On February 12, 1992, it was my privilege to introduce Judge Robert Bork to a gathering at Michigan State University. I stand by what I said.
***
REMARKS BY THOMAS E. BRENNAN
THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN OWE A DEBT OF GRATITUDE TO THE CITIZENS INSURANCE COMPANY FOR THEIR INSPIRING EXAMPLE OF RESPONSIBLE CORPORATE CITIZENSHIP. THESE SYMPOSIA, FOCUSING AS THEY DO ON VISIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, PROVIDE OCCASIONS FOR ALL OF US TO PUT ASIDE, FOR A FEW PRECIOUS HOURS, THE NITTY AND THE GRITTY OF MAKING A LIVING, AND TURN OUR ATTENTION TO THE BIG PICTURE.
I AM ESPECIALLY GRATEFUL TO JERRY FAVERMAN AND PUBLIC SECTOR CONSULTANTS FOR THE HONOR THEY HAVE BESTOWED UPON ME HERE THIS AFTERNOON.
FOR A LAWYER, A JUDGE AND SOMETIME LEGAL AUTHOR AND EDUCATOR, THERE COULD BE NO MORE DELICIOUS ASSIGNMENT THAN TO PRESENT THE HONORABLE ROBERT HERON BORK TO AN AUDIENCE SUCH AS IS ASSEMBLED IN THIS ROOM.
CERTAINLY OUR SPEAKER TODAY IS RECOGNIZED AS THE QUINTESSENTIAL LEGAL SCHOLAR OF OUR TIME. HIS 19 YEARS ON THE FACULTY OF THE YALE LAW SCHOOL, DURING WHICH TIME HE HELD THE CHANCELLOR KENT AND ALEXANDER BICKEL CHAIRS AND HIS CURRENT APPOINTMENT AS JOHN M. OLIN SCHOLAR IN LEGAL STUDIES AT THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, WOULD BE ENOUGH TO QUALIFY HIM FOR THAT APPELLATION, EVEN WITHOUT THE MYRIAD HONORS AND AWARDS HE HAS RECEIVED OR THE PLETHORA OF COMMITTEES AND BOARDS UPON WHICH HE HAS SERVED.
LET ME GIVE YOU A PASSING GLIMPSE OF A CURRICULUM VITAE THAT SPARKLES WITH ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT AND LEADERSHIP:
- MEMBER OF A PRESIDENTIAL TASK FORCE ON ANTI-TRUST;
- CONSULTANT TO A CABINET COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION;
- TRUSTEE OF THE WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS;
- FELLOW OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES;
- MEMBER OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE SMITH RICHARDSON FOUNDATION;
- OF THE LEGAL ADVISORY BOARD OF THE NATIONAL LEGAL CENTER FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST;
- THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR EDUCATIONAL AFFAIRS;
- THE DEVELOPMENT BOARD OF THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY FOR LAW AND PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES;
- THE ADVISORY BOARD OF THE CENTER FOR CHRISTIANITY AND THE COMMON GOOD.
THERE IS MORE.
HE HOLDS THE SHELBY CULLOM DAVIS AWARD FROM THE ETHICS AND PUBLIC POLICY CENTER, AND HONORARY DEGREES FROM CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY, WILKES-BARRE COLLEGE, NOTRE DAME LAW SCHOOL, BROOKLYN LAW SCHOOL, DE SALES SCHOOL OF DIVINITY, AND ADELPHI UNIVERSITY.
IN 1984 JUDGE BORK RECEIVED THE PRESTIGIOUS FRANCIS BOYER AWARD FROM THE AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH. I WAS PRIVILEGED TO BE IN THE AUDIENCE ON THAT OCCASION TO HEAR HIM DELIVER HIS MAGNIFICENT BOYER LECTURE.
IF LEGAL SCHOLARSHIP WERE JUDGE BORK'S ONLY ACCOMPLISHMENT, HIS PLACE IN AMERICAN LEGAL AND EDUCATIONAL ANNALS WOULD BE SECURE.
BUT OF COURSE, THERE IS MORE. MUCH, MUCH MORE.
WE SOMETIMES HEAR IT SAID THAT THOSE WHO CAN DO, DO; WHILE THOSE WHO CANNOT DO, TEACH.
OUR DISTINGUISHED GUEST SPEAKER HAS SUCCEEDED BOTH IN AND OUT OF THE ACADEMY.
HE SERVED IN THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS DURING WORLD WAR II, AND ON HIS DISCHARGE EARNED A LAW DEGREE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
ON GRADUATING, HE WAS RECALLED TO ACTIVE DUTY WITH THE MARINES IN KOREA. RETURNING AGAIN TO CIVILIAN LIFE, JUDGE BORK PRACTICED LAW AS AN ASSOCIATE AND A PARTNER IN THE MEGA LAW FIRM OF KIRKLAND AND ELLIS.
HE SERVED FOR FOUR YEARS AS THE SOLICITOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES, INCLUDING TWO CRISIS YEARS AS ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL IN THE EARLY 1970s.
APPOINTED CIRCUIT JUDGE, HE SAT ON THE UNITED STATES CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FROM 1982 TO 1988.
THIS LIFETIME OF DEDICATION AND SERVICE TO OUR NATION AND ITS LAWS HAS EARNED OUR SPEAKER, AS OF RIGHT IT SHOULD, A POSITION OF SINGULAR RESPECT AND ADMIRATION AMONG THOSE WHO READ THE LAW AND ADMINISTER JUSTICE IN OUR LAND.
BUT IT IS A CURIOUS TRUTH THAT FOR ALL OF THESE EXTRAORDINARY CREDENTIALS, ROBERT HERON BORK'S MOST CERTAIN PLACE IN AMERICAN HISTORY WILL BE THAT OF A PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE TO THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES WHOSE APPOINTMENT TO THAT AUGUST BODY FAILED FOR WANT OF THE ADVICE AND CONSENT OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE.
IN RECENT MONTHS, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN TITILLATED, IF NOT SCANDALIZED, BY THE RAW HUMANITY OF THE CLARENCE THOMAS CONFIRMATION HEARINGS. THERE HAS BEEN MUCH TALK OF THE LEWDNESS, THE TRIVIALITY AND THE INAPPROPRIATENESS OF THE SENATORIAL CONFIRMATION PROCESS.
OUR SPEAKER TODAY RAN THAT BANAL GAUNTLET IN 1987. IN A FORUM REPLETE WITH DEMAGOGUES PANDERING FOR PUBLIC ACCLAIM, HE DEFENDED WITH UNASSAILABLE LOGIC AND SCHOLARLY CERTITUDE THE PROPOSITION THAT THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT FRANCHISE THE SUPREME COURT TO RULE THE NATION BY ITS EDICTS.
