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Breaking the Filibuster is Not Enough
By Justin Darr
May 23, 2005
Once in America the liberal agenda and its radical programs advanced unopposed. Liberals held sway over the elected branches of government, and over the course of decades, infected the judiciary system with cadres of like minded liberals who held their goals of forcibly restructuring American society superior to the welfare and will of the people. Faced with an uncaring and unresponsive government, America's conservative majority turned to the only tool left for them to affect government change, the ballot box. Now, as the Conservative Revolution has swept Republicans into majority positions in the Federal and preponderance of state governments, liberals are making their last stand to prevent the will of the people from destroying the cancer they have grown in our judiciary.
The current fight in the Senate to possibly break the Democratic threat of filibustering several of President Bush's judicial nominees is just one front in this conflict. While it is important that liberals' obstruction tactics be stopped, it is also important to remember that we are talking about only 10 judges out of around 700 Federal judicial seats. Beyond symbolism, breaking the Democratic filibuster is insignificant in relation to the size of the problem we face with judicial activism.
For most Americans, the outcry against liberal activist judges is an expression of their frustration with the legal system in general. Everyday, criminals who should be in jail make plea bargains for lesser crimes to make trails faster but penalties far less severe, pedophiles are released early from prison by faceless parole boards so they can hunt down our children like prey, victims of violent crime are treated like criminals because they might have violated the "rights" of their attackers in self defense, and home owners live in fear of a financially devastating lawsuit because the sound of their American flag blowing in the wind might disturb a neighbor's afternoon nap. We need far more than 10 new conservative judges, but a fundamental change in the predispositions in the way of judicial system operates that make it possible for the needs of the dysfunctional to be elevated over those the system was intended to protect.
Everyday American families are being crushed by ever increasing health care costs. Rising premiums and copays coupled with more and more doctors being forced out of their practices is a direct result of the astronomical costs of malpractice insurance. The governments attempts at tort reform are doomed to failure because it is not the small percentage of multimillion dollar jury awards in the cases of patients who have been legitimately injured by a physician, but the thousands upon thousands of $10,000 to $50,000 lawsuits pressed by patients who want to sue their doctors because they failed to tell them to read their medicine bottles and not take all 25 pills of the prescription at once that is the root of the insurance crisis.
An incompetent judiciary has created legions of unethical lawyers who understand that the high cost of defending yourself in the cumbersome and inconsistent courts will prevent most doctors and companies from defending their rights and settle out of court. The affects go far beyond "this coffee is hot" and "this bag is not a toy" labels on everything and create a dilution of our quality of life. Parks are closed, time honored events cancelled, and even the most simple tasks become bogged down with endless legal paperwork because some people feel that it is everyone else's responsibility to deal with their lack of judgment.
We have a justice system where justice has been lost somewhere in the process and been replaced with arbitrary decision making. Anyone who has ever dealt with the courts knows that the truth has nothing to do with the results. If you have the money to buy a better lawyer with a better research staff than your opponent, then you will probably win your case. We need a reformed tax code that is understandable to everyone and new judges at all levels will who defend the rights of the people rather than set them aside to coddle the irresponsible. Breaking the filibuster is not enough. If the Democrats are going to shut our government down over 10 judges anyway, Republicans should seize the opportunity to reform the entire judiciary system of the United States to get it back to what it is intended to be: A system of justice.
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