Mojave Cross Stolen!

So, it seems that someone, and we don't know who just yet, has stolen the cross in the Mojave desert's war memorial. Because it was on government land, it was (and despite its absence, still is) the center of a huge court battle over whether its presence violates the separation between church and state.

Now, before I go any further, I simply must say that I sincerely hope the idiots who stole this cross did so because they were stealing it for scrap metal, or conducting a fraternity prank, or some other benign reason. Because if this cross was stolen by a group of atheists who wanted to take matters into their own hands, then they've made things so much worse. Our acceptance is obvious to those who know that religious freedom comes directly from being able to tell religion "no, thanks," but such people are still too rare a commodity -- unfortunately for us all. So any deliberate theft of a cross by atheists would only confirm every wrong stereotype we've gown bored with: lack of morality, self-centered, out to destroy religion, blah, blah, blah.

On the other hand, if this cross was stolen by a group of religious fools who wanted to keep the cross from being whisked away by liberal judges, then they're the bigger fools. The supreme court already ruled 5-4 against taking the cross down, even though they included a technicality which they sent back to lower courts for review.

That having been said, it's time for somebody to point out that 5 to 4 rulings, in any context, much less the highest court in the land, should not fucking govern anybody! Just recently a 5 to 4 ruling guaranteed that corporations get to voice opinions during elections as though they were citizens. That's unbelievably insane! Not that rulings higher than this are much better. The famous Dredd Scott decision, which ruled African Americans were not citizens, was not a 5 to 4 vote, was it?

It gives one pause, now that we're apparently getting a new supreme court justice in the form of Elen Kagen.

In order for there to be true freedom, we need justices who will not show favoritism to one sect over another. Future scholars may look upon this supreme court decision in the Mojave desert and liken it to a form of the Dredd Scott case, but unfortunately, we have to live in the here and now. Not the future.

Here's where conservatives say something I like. They say that justices should interpret the law as it reads in the constitution, and not try to legislate from the bench. That's a good value! I like that value. But let's face it: the threat of judicial activism is coming from the RIGHT, not the left! They want to overturn Roe v. Wade, not by actually changing the law, but by putting activist right-wing justices onto the supreme court.

So once again, we see that "liberalism" is nothing more than conservative values taken to their logical conclusion.

Let's hope that a new monument goes up on the Veterans' Memorial in the Mojave desert. One which honors all the faiths which gave their blood for this nation, not the least of which are the non-Christian, Native-American "code talkers," whose use of their aboriginal language clearly won the war on both fronts. We owe our very American lives and freedoms to these non-Christians!

I hope the V.F.W. in California remembers that.

Eric