AS WE PONDER, AT THE INVITATION OF THE CITIZENS INSURANCE COMPANY AND PUBLIC SECTOR CONSULTANTS, VISIONS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY, IT MAY BE WELL TO ASK OURSELVES WHETHER THE 20TH CENTURY WAS NOT THE AGE IN WHICH THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES WAS SWEPT AWAY BY A FLOOD OF LEGALISTIC SOPHISTRY, A TIDAL WAVE OF PRAGMATISM.
MORE THAN 20 YEARS AGO FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL RAMSEY CLARK AND SENATOR SAM ERVIN DEBATED WHETHER THE SUPREME COURT WAS A POLICYMAKER OR AN ADJUDICATOR. IN TOO MANY AMERICAN LAW SCHOOLS, THAT DEBATE IS NEITHER ECHOED NOR WELCOMED.
FELIX FRANKFURTER TOLD HIS STUDENTS AT HARVARD THAT THE SUPREME COURT IS THE CONSTITUTION, AND THE ADHERENTS OF NOSE COUNT JURISPRUDENCE WERE NEVER MORE IN THEIR ASCENDANCY THAN IN THESE DAYS OF ROE V WADE REVISITED.
A CENTURY AGO THE POWERFUL PEN OF THOMAS MCINTYRE COOLEY WROTE:
"A CARDINAL RULE IN DEALING WITH WRITTEN INSTRUMENTS IS THAT THEY SHALL RECEIVE AN UNVARYING INTERPRETATION...
"A CONSTITUTION IS NOT TO BE MADE TO MEAN ONE THING AT ONE TIME, AND ANOTHER AT SOME SUBSEQUENT TIME WHEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES MAY HAVE SO CHANGED AS PERHAPS TO MAKE A DIFFERENT RULE IN THE CASE SEEM DESIRABLE.
"A PRINCIPLE SHARE OF THE BENEFIT EXPECTED FROM WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS WOULD BE LOST IF THE RULES THEY ESTABLISHED WERE SO FLEXIBLE AS TO BEND TO CIRCUMSTANCES OR BE MODIFIED BY PUBLIC OPINION.
"IT IS WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE VARYING MOODS OF PUBLIC OPINION, AND WITH A VIEW TO PUTTING THE FUNDAMENTALS OF GOVERNMENT BEYOND THEIR CONTROL, THAT THESE INSTRUMENTS ARE FRAMED; AND THERE CAN BE NO SUCH STEADY AND IMPERCEPTIBLE CHANGE IN THEIR RULES AS INHERES IN THE PRINCIPLES OF THE COMMON LAW."
"THE OBJECT OF CONSTRUCTION, AS APPLIED TO A WRITTEN CONSTITUTION," INSISTED JUDGE COOLEY, "IS TO GIVE EFFECT TO THE INTENT OF THE PEOPLE IN ADOPTING IT."
IN OUR DAY, MORE THAN ANY IN THE NATION'S HISTORY, THE CONSTITUTION NEEDS VIGOROUS AND TIRELESS DEFENDERS. ALL AROUND THE WORLD MEN AND WOMEN ARE STRUGGLING WITH THE UNFAMILIAR TASK OF ESTABLISHING NEW FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.
THOMAS PAINE WROTE THAT GOVERNMENT IS A NATURAL RIGHT AND THAT IT IS INFINITELY WISER TO FORM A CONSTITUTION IN A COOL, DELIBERATE MANNER THAN TO TRUST TO TIME AND CHANCE.
AND ALEXANDER HAMILTON OBSERVED THAT IT WAS FOR THE PEOPLE OF THIS COUNTRY TO DECIDE WHETHER SOCIETY IS CAPABLE OF ESTABLISHING GOOD GOVERNMENT BY REFLECTION AND CHOICE, OR WHETHER WE ARE FOREVER DESTINED TO DEPEND FOR OUR POLITICAL CONSTITUTIONS ON ACCIDENT AND FORCE.
IF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE 21ST CENTURY IS TO BE A BEACON OF RATIONAL CHOICE TO THE EMERGING DEMOCRACIES OF THE WORLD, WE WILL SIMPLY HAVE TO DO MORE OF WHAT YOU AND I ARE HERE TO DO THIS AFTERNOON:
LISTEN TO THE VOICE OF REASON; THE VOICE OF SCHOLARSHIP; THE VOICE OF PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE UNDER A SOLEMN POLITICAL COMPACT ORDAINED TO BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND.
IN SUM, TO HEED THE VOICE OF OUR MOST EMINENT AND LEARNED AND FORTHRIGHT GUEST - THE HONORABLE ROBERT HERON BORK.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Sunday, January 25, 2009
A FEW WORDS TO THE GRADUATES
On January 17, 2009, it was my privilege to address the 100th graduating class at the Thomas M. Cooley Law School. Here's what I said:
***
I never thought I would live to see this day.
If Cooley had been like all the other law schools… if Cooley had only one graduation a year, I’d have to be 147 years old.
The privilege which President LeDuc has afforded me … to speak at the one hundredth Commencement Exercise… is another of the many advantages of Cooley’s unique three semester system. And I am truly honored and grateful for his invitation.
Graduation ceremonies,Commencement Exercises…are very special occasions.
The first speech I ever gave at a Commencement ceremony was 62 years ago.
I was the valedictorian at my graduation from Detroit Catholic Central High School in June of 1947.
I had memorized my speech…rehearsed it over and over, but when the day came, I was scared to death. I kept pacing around the cafeteria repeating the first line. It was all I could remember.
Suddenly, Bob Barson, a two hundred fifty pound tackle on the football team grabbed me by the collar and said, “Keep it short, Brennan.” I said, “Don’t worry, Bob, I can only remember fourteen words.”
The Basilian Fathers invited me back to my high school alma mater to speak to the graduates in 1952. By this time I was an old married man of 23, father of a three month old son and a recent graduate of the University of Detroit Law School.
My dear wife, Polly, went along to hear me that day, just as she has come here today to lend her support and encouragement.
That graduating class back in 1952 consisted of about 200 eighteen year old boys who were facing possible conscription for the Korean War. I thought I gave them a pretty rousing call to arms.
Last summer I discovered that a golfing buddy of mine was also a alumnus of Detroit Catholic Central High School. I asked him when he graduated and he said, “1952.”
So I asked him if he remembered who was the commencement speaker at his graduation. He didn’t remember. Did he, by chance recall anything the commencement speaker had said? He didn’t remember. Did he remember anything at all about that commencement speech? “I think..” He said. “I think it was too long.”
