More Thoughts on Harriet Miers

Ok, I plead guilty. I’m definitely on the liberal left side of center on social issues but I tend to be fiscally more on the conservative side. To some extent I share some of the blame for the mess we’re in because up until rather recently I considered “conservative” different from “religious right.” I’m still not certain how the former came so much under the control of the latter, but that certainly seems to be the case at the moment. The traditional conservative concerns of fiscal responsibility, smaller government and a strong economy seem to have been eclipsed by attacking science, attacking the separation of church and state, attacking a woman’s right to choose and anti-homosexuality.

As far as Miers is concerned, as an Agnostic Deist, I have to look with suspicion upon anyone that might be committed to religious dogma ahead of rational thought. I’d rather not take that kind of risk.

Most Christians don’t look at things that way and are quite ready to question the views of their church with respect to modern social issues with Catholics and Episcopalians leading the way. Even if they feel they must follow the dictates of their church themselves, they're willing to accept that others may have different views.

But in the fundamentalist, the bible is the literal truth, crowd, minds are both closed and set. They do not even appear willing to “live and let live,” There seems to be an absolute drive to force their views on all the rest of us. This crowd also appears to believe that the end justifies the means if the end is furtherance of what they consider to be "the word."

Can anyone explain to me how any rational society would even consider placing someone committed to the literal truth of Genesis on the highest court in the country? I don’t believe she will subjugate her personal religious views to enforce the law one bit.

Let’s all go back to the Scopes Monkey Trial when supposedly all the educated people in the world were appalled at William Jennings Bryan defending the literal view of the bible. Now we have a Supreme Court nominee that probably would have been cheering Bryan on and holds the same views! Worse, she appears committed to missionary work. How can anyone believe she won’t engage in a little missionary work in her court decisions? How about she goes preach in Africa somewhere and we get another nominee.

I don’t have a problem with a strict, but secular, conservative, as I'm not terribly certain where in the constitution some of the court decisions come from, but this lady scares the daylights out of me.