced by the Church with the State's action of recognizing civil unions."

I say:

Actually, I heard in Canada where civil unions are allowed that it is an economic disaster. Remember that many of these homosexuals can have many partners and are prone to deseases that others are not prone to. .. not that it means that I am against it. Just wondering if recognizing civil unions are placing more burdens on people in some way or other, and thereby limiting our freedoms.

Zenovia

Dear Nonna where you said:

"With regard to homosexual "marriage" Don't make the error of confusing the Religious sanctified marriage practiced by the Church with the State's action of recognizing civil unions."

I would like to add more:

I have another problem with civil unions for homosexuals. I can't help but feel that the more acceptable homosexuality becomes, the more it influences children in the formative ages of 13,14 and 15 to 'experiment'. Of course it influences college students too.

If a boy happens not to have a strong sex drive, they are 'encouraged' to accept themselves as being homosexual. So even if no disorder existed within them, it then becomes one.

It is false to believe that these 'homosexuals' were hiding in the closet. Of course some were, but on the whole I don't see how it possibly could exist in a society where it 'never' entered one's mind.

Zenovia

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Dear Caelim, Jr. you said:

"Of course, I have not even begun to mention the growing euthanasia movement, treated with great fondness it seems in the state of Oregon."

I say:

This is very frightening. Do these people in the euthanasia movement realize that it is not the elderly or the sick that usually commit suicide. It is the teenagers. Do they have any idea what they are doing?

Zenovia

A quick response to CaelumJR:

The post from me that you are responding to was not particuarly insightful or articulate, as I said. It attempts to describe how your movement is seen from the standpoint of someone deeply involved in other movements. With a lock on the Supreme Court and the Presidency--the next President will certainly be a Republican as well--you should be secure enough in power to hear a few critical insights.

1. Your first point replying to my post is too full of rhetoric and emotion for me to respond to.

2. I never said "ccopted." I said that your leadership, which is backed by big money and is relatively intelligent and has some foresight, is using you. I also said, or meant to say, that they need to turn off the tap they opened for political reasons and they can't. This is a core part of the crisis facing American conservatives.

3. I never doubted that there are conflicting or differing agendas. So what?

4. Union jobs in Federal government are certainly NOT expanding. Read the DHS rules.

5. I don't believe in conspiracy theories.

6. I never said that people were being shipped to Iraq in order to avoid social ills. I said that the attacks led by conservatives on the worst aspects of youth culture have hit the wall because the kids are getting sent off to war.

7. "Taxpayers rights" defunds government services and transforms government into being a very easily hustled business. This is the libertarian ideology, an opening to anarchism, and any Christian taking the libertarian position must have a hard time reconciling the libertarian ideal or utopia with the historic Christian understanding of government and Church teaching.

8. I never said that there was a conservative plan to take on the Jews. I said that the Jews, civil rights, unions and others are the usual targets of the right. The rise of Christian zionism has changed the equation somewhat. The targets of the day seem to be immigrants and gays and I get this from listening to people like Grover Norquist, Tancredo & Co. If you disagree, take it up with them.

9. I am indeed at peace. Thanks for your good wishes.

bob r.