Indiana Lawyer

My view is that my political opponents and public critics can say whatever they want about me.  President Clinton said, “Don’t run for public office if you don’t want to get beat up.”  Critics can make find holes in your arguments and make you a stronger candidate and leader.   However, when they attack or cause risk to other innocent, non-candidates, they go to far.

Some criminal or criminals are now targeting my family.  Yes, this is the way of the Great Porn Dragon.  Intimidate, threaten and refuse to debate the facts.  Yes, the real Nazis, at least as the media portray them, are the Republican non-leadership and their supporters who are engaging in the “Nazi” tactic of “Tell the biggest lie because the bigger the lie, the more believeable it will be.”

A campaign of flier distributors has been going around my Jewish Christian children’s (their mother is a believing Jewish convert to Christianity who preaches the Gospel most effectively) neighborhood and is illegally putting fliers in peoples’ mailboxes. Once I get the fliers, I’ll post them here.  They write this language:

“This person hates all race but his own.  He puts [this neighborhood] in danger.  His home is at ****. “   The flier cites my speech before the National Socialists where I presented a Gospel book called the “Desire of Ages” to them.  It also cites a lawsuit from a former client who ran a massage parlor that I’m simply ignoring.

I am completely on board when it comes to much of the social agenda of the Republican Party, and I would vote make the tax cuts permanent except for the top 1-2% of incomes so that the middle class can be strengthened. Additional tax cuts while deficits are maintained cannot be defended and will serve only to increase government borrowing which will increase the demand on money and raise interest rates.

I consider myself pro-life; however, as a former prosecutor with a strong sense of justice, I have a hard time arguing that we should force a ten-year old that has been raped to go forward and that the rapist deserves to have more progeny. In an ideal world, we would have perfect education and those who get in that situation would immediately contact law enforcement who could direct them to medical personnel who could provide the morning after pill in time to prevent conception.

I believe the Republican Party should move away from the monosyllabic obsession with tax cuts. The tax rates are not the issue. It’s what we get for the taxes we pay. If we cut taxes, we have to cut spending or else we will borrow and devalue the dollar. I’m not a subscriber to trickle down, supply-side economics. President George H.W. Bush was correct when he called it “voodoo economics.” History has shown that making a few very rich does not make everyone else prosper. It leads to jealousy and coveting toward the wealthy, increased debt that we saw in the Clinton era ($19,000 in unsecured debt per family) and increased crime according to one of my clients who told me that people commit crime not only because of the music but because they see wealthy people on television and because they believe they deserve to have what they do. I believe that when history is examined, the Clinton-Reno duo will go down in history as one of the most socially destructive president/attorney generals ever.

If the Republican Party does not wake up and get over its obsession with tax cuts for the rich, they will run the risk of a storming of the Bastille by the democrats this November. I say we need a Republican Bobby Kennedy who will take up the cause of social justice, strengthen the middle class and break the bonds of oppression in all of its forms.

President Bush has used this phrase with increasing frequency lately; however, he has not given great details about the issue. In recent history we have separated theology from law, and law has not retained what is fundamental to theology: responsible hermeneutical principles of interpretation.

In law school, one is lucky if he/she gets more than a lecture on interpreting texts. I have the advantage of having attended both law school and a theological seminary. In my seminary experience, we spent virtually every other class dealing with the difference between exegesis and isogesis. Exegesis is the critical explanation of a text that seeks to draw from it its original meaning. Isogesis is the process of taking own’s own opinions and putting them into the text.

Because law schools no longer teach responsible hermeneutics, judges are now interpreting the text in a manner that is similar to what it is like driving a boat without a rudder. They have no clear guidance, and so they are often tempted to place their own opinions into the texts of constitutions. By doing so, not only the rights in issue in those cases, but all constitutional rights become nothing more than a lottery of judicial whim that can be given or taken away by any 25-year old law clerk who can exercise undue influence over a distracted judge.

When the constitution was written, judges did not have the power of judicial review to strike down any statute. Constitutional scholars will tell you that the 1803 Marbury v. Madison decision represents argument of authority for the judicial branch and not arguments for authority. It is often said that the U.S. Supreme Court is not final because it is infallible. It is infallible only because it is final.

Our three branched government was intended to have checks and balances. The Federalist Papers noted that the judicial branch was to be the least harmful. History has not proven that to be true. The single Roe v. Wade decision has led through abortion to more loss of life than all of our national wars combined.

We now have a movement for a constitutional amendment to preserve marriage. I believe this a once in a lifetime opportunity to pass a better amendment. Let us place a check on the judicial branch by either removing the right of judicial review unless there is a unanimous verdict among all judges, or better yet, allow Congress by a super-majority with the executive approval, to overrule any judicial opinion. This amendment will go a long way to ending “black robe” disease as we know it.