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| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 51 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
| ||
| Dr. David Marlett, Editor | theconservative@usa.net | Number 51 |
http://www.wilderness-cry.net/tcn | ||
24 November 2000
In its decision, the Florida Supreme Court has admitted that it ignored the electoral laws and based its ruling, instead, on "the will of the people." As has often been observed, pure democracy is mob rule; but that is the direction that America is headed. The United States was not formed as a democracy, but as a democratic republic, meaning a country ruled by laws formed by elected representatives. This was because they understood fallen human nature and did not trust "the will of the people." Notice the following excerpt from this activist court's decision:
"Twenty-five years ago, this court commented that the will of the people, not a hyper-technical reliance upon statutory provisions, should be our guiding principle in election cases. . . . We consistently have adhered to the principle that the will of the people is the paramount consideration."
Those are frightful words. Judges have great power, and if they are not bound by the law, only evil can result. Of course, laws themselves can be evil, but it is not the job of a judge to overturn them. These judges took an oath to rule on the law. Their job is like that of an umpire in a baseball game. The "will of the people" has nothing to do with it. He might think that some players are not getting a fair deal or that some teams don't have an equal chance at winning, but that is not his business. The umpire's role is not to make up rules or to play favorites with people, but to make certain that the rules are kept. Period. The symbol of the judicial system is a blindfolded woman holding a scale. That depicts the impartial rule of law that is to characterize a good judge.
This business about "the will of the people" is a mere smokescreen, anyway. How could the judges decide on such a complex thing as "the will of the people"? The will of WHICH people? The people in most of the state are having their ballots counted twice by machine and certified, while the people in a small part of the state are having their ballots hand counted after two machine counts. The people in one or two counties are even having "dimple ballots" counted, meaning ballots that were not punched all of the way through so that a machine could read them. The people in the rest of the state who might have cast "dimple ballots" are having their ballots completely ignored. What about the will of all of these people? And what about the will of the people who cast absentee ballots from military bases just to see them tossed aside on various frivolous grounds? What about the will of the people who simply want their elected officials and judges to follow the law and to stop playing with the election? What about the will of the people who have witnessed fraud within the vote counting process?
The founding fathers wisely established a balance of power between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. All of this is being dismantled. Activist judges are haughtily pretending that they are both lawmakers and executors.
[ David Cloud ]
Amid the swarm of the world press outside the county Emergency Operations Center, Dennis Newman leads the charge to find new votes for Al Gore in the dimples of the Palm Beach County ballot.
In his distinctive Boston accent, the slightly rumpled man in the slightly rumpled suit recites erudite arguments to explain over and over to the breathless media why a tiny indentation on a paper ballot could determine the leader of the world's most powerful nation.
His argument, put simply, is that dimples show the true intent of the voter. Voters caused those dimples. Dimples should count.
Four years ago, in a similar election spat, Newman took a much different stand. Employing his best legal tactics on behalf of a Democrat holding a slight lead in a primary race for Congress, Newman scoffed at the idea of counting the tiny indentations as votes.
Like the Republicans watching now, Newman wondered out loud how ballots that had been handled over and over, in recount after recount, could still be impartially judged. Couldn't the ballots -- and therefore the votes -- be affected by all that touching and grabbing?
"I don't think they are handled with kid gloves," he said in The Boston Globe.
A pregnant bulge on a computer card falls far short of the proof needed to show a voter's intent, he said then.
[ Palm Beach Post ]
"Where's the outrage?" Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole repeatedly demanded to know in October 1996, as the details of the Clinton-Gore administration's massive fund-raising scandal first surfaced in the waning days of the campaign.
Well, where's the outrage now? Four years later, Vice President Al Gore is clawing his way to the presidency over the discarded absentee ballots of hundreds and hundreds of American soldiers and sailors serving overseas. These are the men and women who place their lives in jeopardy on a daily basis not only to protect America's vital interests around the world but also to perform the work of Mr. Gore's ill-advised "nation-building" schemes.
Indeed, less than six weeks ago 12 young sailors paid the ultimate price. It was Oct. 12. Middle East terrorists blew a gaping hole in the USS Cole while it was refueling in Yemen en route to the Persian Gulf to protect America's indispensable oil supplies and to enforce sanctions against the rogue state of Iraq. Over the weekend and away from the cameras, the presidential campaign of Mr. Gore, the would-be commander in chief, waged a highly coordinated, successful ground campaign throughout Florida's 67 counties to disenfranchise as many overseas military personnel as possible.
Now, to fully appreciate what is going on here, consider the following thought experiment: It could well have happened that, before sacrificing their lives for their country, those sailors on the USS Cole had completed absentee ballots registering their votes for president. Because mail sent by Navy personnel frequently lacks postage, and thus a postmark, one of those ballots theoretically could have arrived in Florida without the postmark mandated by Florida law. If so, it would have been met by an army of Democratic lawyers, some of whom had responded to an urgent e-mail request throughout the country urging them to swarm to Florida on behalf of Mr. Gore.
