What The Delay Conviction Proves

I would have posted on this earlier, but there's just too much other news in the world, especially with the Tucson murders burning up bandwidth. It's interesting how the really important stories get buried under the avalanche of news that grabs peoples emotions.  The tragedy in Tucson has affected many people, but only because they know about it.  The miscarriage of justice on Tom Delay in Texas signals terrible consequences for all of us.  Most people won't understand why until they find themselves in the same situation.

I have to say that I wish I could be writing about something happier.  I have a bit of cabin fever.  It's the middle of January, 22° F outside, there's snow on the ground, and worst of all I'm still nursing a couple of broken ribs. Sometimes, I get tired of all the bad news and wish I could ignore it.  But the busybodies and power hungry are relentless and the Tucson tragedy proves that.

If you have cared at all to surf the web to find information on the Tom Delay case, no doubt you would read story after story that tells you that he illegally laundered campaign money to campaigns.  The idea on the face of it should give you pause and make you say, "What the he##?"

Mark Levin had Tom Delays attorney, Dick DeGuerin, come on his radio show right after the jury convicted Delay, to explain what happened.  Levin had read transcripts of the trial and, as a lawyer, could see that the case never should have even come to court.  The reason I knew Mark had legitimate concerns is because I remember when the case got started years ago.  There was a rabid leftist district attorney in Austin, Texas who just hated Tom Delay with a passion.  Much like the left hates Sarah Palin today.  This DA tried many times and failed initially to get indictments from grand juries on various charges against Delay.  I wish I could have kept the stories from back then, but that was a couple of computers ago.  I found it interesting at the time because it was an obvious case of abuse of prosecutoral power.  No attorney, especially for the State, should ever be using the power of his office to carry out vendettas against people simply because he doesn't like their flavor of politics.

It is important to note that the rules about how campaign funds had to be handled were written by the democrats in power.  They were rather convoluted, because it suited their purposes, and the average man on the street doesn't pay any attention to such matters anyway.  Essentially, what Delay did was form a PAC which legally received donations from all over, including donations from corporations.  Later on, Delay's PAC gave money to various Republicans running for State house seats in Texas.  Texas law passed previously by the democratically controlled Texas legislature made it illegal for corporations to contribute directly to political campaigns.

First, the law is a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution per several rulings by the Supreme Court. The court has rightfully stated that people should be free to contribute their own money to support political causes and speech as they see fit. Such money serving to support those who speak on their behalf.  That fact aside, by Delay's PAC giving money to campaigns, the recipients didn't know and therefore were not beholden to any corporations.  The law clearly said that corporations cannot directly give money to individuals campaigning for office in the State of Texas.  This is pretty clear.

But the DA with a hate on for all things conservative or Republican got enough people from a predominantly leftist district to indict, and a similar group of folks to convict, and a judge to go along with it.  Now think about what that means to every individual.  And of course, it could happen with an ostensibly conservative prosecutor and a "liberal" politician, and it would be just as wrong.

What this means is that justice has just taken another big leap into the realm of non-existence. I saw this coming with the trial of O.J. Simpson.  Did the prosecution in that case make mistakes? Oh, you betcha. They made mistakes because it looked like such a slam dunk case to any person with an IQ above room temperature.  The cops, the forensic team and even the lawyers seemed to forget that stardom and enough money, combined with the joke of being tried by 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty would end up in such a miscarriage of justice.  After all, here was a case of the stupidest people, star-struck, who were salivating at the chance to go down in history as having served on that jury. Their statements after the trial proved that they didn't give a rat's patootie about the evidence.

And that's when I saw the writing on the wall. We were quickly becoming a society that could not care less about oaths of impartiality or being committed to justice in spite of our own prejudices.  When the average person on the voter rolls who can be selected for jury duty sees the court system as a venue to correct things that they personally "feel" are not right, regardless of the facts and evidence, we are all in a lot of trouble.  We might as well just do away with the jury system completely and let politically elected and appointed judges make the decisions.  You know, like the federal judge who told the whole State of California that amending their own Constitution according to the rules wasn't good enough, so he alone would decide what the law is and ought to be.  Totalitarian?  Dictatorship?  Naw.  Couldn't be.

The founding fathers gave us the jury system as a way for the people to keep the reigns on the court system and to keep it from being abused.  We the people have pretty much abdicated that right, and other countries can laugh at us for doing so.  We complain about how outrageous medical care costs have gotten, but we helped it happen by not expressing outrage and demanding tort reform when it comes to medical malpractice suits.  At the very least, we should have "loser pays," when it comes to bringing civil suits of any kind.  You think you have a legitimate case of injury and can convince a jury? Fine. Bring it on.  But if a jury decides that you were just hoping to win a lawsuit lottery, getting something for nothing, you should have to pay all the costs to the court system and the party you brought suit against.

