Sam Alito and the Springboard to Democracy

According to Democrats.com's petition to Senators to reject Judge Sam Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court:

George Bush's nomination of Sam Alito to the Supreme Court is unacceptable. In his 15 years on the Court of Appeals, Alito has compiled a record of right-wing judicial extremism: requiring battered women to notify their husbands before an abortion; prohibiting Congress from restricting the sale of machine guns; prohibiting Congress from enacting Family and Medical Leave; allowing employers to discriminate against workers with AIDS; even allowing police to strip-search a 10-year-old girl. Alito's financial dealings are also unacceptable: he ruled on a Vanguard case while he had a large investment there, and accepted an unexplained gift of as much as $250,000 in ExxonMobil stock. Bush chose Alito simply to reward his far-right supporters. Sam Alito would be the deciding vote on the most fundamental questions of our time, and he would invariably vote against personal freedom and in favor of a corporate theocratic dictatorship.

Petition is here: http://democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/74

I signed on with the following added note:

When new Supreme Court members are chosen, there is a lot of talk about "strict constructionism", the strict and literal interpretation of the Constitution, restricting its meaning to what is there in black and white. Similarly, there is talk of "not legislating from the bench". All of this is well and good in theory. Legislators legislate, the courts interpret. But the Preamble to the Constitution, a part of the actual document, needs to be kept in mind: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." This sets forth the purpose of the Constitution, and therefore the light in which it must be interpreted. Liberty and Justice are just two of the principles that seem to have been forgotten in the decisions by Judge Alito which have been set forth in this petition. Please keep the Preamble and these cases in mind when you consider this man's nomination.

Unfortunately, Indiana Senator Evan Bayh seems to have decided that these online petitions are spam; to write his office, you have to go through his own webpage, everything else gets bounced. He is missing out on seeing just how many thousands of people are participating in petitions and protests, and would like their voices heard even if they are not writing letters from scratch. Even some of those of us who write for ourselves also can use the springboard which is provided by these online petitions.

You can email Senator Bayh at http://bayh.senate.gov/WebMail1.htm

I forgot to mention that when a politician says that a judge is "legislating from the bench", it means "I don't like the judge's decision." "The judge was only strictly interpreting the Constitution" means "The judge made the decision I wanted, but a lot of other people are disgusted by it, so let me help him hide beneath the cover of the Constitution". At least this is how it works much, if not most, of the time.

I also love that phrase "corporate theocratic dictatorship". Boy, what would that look like? A curious blend, to be sure, but the natural result of Bush's habit of placating his two-faceted "conservative" base, corporations and the religious right. Actually, the country has already been close to that condition, when there were no labor unions and children worked sixteen hour days, and you could be thrown in jail for sodomy. Or having an abortion.