There can be no doubt what the Gore lawyers' intentions were. Indeed, last Wednesday Mark Herron, a Tallahassee-based attorney, wrote a five-page letter and addressed it to "FDP [Florida Democratic Party] Lawyer." The letter was a de facto how-to guide for protesting overseas ballots. It specifically addressed military ballots and focused at length about the state mandate for military postmarks, which, as it happens, are not required by federal law. The St. Petersburg Times reported that Democratic lawyers arrived five days early in socially conservative Escambia County, the home of Pensacola Naval Air Station, bearing laptop computers and a "do-or-die fervor." Their mission clearly was to suppress overseas military ballots. Columnist Robert Novak recently quoted from a memo written by Brevard County Republican Chairman Ray Marino, who had just spent nearly eight hours inspecting overseas ballots: "Gore had five attorneys there. Their sole objective was to disenfranchise the military absentee votes. They challenged each and every vote."
Until now, it was virtually impossible to believe that Vice President Gore could have more cavalierly betrayed the interests of American military men and women than they were by President Clinton, who once discussed on the phone with a senior Republican lawmaker the life-and-death issue of dispatching thousands of American soldiers to the Balkans while he was receiving oral sex from a White House intern. Through his recent actions Mr. Gore has accomplished the unthinkable: He has trumped Bill Clinton in his contempt for the men and women who keep us free.
Where's the outrage?
[ Washington Times Editorial ]
** TCN Editorial **
There is only one thing made clear by the current Florida fiasco, neither candidate is qualified to lead this nation.
Al Gore has no more respect for the right of a state to conduct its own election than he does for the law in general. His disdain for the military should completely and finally disqualify him from its leadership. His flip-flop from an early concession to Gov Bush to the current war to win at any cost, shows that either he is not in charge, or he is not mentally competent to conduct his own affairs let alone those of the nation.
Gov Bush has shown that he does not have the leadership abilities to guide his team through the election when it gets tough, what might he do, or not do, in a major world crisis? If he can't pull out a victory that he has clearly won in a state where his own brother is governor, how is he going to defend hard choices on the world scene with few or no allies? The simple answer is, he won't.
Many have claimed that third party candidates are the problem because they drain off enough votes that neither of the "main" parties get a clear majority. The fact is a third party is the solution.
The two candidates that are now battling and/or hiding are the best the Democrats and Republicrats have to offer. The reason that the race they are now in is so close is that the positions of the two are also that close. The Republican controlled Congress has provided over six billion US dollars to Planned Parenthood. Both Gov Bush and Al Gore fully supported MFN status for China. Gov Bush's wife has said that her priority as First Lady would be to expand and increase funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Gov Bush is sometimes praised for his efforts in education, but the fact is his plan is not at all conservative in nature. He supports the Federal Department of Education, out-come based education, the notorious Schools 2000 and School-to-Work programs. Some conservatives have claimed that the voucher system is simply a political tool to force these failed programs into successful private schools "where there is government money, there is government control".
We could talk about the UN, IMF, WTO, NATO or NAFTA as well. Both candidates take the liberal position on these globalistic anti-national organizations. Instead of leading the US away from such affiliations, they both look for a deeper commitment for the US tax payer with absolutely no prospect of any return on the investment. It is strictly a redistribution of wealth.
The only thing that this election has made perfectly clear is that it is time for a third party to rise to the top. Regardless of who or what the Demicans and Republicrats decide to run in 2004, we have seen the best they have in 2000 and there is little prospect for improvement under the administration of either of them. America needs and deserves better. She deserves a leader and she deserves a choice. In our view we have about 2 years to find the party that really represents us and get behind it to make sure that it has a loud and clear voice in 2004. - TCN
"If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." --Samuel Adams
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin
"The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert its self, though it may be at another time and in another form. Whatever tended to lead the people of any of the states to feel that they could be relieved from their constitutional obligations by transferring them to the federal government, or that they might otherwise evade or resist them, could not fail to be like the tares which the enemy sowed amid the wheat. The Union of states, formed to secure harmony among the constituent states, could not, without changing its character, survive such alienation as rendered its parts hostile to the security, prosperity, and happiness of one another." --Jefferson Davis on the Clintonian form of federalism
"It is 11:30 PM (Tuesday) and I have just returned from the count of absentee ballots, that started at 4PM. Gore had five attorneys there, the sole objective was to disenfranchise the military absentee voter. . . . They challenged each and every vote. Their sole intent was to disqualify each and every absentee voter. They constantly challenged military votes that were clearly legitimate, but they were able to disqualify them on a technicality. I have never been so frustrated in all my life as I was to see these people fight to prevent our active duty Military from voting." -- a Republican who witnessed the counting of the Brevard County overseas absentee ballots
"The tree of liberty must be watered periodically with the blood of tyrants and patriots alike. ... Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." -- Thomas Jefferson
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