Pat Robertson is a dick
 

Daily News link

Federal judges are a more serious threat to America than Al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 terrorists, the Rev. Pat Robertson claimed yesterday.

"Over 100 years, I think the gradual erosion of the consensus that's held our country together is probably more serious than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings," Robertson said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"I think we have controlled Al Qaeda," the 700 Club host said, but warned of "erosion at home" and said judges were creating a "tyranny of oligarchy."

Confronted by Stephanopoulos on his claims that an out-of-control liberal judiciary is the worst threat America has faced in 400 years - worse than Nazi Germany, Japan and the Civil War - Robertson didn't back down.

"Yes, I really believe that," he said. "I think they are destroying the fabric that holds our nation together."

The fact that people have been known to send this man _money_ depresses me like little else.

More Pat.

Video

How else are they gonna get to heaven? Duh!

:lol:

Let me be the first to say that most of us who are evangelicals view people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell the same way that most environmentalists view Peta and ELF. He's an embarassment, and does not speak for us.

The fact that we hold some beliefs in common doesn't make us any more sympathetic to his views, his politics, or his public rants.

He must be speaking for somebody because he's making a good living doing it. I just don't know any of them...or if I do they won't admit it. :eyebrow:

He speaks for my grandma. She also loves poor misunderstood Rush.

don't dismiss the message out of hand, just because the messenger is unsavory. Ward Churchill is an ass, but buried under his anti-US diatribe is the very real fact that we have pissed alot of people off. Likewise, once you get past the Pat Robertson wording, there's an argument to be made that an activist judiciary will eventually destroy (or make irrelevant) the theism inherent in the founding documents. Some people might think that's a good thing, and be able to make a convincing argument for it -- just don't pretend it isn't happening.

From the swing voter POV,

There's no such thing as an "activist judiciary" - it's just judges making decisions that some people don't like. This has always happened, and is simply how the system plays itself out.

Some elements of social change show up in different places at different times, that's all. Look at civil rights in the last century where sometimes it was the judiciary to the rescue. They were not "activists" because they came out on the right side of history, or at least the winning side.

If you don't like how an issue has come out, you can turn it into a legislative one... if you have the will of the people that should not be a problem, and the issue's urgency in the public eye will mirror the legislative urgency. If the majority of the people think an issue is really a capital-P Problem, the legislature will RUSH to address it. Ham-handedly, even.

Let's grant that theism (or perhaps deism) is inherent in the founding documents. Saying that judges can make that irrelevant implies that it has some relevance to begin with. What is the relevance, and what is the practical result of that relevance? Should political office be limited to deists? Should laws be written to endorse deism?

I posit that there is no relevance, and mention of creators is incidental rather than inherent in the documents, and that this choice was deliberate on the authors' part.

Any judge who rules on a case in a manner that supersedes the letter of the law he/she is supposed to use as a tenet is an activist judge. Changes to law are to be made by the legislative branch, no matter how inconvenient or unfair that might seem at the time. The 9th circuit court of appeals is an activist court.

If only the non-existent activist judiciary had the same view.

Should political office be limited to deists? I'm new to the word, but I think that's a non sequiter.

You'd have a hard time proving your point, I think. I think that it's obvious that the FFs were against state-run religion, but it's equally clear that the concept of God/Providence was the linchpin of everything they were trying to do. Just because God isn't de rigeur at the moment doesn't mean you can retroactively apply today's cultural whims to what's already happened.

And at any rate, Pat Robertson holding a view that opposes yours doesn't make him a dick. He's a dick, but that's not why.

What is the practical result of the relevance then, if it's not related to religious tests in government?

Not really.
Not mentioning God in the Constitution was deliberate and meaningful.

It's a rather important word when discussing the religious views of the authors of the Constitution...

But every decision has some backing in law. It wouldn't get to the 9th circuit level if there weren't some lack of clarity in the law.

And judges always write the practical law of the land, in the end. Somebody has to be the final arbiter and that arbiter can push the system as far as they want to in just about every case.

Every ninth-circuit decision could be reviewed by the Supremes. Every decision could be followed by a clarifying legislative attack. It's just how the system works.