I'd like to go one step further.  While I believe the identities of jurors in criminal cases should be confidential where necessary, I believe there ought to be publicity for jurors who sit on civil cases like the most famous McDonald's hot coffee suit.  Such people should be humiliated in public at the very least, even though the case never should have gotten past the judge.  After all, what is the point of having judges if they can't look at a case like that and laugh it off the docket?

If you don't care about what happened to Tom Delay, ask yourself how you would feel if you found yourself in the defendant's chair facing a jury who doesn't like the things you believe and just decides, "To hell with the facts and the law, we think you should go to jail.  We'll make an example of you."

The Delay conviction proves that we are there.  How far and wide this disease has spread is yet to be seen, but the camel's nose is under the tent.

No Reverence For Men

Leftists continue to amaze me with their penchant for projection and utter lack of self awareness.  This is most evident when it comes to glorifying men. It is really disgusting when it comes to them glorifying themselves as individuals.  Robert C. Byrd being a great example of this. That man makes me embarrassed to admit that my parents came from the State of West Virginia. When it comes to praising the people that they consider heroes, the sky is the limit.  The reverse side of that coin is that they accuse conservatives of putting our heroes on pedestals beyond reproach.  Are there people within our ranks who do that sort of thing?  Of course, but they are a small minority.

I was prompted to write about this today because of the flap over the reading of the Constitution on the House floor.  From Ezra Klein to Joy Behar, the left has no shortage of folks that love to shower scorn and derision on those of us who see the Constitution as one of the finest documents ever written.  Of course we see it as an ironclad contract designed to protect the people by putting chains on government.

The left sees the Constitution as an archaic bit of history written by patriarchal slaveholders who couldn't possibly have anything to benefit society today were they alive now, and so that stupid old document is nothing more than a hinderance to the progressive ideas of "Hope and Change."

Because they don't actually read the Constitution, leftists like Bill Press make idiotic statements about what the document says about the right to privacy while on the Joy Behar show.  I think he found it next to the part about the right to abortion.  I forgot which article it appears in, so you will have to go look it up yourself.  And because they don't read the document or the Federalist Papers or the Congressional records of the time, they don't comprehend the idea that we conservatives hold the ideals and principles of the document in high esteem, while understanding that the men who contributed to it all had serious flaws.

Benjamin Franklin was a brilliant man and a darn good scientist, but his hedonistic lifestyle would have made me blush.  Thomas Jefferson's ownership of slaves is nothing to be proud of, but more than that I am ashamed of Jefferson championing the French Revolution as if it was on the same moral level as our own.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.  Thank goodness Jefferson fought valiantly against Hamilton when it came to the idea of a central bank.  John Adams had much to commend about him.  He held honesty and truth in high regard to the point of defending British troops on a charge of murder even though it was incredibly unpopular to do so, and he also was in favor of self rule by the colonies. But Adams was also very outspoken and not much for tact.  He also fought hard for the idea that the titles of the President smack of Royalty.  That hardly made any sense.  George Washington's own handling of the Whiskey Rebellion tells me that he was no saint.

Were they great men?  Yes.  Were they perfect? No.  It is in their demonstrable failings that they proved the necessity of a Constitution that denied the ability of any one man, or even a group of men from wielding too much power.  We are supposed to be a nation governed by a contract of law, not by people who feel some sort of anointing to tell us how to live for our own good.

We have traveled so far from the original intent of the Constitution that it is no wonder this country is so messed up and that so few citizens really know anything about the Constitution.

Here is a list of myths that a lot of Americans believe which are directly contrary to what the Constitution says or allows:

1. If the economy suffers or improves, it is because of the policies of the president.
2. The Senate is one half of the Congress that represents the people.
3. The Supreme Court's job is to interpret the Constitution.
4. The Constitution determines what rights the people and the States have.
5. Every citizen in the United States has a right to vote in presidential elections.
6. If there are enough votes in both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto, a bill should become law.
7. Prior to the war between the States, the Constitution considered negroes or slaves to only be three-fifths of a person.
8. The fourteenth amendment to the Constitution automatically makes anyone born in the United States a citizen with all the rights and privileges thereof.
9. Anyone arrested on U.S. soil, regardless of national origin is subject to all rights guaranteed to a citizen by the Constitution.
10. The United States of America was founded as one country to free us from the British.

Anyone want to answer why the above statements are provably false?