The liberals usually claim they want an "independent" judiciary, unbridled free speech, and tolerance for all points of view. Now they are trying to kill the messenger because they can't counter Dierker's copiously documented arguments.
Dierker asserts that "illiberal liberals are at the root of the constitutional crisis we face today." In a nutshell, they act as though "(h)istory and tradition count for nothing; the language of the Constitution itself counts for little; the only criterion is whether a ruling will advance the liberal agenda." The false theory that the written text of the U.S. Constitution is "evolving" has been used by the illiberals to transform obscenity, abortion and sodomy from crimes into constitutional rights. Their accomplice in judicial attacks on religion, the ACLU, Judge Dierker says, should be called the "Anti-Christian Litigation Union."
The illiberal liberals are angry that this sitting judge has exposed their game plan to use the courts to override self-government. The radical feminists are more than angry; they are trying to get Dierker censured and/or fired, and have even suggested he be subjected to a "judges' book review" to prevent judges from "offending the bench." The feminists' tantrums remind us of MIT Professor Nancy Hopkins, who said she wanted to "throw up" after hearing Harvard President Larry Summers utter words heretical to feminist ideology. Summers tried to appease them by repeatedly apologizing and offering millions of dollars to finance feminist academic goals, but the merciless feminists forced him to leave Harvard anyway.
I'm betting that Dierker will not be intimidated by the radical feminists' histrionics because he has the great quality of "manliness," so well described in Harvard professor Harvey Mansfield's recent book of that name. Mansfield defines manliness as "confidence in the face of risk" and assertiveness in causes beyond themselves.
Dierker, indeed, has taken on a cause beyond himself even though he recognizes it is "the third rail" of politics. This battle desperately needs to be fought by a sitting judge who can report on the feminists' judicial assault on the U.S. Constitution, on the separation of powers, and on the equal protection clause, which they pervert to function like George Orwell's "Animal Farm," where "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Mansfield describes the philosophical background of what he calls feminist "nihilism," i.e., an attack on men, morality, marriage, masculinity, motherhood and human nature. Dierker likewise understands that the radical feminist agenda "is based on hatred for men" and disdain for what feminists repeatedly deride as the Ozzie and Harriet traditional family lifestyle.
Phyllis Schlafly
As if everything was known, as if the bigotry we faced was of a different kind, the marching millions, the useful fools, propelling contempt for everyone who did not believe as they did. The orthodox left had become Stalinesque. They adopted the anti-father anti-family ideologies that were current in the day, and celebrated the triumph of friendship over family. Except at the end of the day the nights were cold and all was lost, lost, in this forsaken time. He must have been prepared to pray, prepared to take a different path, looking forward to liberation. Everything they had once believed in had curdled into an intolerant kind of fascism, with no one inside speaking the truth.
He thought he heard a clarion call to truth, but it was as wispy and insubstantial as all the other images that had haunted him of late. There wasn't any way to be free of it all. They were confined in their intolerance, life hadn't happened to them yet. But we were fantastically blue, cold from the isolation, the absence of warmth, the social death that had accompanied his by then unorthodox views. Stand in their way and you get run over, that's the type of wrathful intolerance that they practised. If you didn't fit you didn't fit, and in being expelled could easily dash your head on the rocks. We warned you, you just didn't listen.
The modern world was full of these stories no one was brave enough to tell, or if they did they remained unpublished, the sowing of ideas carefully controlled. The mistakes came from his own personal experience and his naturally obsessive character. He couldn't just stand by and allow them to lie and lie and lie; as they did so often, comfortable in their own complacent beliefs. He was certain we would be born. There was going to be another time, another life, even if he didn't know quite where, when or how. He didn't fit in anywhere, not any more. Oh cruel,l how cruel, were these imagined lashes; and all was lost.
The virtues of the common man had been entirely wiped out; derided for being male, or old fashioned, or Christian. Derided for somehow being patriarchal, and thereby ignoble. Derided, more than anything, for being out of step with the pack; and how they loved it, as they fluffed down inside their certainties, how they loved to rant against their nemesis, the former Prime Minister John Howard, or indeed any other conservative figure. The old fashioned characters, the thoughts that had been so persistent, were derided in a smug new world full of winners and losers. What amazed him was just how uncompassionate they were, all in the name of diversity, tolerance and compassion.
All in the name of a better world. He had always been different, back then flashing around in smart cars, chased, demanding ever higher fees; now, as a gloomy old man who couldn't accept the rubbish that passed for social policy; in this era of the nerd and fashion plastic television characters; famous faces bulging from every stand. Brad and Jolie and multi-million dollar houses, staff to help with the children, Oprah's ever expanding influence, well on her way to becoming an omniscient being. She, like all of them, peddles nonsense in an all-female world, while gangly and unfashionable, the blokes go about their days as best they can.
It was such a breach, such a journey, such a gap from the world that was before, when their own spectacular difference gave them their identity, there in the nights, their unique love. It had been the same throughout his life. They were measuring up in a strange, alternative social milieu. But it was the absence of touch, the absence of affection, that was the price he had paid for being stubbornly different, for his cowardice at not jumping when opportunities arose, for a lamented affiliation, stepping outside the square. How much he hated the intolerance of the present era, how widespread it was. In a dream, in a dream, in a time of profound indifference, he kept planning his escape and monitoring the passing days, hopeful, no doubt, of an entirely new life. He had outlived them all.
Redfern Station, Sydney, Australia.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/14/2274830.htm
Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has not ruled out taking Japan to the International Court over its annual whale cull.
Environmentalists say they are hopeful Japan might back down on its stance on whaling at this month's International Whaling Conference in Chile, but if that does not happen, Mr Garrett says legal action is still a possibility.
But Mr Garrett says the immediate focus is the Chile conference and has confirmed plans to appoint a whaling envoy to convey Australia's anti-whaling message to Japan.
He will use the meeting to promote the preliminary findings of a Government-commissioned report that suggests whale conservation is a lucrative tourism industry.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23852535-2,00.html
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd has invited his Japanese counterpart to The Lodge for a barbecue, but there won't be any whale steaks on it after they "agreed to disagree" over whaling.
Mr Rudd extended the invitation to visit Australia to Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda during a meeting in Tokyo this morning.
Both men said the relationship was strong and that they had agreed to disagree over whaling.
"Prime Minister Fukuda and I agreed that you can have disagreement between friends,'' Mr Rudd told a news conference afterwards.
"We've also agreed that this disagreement would not undermine in any ways the strong and positive nature of our bilateral relationship. And we will be working in the period ahead diplomatically in search of a solution on this question,'' he said.
Mr Fukuda called for calm over whaling.
"We agreed to engage in cool-headed discussions so that differences in our positions on this issue will not undermine good bilateral relations,'' he said.
Japan kills hundreds of whales each year in the Antarctic Ocean despite strong protests from Australia and New Zealand and harassment by animal rights activists.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/15/2274919.htm
At least 14 people have been killed and 30 injured in mudslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains in India's north-east, officials said.
Rescue work was being hampered by heavy rain, local official Bidul Payeng said, adding the death toll could mount further with at least 10 of the injured in critical condition.
"So far we've recovered 14 dead bodies. Most victims died after hillocks caved in on their houses," he said.
The casualties occurred in and around Arunachal Pradesh state capital Itanagar, which was cut off from the rest of the country.
Mr Payeng said there were reports of at least two vehicles falling down a gorge on the city's outskirts.
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