Misc. Ramblings

Insert disclaimer here. These are my personal views. YMMV.

One of the Republican memes is what they call the "liberal press" (they also use other terms to refer to the press but this is a family friendly site). If this were true, I wonder what happened to the coverage of recently retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's speech this past weekend.

I can't find a transcript of the speech, but a transcript of an NPR broadcast is quoting Justice O'Connor as saying

It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

As you may remember, Justice O'Connor is an appointee of Republican President Ronald Reagan. Hence, a flaming liberal she is not. That said, what Justice O'Connor was referring to, and is raising the alarm about, is Republican politician attacks on the Judiciary that "pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedoms." The Justice went on to say:

The nation's founders wrote repeatedly that without an independent judiciary to protect individual rights from the other branches of government those rights and privileges would amount to nothing. But, as the founding fathers knew, statutes and constitutions don't protect judicial independence, people do.

What is so astounding to me is that a former Supreme Court Justice is saying the the US is becoming a dictatorship, but the only national coverage (other than NPR) is from the United Kingdom's The Guardian. Where's the left leaning liberal press coverage? Heck, why isn't there any national media coverage of this speech?

I'm getting awfully tired of being the lone voice in the wilderness crying out warnings that our freedoms are being taken away. Now. That the Constitution is being shredded. Now. That is occurring because of the Republican President and Republican Congress so full of frenzy and self-righteousness that they believe they are above the law and the Constitution. Now.

You can debate whether the US is on the road to dictatorship (I've been saying it's becoming a monarchy), but if a Supreme Court Justice says it is, shouldn't this make the national evening news? Shouldn't there be a national conversation on whether her statements are true? Or was it because she was referring to attacks on the Court, and the press doesn't care if the Court is attacked, unless it is the one doing the attacking?

All I can say if you take away the freedom of the one, you take it away from the many. Down that road lays tyranny and, yes, dictatorship.

Aloha!