07-01-08

 

Let's hear it for the Supreme Court....

 

    In the last two weeks of their 2007-2008 session, the U.S.Supreme Court was able to hand down rulings that pleased both the left and the right. AMAZING!!!

 

    First, the Supremes in a 5-4 vote, gave terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay the right to petition the courts for their release citing their right to challenge their detention through writs of habeas corpus. As a result, terrorists now have the same rights as gang bangers, hate groups, drug dealers and child molesters. Forget the fact that most of the terrorist held at "Gitmo" were captured in combat in Afghanistan. Since they were not members of an organized national military, the cannot be held as Prisoners of War (POWs)  for the duration of hostilities or subject to  protection under the Geneva Conventions. Lawyers for terror suspects can now demand that classified material in the hands of the government be turned over (and possibly compromise counter-terror operations) or demand that charges be dropped and their clients freed. The questions on my mind are these: How do we maintain our peacetime Constitutional liberties in time of war? How can we afford to maintain our own national security while at the same time be forced to protect the human rights of our enemies? Should we protect the rights of terrorists to access our criminal court system at the risk of more terror attacks? Should we risk another 9/11 in exchange by allowing a terror suspect to exercise the right to remain silent?

 

      Second, in another 5-4 decision, perople convicted of raping children can no longer face the death penalty. Citing the Constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment, the justices overturned the death sentences of two Louisiana  "men" in separate cases.  Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that "The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child." Kennedy also acknowledged that the ruling had to accept coming to terms with "the years of long anguish that must be endured by the victim of child rape."  With all do respect to Justice Kennedy and the other four "FELLOW TRAVELLERS" who ruled against executing child rapists....

YOU ARE FULL OF IT!! You want to do something to ease the pain and anguish these children will have to face the rest of their lives? Then start the process by allowing the executions their attackers so richly deserve.  I hope you can live with this ruling, we have to.

 

      Third, and the only one they got right, the Supremes finally settled the issue of the right to keep and bear arms. The court threw out Wasington, DC's 32-year old ban on handguns, ruling the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the individual's right to own firearms and does not require a person to be part of a law-enforcement agency or a member of the military to exercise that right. The banned handguns in 1976 restricting ownership to current and retired police officers. Rifles and shotguns could be owned but were required to be stored disassembled or secured with a trigger lock, thus useless if needed for home defense. Anti-gun advocates have long argued the Second Amendment meant that the states had the right to arm their militias (Police and National Guard) and that private citizens had no such rights, and that restricting private gun ownership is essential to fighting violent crime. The National Rifle Association (The NRA) and other gun-ownership rights groups will now move to strike down the handgun bans in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs of Morton Grove, Oak Park and Winnetka citing this ruling. It's about time. 

 

     With any luck, two of the three sitting justices will step aside and (Hopefully) President McCain will be able to seat judges who will put the rights of law-abiding citizens and our national security ahead of politics.

 

"Enough Said!"