WAKE UP, AMERICA: THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT'S TRUE AGENDA

This post by moderate Republican, former Texas judge, and correspondent for Court TV Catherine Crier should be disseminated everywhere possible. I heard Crier on Dallas radio last week and just recently got hold of a copy of her book. This article is a good taste.

This is scary, scary stuff, folks. And it's happening, and many of us know it. The trick is getting the sleepers to pay attention.

CONTEMPT -- How The Right Is Wronging American Justice is the title of my new book that hits the shelves on Tuesday. In the wake of the Terri Schiavo debacle and the outrageous attack on the nation's jurists, I wanted to write a book in defense of the federal court system and its judges and to explain how, though imperfect, the system has evolved very much as the founders intended.

But I don't want that anymore.

Now I want this book to be a wake-up call, a warning flare, a political grenade that provokes the silent majority of this country to stand up and take notice of the attempted coup that is underway in the country.
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Most of them would like to see the United States under biblical law. Comparable to countries like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, all of which live by Sharia (the strict Islamic code of the Koran), America's right-wing fundamentalists seek a nation governed by Old and New Testament scripture. Born-again Christianity will supplant the Constitution.
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They do not make a secret of it. What's more, they demand that all Americans adhere to their rigid and reactionary beliefs.

The Far Right wants to control our federal judiciary in order to enact this reactionary agenda. At first blush, the focus seems to center on social issues—abortion, gay rights, affirmative action, and religion in schools. These items certainly garner the most press attention, but don't be fooled.
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Economic and political issues are crucial to them as well. If they are successful in our federal courts, this plot will have a profound impact on citizens in every arena. They are making efforts to curtail federal regulation of businesses, environmental protections, worker's rights, bankruptcy laws, tort liability, and property interests, among other causes.
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Edwin Meese began arguing in the 1980s that the Bill of Rights does not apply to the states, and now the extreme Right supports his assertion that such Constitutional protections only exist to inhibit action by the national government. They want our individual guarantees surrendered back to the states, where enforcement will diminish and maybe disappear altogether.
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And through it all, they camouflage these issues under a shiny veneer of values, morality, and religion.

Should the nation have minimum wage laws? Should corporations be held responsible when they commit serious wrongs? Should our environment, the air and water, be protected from polluters large and small? Should the Bill of Rights apply to all of the states, or should we have fifty different fiefdoms wherein a simple majority of state legislators can decide our fates?

For the first time since the early twentieth century, these items are actually in play.
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For all of those Americans who believe that our democracy is safe, you are wrong. Today, the radical Right is winning, and they know it. Sooner rather than later, we may be living in a very different country, a country that had been ours, a country that will be theirs.