We both had a good laugh when I told him I had been that very forgettable guest speaker at his graduation. I told him I still have a copy of the speech, if he’d like to hear it again. He didn’t seem to be interested.
The truth is that commencement speeches don’t usually have a lot of shelf life.
Graduates are always very focused on their own part of the ceremony, relatives and friends are focused on the graduates and faculty are so eyesore from correcting exams that they can hardly focus at all.
But once in a while, serendipity strikes and somebody remembers. I gave a commencement speech at the University of Detroit High School in 1969. The school liked it enough to have reprints made and send them out to their alumni.
Sometime in the late 1990’s, I got a phone call from a woman in Livonia who was looking for a copy of that talk. It seems that her older brother had graduated in the class of 1969, and she had attended the ceremony. Now, thirty years later, she was the mother of a teen age daughter, and she wanted her daughter to read my speech.
I have to admit that I was flattered by that. Thirty years is a long time to remember something that somebody says.
It isn’t easy to look thirty years down the road. We live in a world of constantly accelerating change. When was the last time you saw a typewriter, an ash tray or a pay phone? Who would have predicted, thirty years ago, the proliferation of cell phones, Ipods, and blackberrys that we see today?
Thirty years from now, you will see changes that are hard to imagine today. In the year 2039 there will be no network television. Television and the Internet will have merged to the point that every broadcast will be stored for convenient retrieval when, as and if a viewer is interested in seeing it.
Newspapers will be as archaic as the village crier of the 17th century.
If the postal service is still in business, it will be primarily to deliver packages. Email has already begun to supplant snail mail.
I would expect that thirty years from now DNA scanners will be as common as bar code scanners are in 2009. Credit cards will be extinct. You’ll just touch the screen and your account will be charged.
Some of the changes will be even harder to believe. I predict, for example, that by the year 2039 there will be a Division One college football playoff.
The practice of law will evolve slower than society in general; it has so far. We lawyers can be stodgy, hide bound traditionalists. Still, I would expect that thirty years from now court documents will be paperless, pleadings will be filed by email and displayed on the Internet; trials will be conducted piecemeal and recorded on video to be played to the jury after all extraneous and objectionable matters have been edited out.
It’s intriguing to speculate on the changes that will be wrought by science over the next three decades. But it’s not all just speculation. There are a number of things we can say about 2039 with some degree of certainty.
First of all, of course, you know how old you will be. If you are 26 today, you’ll be 56 in 2039.
And y’know, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you will be sitting in the audience at the 200th Cooley Commencement watching a son or daughter receive the same diploma you are receiving here today.
In that day you will know how your life and your career will have turned out. Most of you will be practicing lawyers in big firms and small firms, as partners, shareholders or solo practicioners.
Some of you will use your legal education in other ways. You’ll be business men and women, bankers, brokers, teachers, artists, writers, sports agents, legislators, lobbyists, and clergymen.
One of you may well emulate Mary Coleman, after whom your class has been named, and become the first woman chief justice of your state’s supreme court.
Other Cooley graduates have gone on to become Congressmen, judges, prosecutors, governors, corporate executives, leaders of the organized bar and law professors.
There is no reason to believe that you won’t do the same.
Some of you will make a lot of money, and some won’t do so well, but I can safely predict that all of you will be able to support yourselves and your families in reasonable circumstances.
After all, you have already demonstrated by your success here at Cooley that you have the perseverance and the work ethic to achieve any reasonable goal you set for yourself.
No doubt by 2039 many of you will have lost your mothers and dads. Certainly all of your grandparents will be dead by then.
So, if you will indulge me, I would like to speak to you for a few moments in the role of a grandfather.
When I was a child, my most serious sin was to disobey my mother and father. Ultimately the lesson sunk in that it was their job to teach me right from wrong and my job to learn and to follow.
My dad’s most memorable sermon was short and to the point: “You know what’s wrong and you know what’s right. Do what’s right.”
Obedience to authority is the forerunner of self control and self discipline. No one becomes a general who has not been a good soldier, nor a teacher who has not first been a student. Only a team player can be the captain. True leadership is built on a foundation of followship.
You came to Cooley Law School three years ago to get an education.
You came to Cooley to listen and to read and to think and to learn.
You came to Cooley three years ago, hoping that someday, somehow, you were going to be somebody.
Well, I’m here to tell each and every one of you ladies and gentlemen that you are somebody. The diploma that President LeDuc will hand to you on this stage this afternoon will attest to all the world that you are a member of the ancient and honorable profession of the law.
By subordinating your time, attention and energy to the faculty; by getting down into the trenches, following orders, obeying the rules, and taking all the flak this distinguished faculty has thrown at you for three years, you have not only fulfilled your own personal dream and ambition, you have accomplished the larger achievement of making yourself one of the keepers of our sacred tradition of ordered liberty.
As a lawyer, you will be a leader in your community. What you do will reverberate. What you say will echo. Your life, your career in the law will have impact far beyond your expectations, far beyond what you will realize.
In a few days our nation will enter upon a new and exciting era in history. A man of African descent and heritage will assume the highest office in the land.
I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. I didn’t vote for him because I disagreed with his stance on some very fundamental issues.
But as I watched him address his followers in Grant Park on election night, and as the cameras panned across the kaleidoscope of smiling, tearstained faces in the audience, my heart swelled with pride to think that the people of this nation had made such a bold and historic choice.
That night I called my old friend Charles Farmer, a black judge with whom I served in Detroit, and who was later a member of the Cooley Board of Directors. When Charles Farmer graduated from law school in 1948, he was refused admission to the American Bar Association because of his race. Later, he became one of the first black judges in Detroit. He served for many years and was universally respected and admired.
I congratulated Judge Farmer and I told him that the presidential victory had come to his people because he and so many others had patiently and courageously paved the way through dedicated and responsible public service.
Mary Stallings Coleman, the patron of your class, was a colleague of mine on the Michigan Supreme Court.
It was Mary Coleman who shattered the glass ceiling in Michigan’s legal profession. She was the first woman elected to the Supreme Court and the first to serve as Chief Justice.
Mary Coleman was a lady.
She wasn’t one of those bra-burning, man-hating, publicity-seeking, potty-mouthed militant feminists. She was a real lady.
She was a gracious, warm, charming, thoroughly feminine, and strikingly beautiful woman. And a damn good lawyer.
Her legacy abides in the capital city of Lansing. Today, the majority of the justices of the Michigan Supreme Court are women.
None of us ever knows the great oaks that will grow from the seeds we plant with our lives.
When I retired from the Presidency of Cooley, the school presented me with two bound volumes of letters from alumni thanking me for the opportunity to study law and telling me of the many ways in which their lives had been affected by their legal education.
