Retired Supreme Court
Justice hits attacks on courts
and warns of dictatorship

From NPR's All Things Considered via the Raw Story courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

In an unusually forceful and forthright speech, O’Connor said that attacks on the judiciary by some Republican leaders pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms. O’Connor began by conceding that courts do have the power to make presidents or the Congress or governors, as she put it “really, really angry.” But, she continued, if we don’t make them mad some of the time we probably aren’t doing our jobs as judges, and our effectiveness, she said, is premised on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts. The nation’s founders wrote repeatedly, she said, that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, said O’Connor, as the founding fathers knew statutes and constitutions don’t protect judicial independence, people do.

And then she took aim at former House GOP leader Tom DeLay. She didn’t name him, but she quoted his attacks on the courts at a meeting of the conservative Christian group Justice Sunday last year when DeLay took out after the courts for rulings on abortions, prayer and the Terri Schiavo case. This, said O’Connor, was after the federal courts had applied Congress’ onetime only statute about Schiavo as it was written. Not, said O’Connor, as the congressman might have wished it were written. This response to this flagrant display of judicial restraint, said O’Connor, her voice dripping with sarcasm, was that the congressman blasted the courts.

Click here for the rest.

This serves as yet another reminder that the leaders who call themselves conservative these days are anything but. Historically, conservatives have well understood, better than liberals, I think, that the basic Constitutional breakdown of our Federal government structure was, for various reasons, extremely well designed, and not to be tampered with. They're not called "conservative" for nothing, after all. But these guys today, the ones riding the strange stampede called by some the "Conservative Movement," seem much more interested in power, absolute power, liberals-have-no-business-running-the-country power--indeed, in their rush to make manifest their vision for America, they've also ignored the importance of diversity of political views, the so called "marketplace of ideas," which has also been valued traditionally by conservatives. In short, in their drive to ram a few conservative ideas down America's throat, they've decided to throw out some of their most important beliefs, embracing change-at-all-costs, essentially selling out the entire notion of conservativism in the process. That's why I keep saying that I don't understand what conservatism is anymore. But now that I'm thinking about it, it seems to me that I do, indeed, know what conservatism is: it's the conservatives who have no idea what they are these days.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$