God, the Devil and Secular Justice

Nothing worries me more about the nutball right than their current war against an independent judiciary.

And speaking of gay marriage, up here in Sackamenna, the nutballs are trying to recall the judge who ruled in favor of the state's domestic partner laws on the grounds, since upheld by the state appellate courts, that providing for 'domestic partners' does -not- violate the idiotic Prop 22 (I think it was) regarding marriage. The courts have even stationed an extra bailiff in his court, although the only danger so far is some lug who stands up in his court and bellows a request to God to bless him.

When asked why he isn't also going after the state judge who ruled that the same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional, the nimrod who's organizing this said that he didn't think trying to recall a San Francisco judge over this would get anywhere.

The biggest silliness is the so-called "unaccountability" of judges. State judges are, for the most part, elected. The federal judiciary was -designed- by the Founders to be immune to pressure through the lifetime appointment, so that the various states, Congress or the Executive could pressure them. If the nutballs don't like this, they need to talk to the heathen rabble who wrote the Constitution.

What they don't get is that the very nature of freedom is to allow people to make choices you wouldn't. The nutballs don't like that. From reproductive choice to Schiavo, it's all about telling people what they need to do in the most personal and intimate of situations. They want "limited government" but what government's left gets to crawl all through our business.

Finally, the whole Book of Revelations thing prophesying an end-of-the-world battle in the Mideast is open, like much of the Bible, to interpretation. Another view is that the imagery refers not to a future Rome but the one in power when the author put his pen to paper. The images, when taken in the context of the time, can also refer to contemporary figures and forces (one Greek translation of the Number of the Beast comes up with 'Nero'). John was writing a contemporary tract criticizing various activities of the nascent Christian church and the world around it, not seeing into the future. (And what kind of an idiot would the Devil be if he followed it to the letter after it's all been written down?)

When the Bible was compiled from various documents hundreds of years later during the Dark Ages, the imagery was lost, and it was assumed it referred to future visions. By example, imagine someone hundreds of years from now trying to figure out what donkeys and elephants had to do with American politics. Why, they must have been idols of worship, surely. Unfortunately, this view ain't as much fun as WW3 between Jesus and the Devil, so don't expect to hear it from a nutball pulpit any time soon.