It was a touching and humbling gift. Names I didn’t recognize. People I didn’t know. All expressing heartfelt thanks.
And it will be the same for each of you.
The people who make a difference… the people who leave this old world a little better than they found it…are not measured by their celebrity. The talking heads on TV and the paparazzi pestered entertainers leave no special imprint on society.
It is rather the men and women like yourselves, who by their commitment and example, by their constancy and personal responsibility, day in and day out, year in and year out, build the communities that shape our nation, protect our democratic republic, and preserve our American heritage of liberty and opportunity.
You will accomplish great things in the next 30 years.
Not all at once, and not without the kind of grinding perseverance you have shown here at Cooley.
The rocky road from the womb to the tomb is strewn with setbacks and obstacles, delays, disappointments and difficulties.
I’m sure you have heard of Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s Law teaches us that whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.
By now you should know about Cooley’s Law. Cooley’s Law is that no challenge, no accomplishment, no goal is beyond the reach of the man or woman who is truly committed.
And that, in the final analysis, the definition of success is nothing more nor less than getting back up again.
All of which brings me around to one final bit of grandfatherly advice. If there is anything I will have said to you here this afternoon worth remembering and worth passing along to your children and grandchildren, this is it:
If you drop it, pick it up.
If you spill it wipe it up.
If you forget it, go back and get it.
If you break it, fix it.
If you destroy it, replace it.
If you owe it, pay it.
If you did it, admit it.
And always remember that most of the forward progress we make in the game of life is getting back to the line of scrimmage.
Congatulations, Coleman Class.
This is your day.
You earned it, now enjoy it.
***
I never thought I would live to see this day.
If Cooley had been like all the other law schools… if Cooley had only one graduation a year, I’d have to be 147 years old.
The privilege which President LeDuc has afforded me … to speak at the one hundredth Commencement Exercise… is another of the many advantages of Cooley’s unique three semester system. And I am truly honored and grateful for his invitation.
Graduation ceremonies,Commencement Exercises…are very special occasions.
The first speech I ever gave at a Commencement ceremony was 62 years ago.
I was the valedictorian at my graduation from Detroit Catholic Central High School in June of 1947.
I had memorized my speech…rehearsed it over and over, but when the day came, I was scared to death. I kept pacing around the cafeteria repeating the first line. It was all I could remember.
Suddenly, Bob Barson, a two hundred fifty pound tackle on the football team grabbed me by the collar and said, “Keep it short, Brennan.” I said, “Don’t worry, Bob, I can only remember fourteen words.”
The Basilian Fathers invited me back to my high school alma mater to speak to the graduates in 1952. By this time I was an old married man of 23, father of a three month old son and a recent graduate of the University of Detroit Law School.
My dear wife, Polly, went along to hear me that day, just as she has come here today to lend her support and encouragement.
That graduating class back in 1952 consisted of about 200 eighteen year old boys who were facing possible conscription for the Korean War. I thought I gave them a pretty rousing call to arms.
Last summer I discovered that a golfing buddy of mine was also a alumnus of Detroit Catholic Central High School. I asked him when he graduated and he said, “1952.”
So I asked him if he remembered who was the commencement speaker at his graduation. He didn’t remember. Did he, by chance recall anything the commencement speaker had said? He didn’t remember. Did he remember anything at all about that commencement speech? “I think..” He said. “I think it was too long.”
We both had a good laugh when I told him I had been that very forgettable guest speaker at his graduation. I told him I still have a copy of the speech, if he’d like to hear it again. He didn’t seem to be interested.
The truth is that commencement speeches don’t usually have a lot of shelf life.
Graduates are always very focused on their own part of the ceremony, relatives and friends are focused on the graduates and faculty are so eyesore from correcting exams that they can hardly focus at all.
But once in a while, serendipity strikes and somebody remembers. I gave a commencement speech at the University of Detroit High School in 1969. The school liked it enough to have reprints made and send them out to their alumni.
Sometime in the late 1990’s, I got a phone call from a woman in Livonia who was looking for a copy of that talk. It seems that her older brother had graduated in the class of 1969, and she had attended the ceremony. Now, thirty years later, she was the mother of a teen age daughter, and she wanted her daughter to read my speech.
I have to admit that I was flattered by that. Thirty years is a long time to remember something that somebody says.
It isn’t easy to look thirty years down the road. We live in a world of constantly accelerating change. When was the last time you saw a typewriter, an ash tray or a pay phone? Who would have predicted, thirty years ago, the proliferation of cell phones, Ipods, and blackberrys that we see today?
Thirty years from now, you will see changes that are hard to imagine today. In the year 2039 there will be no network television. Television and the Internet will have merged to the point that every broadcast will be stored for convenient retrieval when, as and if a viewer is interested in seeing it.
Newspapers will be as archaic as the village crier of the 17th century.
If the postal service is still in business, it will be primarily to deliver packages. Email has already begun to supplant snail mail.
I would expect that thirty years from now DNA scanners will be as common as bar code scanners are in 2009. Credit cards will be extinct. You’ll just touch the screen and your account will be charged.
Some of the changes will be even harder to believe. I predict, for example, that by the year 2039 there will be a Division One college football playoff.
The practice of law will evolve slower than society in general; it has so far. We lawyers can be stodgy, hide bound traditionalists. Still, I would expect that thirty years from now court documents will be paperless, pleadings will be filed by email and displayed on the Internet; trials will be conducted piecemeal and recorded on video to be played to the jury after all extraneous and objectionable matters have been edited out.
It’s intriguing to speculate on the changes that will be wrought by science over the next three decades. But it’s not all just speculation. There are a number of things we can say about 2039 with some degree of certainty.
First of all, of course, you know how old you will be. If you are 26 today, you’ll be 56 in 2039.
And y’know, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you will be sitting in the audience at the 200th Cooley Commencement watching a son or daughter receive the same diploma you are receiving here today.
In that day you will know how your life and your career will have turned out. Most of you will be practicing lawyers in big firms and small firms, as partners, shareholders or solo practicioners.
Some of you will use your legal education in other ways. You’ll be business men and women, bankers, brokers, teachers, artists, writers, sports agents, legislators, lobbyists, and clergymen.
One of you may well emulate Mary Coleman, after whom your class has been named, and become the first woman chief justice of your state’s supreme court.
Other Cooley graduates have gone on to become Congressmen, judges, prosecutors, governors, corporate executives, leaders of the organized bar and law professors.
There is no reason to believe that you won’t do the same.
Some of you will make a lot of money, and some won’t do so well, but I can safely predict that all of you will be able to support yourselves and your families in reasonable circumstances.
After all, you have already demonstrated by your success here at Cooley that you have the perseverance and the work ethic to achieve any reasonable goal you set for yourself.
No doubt by 2039 many of you will have lost your mothers and dads. Certainly all of your grandparents will be dead by then.
So, if you will indulge me, I would like to speak to you for a few moments in the role of a grandfather.
When I was a child, my most serious sin was to disobey my mother and father. Ultimately the lesson sunk in that it was their job to teach me right from wrong and my job to learn and to follow.
My dad’s most memorable sermon was short and to the point: “You know what’s wrong and you know what’s right. Do what’s right.”
Obedience to authority is the forerunner of self control and self discipline. No one becomes a general who has not been a good soldier, nor a teacher who has not first been a student. Only a team player can be the captain. True leadership is built on a foundation of followship.
You came to Cooley Law School three years ago to get an education.
You came to Cooley to listen and to read and to think and to learn.
You came to Cooley three years ago, hoping that someday, somehow, you were going to be somebody.
Well, I’m here to tell each and every one of you ladies and gentlemen that you are somebody. The diploma that President LeDuc will hand to you on this stage this afternoon will attest to all the world that you are a member of the ancient and honorable profession of the law.
By subordinating your time, attention and energy to the faculty; by getting down into the trenches, following orders, obeying the rules, and taking all the flak this distinguished faculty has thrown at you for three years, you have not only fulfilled your own personal dream and ambition, you have accomplished the larger achievement of making yourself one of the keepers of our sacred tradition of ordered liberty.
As a lawyer, you will be a leader in your community. What you do will reverberate. What you say will echo. Your life, your career in the law will have impact far beyond your expectations, far beyond what you will realize.
In a few days our nation will enter upon a new and exciting era in history. A man of African descent and heritage will assume the highest office in the land.
I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. I didn’t vote for him because I disagreed with his stance on some very fundamental issues.
But as I watched him address his followers in Grant Park on election night, and as the cameras panned across the kaleidoscope of smiling, tearstained faces in the audience, my heart swelled with pride to think that the people of this nation had made such a bold and historic choice.
That night I called my old friend Charles Farmer, a black judge with whom I served in Detroit, and who was later a member of the Cooley Board of Directors. When Charles Farmer graduated from law school in 1948, he was refused admission to the American Bar Association because of his race. Later, he became one of the first black judges in Detroit. He served for many years and was universally respected and admired.
I congratulated Judge Farmer and I told him that the presidential victory had come to his people because he and so many others had patiently and courageously paved the way through dedicated and responsible public service.
Mary Stallings Coleman, the patron of your class, was a colleague of mine on the Michigan Supreme Court.
It was Mary Coleman who shattered the glass ceiling in Michigan’s legal profession. She was the first woman elected to the Supreme Court and the first to serve as Chief Justice.
Mary Coleman was a lady.
She wasn’t one of those bra-burning, man-hating, publicity-seeking, potty-mouthed militant feminists. She was a real lady.
She was a gracious, warm, charming, thoroughly feminine, and strikingly beautiful woman. And a damn good lawyer.
Her legacy abides in the capital city of Lansing. Today, the majority of the justices of the Michigan Supreme Court are women.
None of us ever knows the great oaks that will grow from the seeds we plant with our lives.
When I retired from the Presidency of Cooley, the school presented me with two bound volumes of letters from alumni thanking me for the opportunity to study law and telling me of the many ways in which their lives had been affected by their legal education.
It was a touching and humbling gift. Names I didn’t recognize. People I didn’t know. All expressing heartfelt thanks.
And it will be the same for each of you.
The people who make a difference… the people who leave this old world a little better than they found it…are not measured by their celebrity. The talking heads on TV and the paparazzi pestered entertainers leave no special imprint on society.
It is rather the men and women like yourselves, who by their commitment and example, by their constancy and personal responsibility, day in and day out, year in and year out, build the communities that shape our nation, protect our democratic republic, and preserve our American heritage of liberty and opportunity.
You will accomplish great things in the next 30 years.
Not all at once, and not without the kind of grinding perseverance you have shown here at Cooley.
The rocky road from the womb to the tomb is strewn with setbacks and obstacles, delays, disappointments and difficulties.
I’m sure you have heard of Murphy’s Law. Murphy’s Law teaches us that whatever can go wrong, does go wrong.
By now you should know about Cooley’s Law. Cooley’s Law is that no challenge, no accomplishment, no goal is beyond the reach of the man or woman who is truly committed.
And that, in the final analysis, the definition of success is nothing more nor less than getting back up again.
All of which brings me around to one final bit of grandfatherly advice. If there is anything I will have said to you here this afternoon worth remembering and worth passing along to your children and grandchildren, this is it:
If you drop it, pick it up.
If you spill it wipe it up.
If you forget it, go back and get it.
If you break it, fix it.
If you destroy it, replace it.
If you owe it, pay it.
If you did it, admit it.
And always remember that most of the forward progress we make in the game of life is getting back to the line of scrimmage.
Congatulations, Coleman Class.
This is your day.
You earned it, now enjoy it.
Monday, December 8, 2008
ARE BAILOUTS UNCONSTITUIONAL?
Hold on there, America. Has anybody stopped fretting about the economy long enough to read the supreme law of the land?
700 billion for the banks. 32 billion for the auto companies. More billions for homeowners who are in foreclosure. Did Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and James Madison have this kind of law making in mind?
I don't think so.
Article I, Secton 8 of the federal Constituton provides that the Congress shall have the power to pass "uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy throughout the United States."
"Uniform laws" ?? What does that mean? Does it mean that the law must treat everybody the same? Sure sounds like it.
Are bailout laws uniform? Does Congress treat auto companies the same as airlines? Or appliance dealers?
Can it really be argued that a bailout law is not a law on the subject of bankruptcy and therefore doesn't have to be uniform? Come on. What are the talking heads telling us? What is the President saying? Nancy Pellosi, what does she say? When they scream about the auto companies shutting down in 30 or 60 days, when they point with alarm to the prospect of millions of jobs being lost, what else are they saying except that the car companies are insolvent? Bankrupt. Kapute. Going down the tube.
The wise statesmen (Remember when we had those?) who drafted our Constitution knew that hard times come for many businesses and many people. There were bankruptcy laws in England which applied to the colonies. Nothing new there. But in a federal government, comprised of separate sovereign states, it made sense to give the power to pass bankruptcy laws to the central government rather than to the states.
And why? So that all Americans would be treated the same when they went belly up. If the men in Philadelphia in 1789 had wanted New York bankers and Detroit auto makers to be treated differently than other citizens when they went broke, they would not have used the word "uniform."
Uniform means uniform. Let's not read it out of the Constitution or allow our politicians and our judges to ignore it.
And by the way, the same section of the Constitution which specifies uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy also empowers Congress to enact unifom naturalization laws.
Makes you wonder how Congress can offer a special short cut to citizenship for some folks who are here illegally, doesn't it?
700 billion for the banks. 32 billion for the auto companies. More billions for homeowners who are in foreclosure. Did Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and James Madison have this kind of law making in mind?
I don't think so.
Article I, Secton 8 of the federal Constituton provides that the Congress shall have the power to pass "uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy throughout the United States."
"Uniform laws" ?? What does that mean? Does it mean that the law must treat everybody the same? Sure sounds like it.
Are bailout laws uniform? Does Congress treat auto companies the same as airlines? Or appliance dealers?
Can it really be argued that a bailout law is not a law on the subject of bankruptcy and therefore doesn't have to be uniform? Come on. What are the talking heads telling us? What is the President saying? Nancy Pellosi, what does she say? When they scream about the auto companies shutting down in 30 or 60 days, when they point with alarm to the prospect of millions of jobs being lost, what else are they saying except that the car companies are insolvent? Bankrupt. Kapute. Going down the tube.
The wise statesmen (Remember when we had those?) who drafted our Constitution knew that hard times come for many businesses and many people. There were bankruptcy laws in England which applied to the colonies. Nothing new there. But in a federal government, comprised of separate sovereign states, it made sense to give the power to pass bankruptcy laws to the central government rather than to the states.
And why? So that all Americans would be treated the same when they went belly up. If the men in Philadelphia in 1789 had wanted New York bankers and Detroit auto makers to be treated differently than other citizens when they went broke, they would not have used the word "uniform."
Uniform means uniform. Let's not read it out of the Constitution or allow our politicians and our judges to ignore it.
And by the way, the same section of the Constitution which specifies uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy also empowers Congress to enact unifom naturalization laws.
Makes you wonder how Congress can offer a special short cut to citizenship for some folks who are here illegally, doesn't it?
ABORTION CONUNDRUM
So the 'pro choice' lobby doesn't want the American people to have the right to choose their own laws on the subject of abortion.
That's not their only inconsistency.
I suspect that the NARAL constituency would enthusiastically support the idea of criminal penalties for certain types of abortions.
Sound crazy? Well, think about this:
The Michigan statute on the subject of abortion is still on the books, as are most of the other states' pre Roe v Wade laws. The US Supreme Court doesn't repeal state statutes. It just says they are unenforceable if they violate the US Constitution.
So the law books in Michigan still provide that if a woman dies while undergoing an abortion, the person trying to cause her to miscarry is guilty of manslaughter.
OK. Now suppose that a teen age girl gets pregnant and her boy friend agrees - maybe even persuades her - to end her pregnancy with a coat hanger. In the process, he punctures an artery and the girl bleeds to death.
Now suppose this boy friend is arrested and charged with manslaughter under Michigan's 1847 abortion law.
Where do the pro choice people line up on this one? Will they insist that the girl had an absolute constitutional right to do whatever she wanted with her own body, and thereore no crime was committed? Or will they back off of their extreme positon and concede that SOME abortions can be outlawed, and SOME abortionists can be prosecuted?
After all, the tragic consequences of coathanger abortions have always been the centerpiece of the pro choice argument. Will they now say that the only constitutional right created by Roe v Wade was a right of medical doctors to perform abortions, and not a right of women to terminate their pregnancies?
Harry Blackman's fuzzy opinion in Roe v Wade talks about 'a woman and her doctor' making the choice to end a pregnancy. He didn't mention ' a woman and her boy friend.'
One problem with unduly active appellate judges is that they never hold public hearings before they do their legislating. It's an unhappy fact that the black robe syndrome imputes infallibilty to appellate judges, when in fact they are just flawed human beings like everyone else.
That's not their only inconsistency.
I suspect that the NARAL constituency would enthusiastically support the idea of criminal penalties for certain types of abortions.
Sound crazy? Well, think about this:
The Michigan statute on the subject of abortion is still on the books, as are most of the other states' pre Roe v Wade laws. The US Supreme Court doesn't repeal state statutes. It just says they are unenforceable if they violate the US Constitution.
So the law books in Michigan still provide that if a woman dies while undergoing an abortion, the person trying to cause her to miscarry is guilty of manslaughter.
OK. Now suppose that a teen age girl gets pregnant and her boy friend agrees - maybe even persuades her - to end her pregnancy with a coat hanger. In the process, he punctures an artery and the girl bleeds to death.
Now suppose this boy friend is arrested and charged with manslaughter under Michigan's 1847 abortion law.
Where do the pro choice people line up on this one? Will they insist that the girl had an absolute constitutional right to do whatever she wanted with her own body, and thereore no crime was committed? Or will they back off of their extreme positon and concede that SOME abortions can be outlawed, and SOME abortionists can be prosecuted?
After all, the tragic consequences of coathanger abortions have always been the centerpiece of the pro choice argument. Will they now say that the only constitutional right created by Roe v Wade was a right of medical doctors to perform abortions, and not a right of women to terminate their pregnancies?
Harry Blackman's fuzzy opinion in Roe v Wade talks about 'a woman and her doctor' making the choice to end a pregnancy. He didn't mention ' a woman and her boy friend.'
One problem with unduly active appellate judges is that they never hold public hearings before they do their legislating. It's an unhappy fact that the black robe syndrome imputes infallibilty to appellate judges, when in fact they are just flawed human beings like everyone else.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
WHO IS TRULY PRO CHOICE?
In a clever public relations ploy, the proponents of liberal abortion laws have co-opted the word, and hence the concept of “choice.”
Everybody likes choice. Choice is the hallmark of freedom. Choice means you decide for yourself. No one else decides for you. In the United States of America, we enshrine the idea of choice in our democratic institutions. We choose our leaders. We choose our jobs, our schools, our places of residence and of worship. Through the processes of initiative and referendum, we choose our laws and even our constitutional rights.
Prior to 1973, the question of abortion was left to the choice of the American people. Acting through their elected representatives in each state, the people of our nation had chosen to restrict abortion in various ways. It was their choice. Abortion laws were chosen through the democratic process.
But in the 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade, five of the nine appointed Supreme Court Justices decided to undo the choices of the American people. Abortion was no longer to be a matter of choice within the several states of the American union. A liberal, permissive abortion rule was imposed upon the nation.
The majority opinion in Roe v Wade found that the United States Constitution contains an unwritten, implied, right of privacy which entitles women to have the assistance of licensed medical professionals for the purpose of inducing miscarriages.
That opinion has been roundly criticized by legal scholars for more than thirty years. No credible legal authority has ever successfully defended its rationale. Even liberal academics, who support liberalized abortion laws, have conceded that Roe v Wade is poorly reasoned and without support in high court precedents.
We do not hear anyone today defending Roe v Wade as a wise and logical constitutional decision. What we hear today is that Roe v Wade is and should be the law of the land because it is wanted by, and approved by the majority of the American people.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The last thing the Pro Choice lobby wants in America is to permit the people of the United States to exercise choice in the matter of abortion. As a matter of fact, the abortion lobby now seeks to persuade the United States Congress to preempt the whole field of abortion law under the interstate commerce clause, and override any and all state statutes regulating, restricting or controlling the practice of inducing miscarriages or causing abortions in any way.
They want to deny the citizens of the states their right to choose whether to have liberal or restrictive abortion laws. They want to dictate to every American in every city and town their extreme notion of women’s rights.
The issue of abortion divides the American people as they have not been divided since the Civil War. In response to the imposition of abortion on demand by the United States Supreme Court, many citizens have sought to advance a federal constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at the moment of conception.
Roe v Wade made abortion a federal issue, a national chasm of differing opinion.
As the law stood before Roe v wade, each state legislated on the subject of abortion. If there was public sentiment to liberalize abortion laws, the avenues of democratic change were open. Debate about when, how, and why abortions might be performed would be a normal part of the legislative process.
Not every state had the same abortion laws before 1973 and not every state would have the same abortion laws today.
We can only hope that before President elect Barack Obama is able to staff the United States Supreme Court with pro abortion zealots, the Court is able definitively to reverse Roe v Wade and give the power to legislate on the issue of abortion back to the fifty states where it belongs.
Everybody likes choice. Choice is the hallmark of freedom. Choice means you decide for yourself. No one else decides for you. In the United States of America, we enshrine the idea of choice in our democratic institutions. We choose our leaders. We choose our jobs, our schools, our places of residence and of worship. Through the processes of initiative and referendum, we choose our laws and even our constitutional rights.
Prior to 1973, the question of abortion was left to the choice of the American people. Acting through their elected representatives in each state, the people of our nation had chosen to restrict abortion in various ways. It was their choice. Abortion laws were chosen through the democratic process.
But in the 1973 Supreme Court decision of Roe v Wade, five of the nine appointed Supreme Court Justices decided to undo the choices of the American people. Abortion was no longer to be a matter of choice within the several states of the American union. A liberal, permissive abortion rule was imposed upon the nation.
The majority opinion in Roe v Wade found that the United States Constitution contains an unwritten, implied, right of privacy which entitles women to have the assistance of licensed medical professionals for the purpose of inducing miscarriages.
That opinion has been roundly criticized by legal scholars for more than thirty years. No credible legal authority has ever successfully defended its rationale. Even liberal academics, who support liberalized abortion laws, have conceded that Roe v Wade is poorly reasoned and without support in high court precedents.
We do not hear anyone today defending Roe v Wade as a wise and logical constitutional decision. What we hear today is that Roe v Wade is and should be the law of the land because it is wanted by, and approved by the majority of the American people.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The last thing the Pro Choice lobby wants in America is to permit the people of the United States to exercise choice in the matter of abortion. As a matter of fact, the abortion lobby now seeks to persuade the United States Congress to preempt the whole field of abortion law under the interstate commerce clause, and override any and all state statutes regulating, restricting or controlling the practice of inducing miscarriages or causing abortions in any way.
They want to deny the citizens of the states their right to choose whether to have liberal or restrictive abortion laws. They want to dictate to every American in every city and town their extreme notion of women’s rights.
The issue of abortion divides the American people as they have not been divided since the Civil War. In response to the imposition of abortion on demand by the United States Supreme Court, many citizens have sought to advance a federal constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at the moment of conception.
Roe v Wade made abortion a federal issue, a national chasm of differing opinion.
As the law stood before Roe v wade, each state legislated on the subject of abortion. If there was public sentiment to liberalize abortion laws, the avenues of democratic change were open. Debate about when, how, and why abortions might be performed would be a normal part of the legislative process.
Not every state had the same abortion laws before 1973 and not every state would have the same abortion laws today.
We can only hope that before President elect Barack Obama is able to staff the United States Supreme Court with pro abortion zealots, the Court is able definitively to reverse Roe v Wade and give the power to legislate on the issue of abortion back to the fifty states where it belongs.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
REBUILDING THE GOP
With the stunning victory of Barack Obama and the Democratic Party now a page in the American history book, the talking heads on television have begun to ask whether and how the Republican Party can rise from the ashes.
I have my own theory.
The Republican Party was born under an oak tree in Jackson, Michigan. It was a convocation of people brought together by their common conviction that slavery was wrong and should be abolished.
At its inception, the Republican Party occupied the high moral ground. It was the party of principle, the party of hope, the party that appealed to the noblest aspirations of the American people. It was the party of freedom, of human dignity, of equality, of justice. Its opposition to slavery defined its view of life and underscored its political mission.
The Republican Party can be the party of Abraham Lincoln again. It can be the party of principle. It can occupy the high moral ground.
The issue of abortion separates the Republican and Democratic Parties. It is the most visible and controversial of the various issues that relate to the value and sacredness of human life. The Republican Party needs candidates who will debate the abortion issue; candidates who will talk about the scientific, social, political, and community aspects of abortion.
The Democrats have rather successfully tried to make abortion a religious issue. They insist that opposition to the abortion culture represents an attempt to impose a standard of morality not accepted by many Americans.
Too many Republicans have been taken in by the liberal media’s claim that a majority of Americans support the ‘pro choice’ position. They have fallen for the notion that the Republican Party needs to become a big tent with room for the pro abortion crowd.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
The majority of the American people do not support abortion on demand. They do not support abortion as an alternate means of birth control. They are ‘pro choice’ only in the sense that they believe that abortion may sometimes be medically indicated; that a woman who chooses to have an abortion is more to be pitied than punished.
Even the advocates of choice support some abortion bans. They happily support laws forbidding abortion by persons not licensed to practice medicine. The Supreme Court, in Roe V Wade, talks about a woman and her doctor deciding on abortion. The pro choice crowd would be quick to condemn the choice of having one’s boy friend perform the abortion.
I pose this hypothetical question: Should a man be prosecuted for the murder of his Siamese twin brother? Most people answer in the negative. Why? Because the act is perceived as tantamount to suicide.
Do we prosecute people for suicide? Hardly. The defendant is dead by definition. Do we prosecute people for attempted suicide? It may fit the definition of attempted homicide, but we don’t treat it as a crime. Why not? Simply because society assumes that suicide is not a rational act and therefore the perpetrator-victim is not criminally responsible.
In the same way, women who had or attempted to have abortions before Roe v Wade were not prosecuted. The Michigan statute, still on the books, MCL 750.14, provides:
"Administering drugs, etc., with intent to procure miscarriage: Any person who shall willfully administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, substance or thing whatever, or shall employ any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of any such woman, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman, shall be guilty of a felony, and in case the death of such pregnant woman be thereby produced, the offense shall be deemed manslaughter."
As can be seen, the law applies only to the person causing the abortion, not to the pregnant woman. The life saving exception was always in the Michigan law, as, no doubt it was in other state laws.
The oath of Hippocrates, written in 400 BC and traditionally recited by physicians since then, contains these words:
"I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion."
In truth, the ban on abortion is a regulation of the medical profession. In that light, the debate over when human life begins is irrelevant. If the fetus is normal, healthy, human tissue, a physician should be called to explain the medical necessity for its removal.
If a surgeon removed a patient’s thumb, it would not satisfy the hospital’s tissue committee for him to explain that the patient requested the procedure. It would probably not do to explain that the patient was given to sucking the thumb, thus causing his front teeth to protrude and that the amputation was necessary to protect the patient’s smile.
Society has a vital stake in the next generation. Human beings are what comprise communities and nations. That is why every organized human society, from the most elemental tribes to the most sophisticated states exercises some form of control over the process of human reproduction.
Bill Clinton got himself elected in 1992 by proclaiming, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Perhaps the Republicans will someday return to power by reminding Americans that it’s all about the family.
I have my own theory.
The Republican Party was born under an oak tree in Jackson, Michigan. It was a convocation of people brought together by their common conviction that slavery was wrong and should be abolished.
At its inception, the Republican Party occupied the high moral ground. It was the party of principle, the party of hope, the party that appealed to the noblest aspirations of the American people. It was the party of freedom, of human dignity, of equality, of justice. Its opposition to slavery defined its view of life and underscored its political mission.
The Republican Party can be the party of Abraham Lincoln again. It can be the party of principle. It can occupy the high moral ground.
The issue of abortion separates the Republican and Democratic Parties. It is the most visible and controversial of the various issues that relate to the value and sacredness of human life. The Republican Party needs candidates who will debate the abortion issue; candidates who will talk about the scientific, social, political, and community aspects of abortion.
The Democrats have rather successfully tried to make abortion a religious issue. They insist that opposition to the abortion culture represents an attempt to impose a standard of morality not accepted by many Americans.
Too many Republicans have been taken in by the liberal media’s claim that a majority of Americans support the ‘pro choice’ position. They have fallen for the notion that the Republican Party needs to become a big tent with room for the pro abortion crowd.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
The majority of the American people do not support abortion on demand. They do not support abortion as an alternate means of birth control. They are ‘pro choice’ only in the sense that they believe that abortion may sometimes be medically indicated; that a woman who chooses to have an abortion is more to be pitied than punished.
Even the advocates of choice support some abortion bans. They happily support laws forbidding abortion by persons not licensed to practice medicine. The Supreme Court, in Roe V Wade, talks about a woman and her doctor deciding on abortion. The pro choice crowd would be quick to condemn the choice of having one’s boy friend perform the abortion.
I pose this hypothetical question: Should a man be prosecuted for the murder of his Siamese twin brother? Most people answer in the negative. Why? Because the act is perceived as tantamount to suicide.
Do we prosecute people for suicide? Hardly. The defendant is dead by definition. Do we prosecute people for attempted suicide? It may fit the definition of attempted homicide, but we don’t treat it as a crime. Why not? Simply because society assumes that suicide is not a rational act and therefore the perpetrator-victim is not criminally responsible.
In the same way, women who had or attempted to have abortions before Roe v Wade were not prosecuted. The Michigan statute, still on the books, MCL 750.14, provides:
"Administering drugs, etc., with intent to procure miscarriage: Any person who shall willfully administer to any pregnant woman any medicine, drug, substance or thing whatever, or shall employ any instrument or other means whatever, with intent thereby to procure the miscarriage of any such woman, unless the same shall have been necessary to preserve the life of such woman, shall be guilty of a felony, and in case the death of such pregnant woman be thereby produced, the offense shall be deemed manslaughter."
As can be seen, the law applies only to the person causing the abortion, not to the pregnant woman. The life saving exception was always in the Michigan law, as, no doubt it was in other state laws.
The oath of Hippocrates, written in 400 BC and traditionally recited by physicians since then, contains these words:
"I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion."
In truth, the ban on abortion is a regulation of the medical profession. In that light, the debate over when human life begins is irrelevant. If the fetus is normal, healthy, human tissue, a physician should be called to explain the medical necessity for its removal.
If a surgeon removed a patient’s thumb, it would not satisfy the hospital’s tissue committee for him to explain that the patient requested the procedure. It would probably not do to explain that the patient was given to sucking the thumb, thus causing his front teeth to protrude and that the amputation was necessary to protect the patient’s smile.
Society has a vital stake in the next generation. Human beings are what comprise communities and nations. That is why every organized human society, from the most elemental tribes to the most sophisticated states exercises some form of control over the process of human reproduction.
Bill Clinton got himself elected in 1992 by proclaiming, “It’s the economy, stupid.”
Perhaps the Republicans will someday return to power by reminding Americans that it’s all about the family.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
GOING OVER THE LIMIT -- AGAIN
As of yesterday, the U.S. national debt was $10,530,350,651,098.48. That's almost 10.6 trillion dollars, and 10.6 trillion dollars is the limit which Congress has imposed on federal borrowing. The Secretary of the Treasury has urged Congress to increase the debt limit to 11.3 trillion.
How long do you suppose that will last?
Ten trillion is too big a number to be easily understood. How about this number: you and I and every last man woman and child in this great nation is in hock for $34,525.
Liberal economists used to shrug off such numbers by saying, "We owe the national debt to ourselves, so what does it matter?" Not so, anymore. We owe it to the Chinese, the Saudis, the British. We owe it to all the nations of the European Union. No doubt we owe some of it to Osama Ben Laden's family if not to him.
Back in the Eighties, when Ronald Reagan was President, there was a rather vigorous effort to adopt a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some thirty-two of the required thirty-four state legislatures petitioned the Congress to call a convention for the purpose of proposing a balanced budget amendment.
Many of the states, and President Reagan himself, were not really intent on getting a convention as contemplated by Article V of the Constitution. They just wanted to threaten a convention, in hopes that Congress would propose a balanced budget amendment and send it to the states to be ratified.
I never thought they were wise. Hoping that Congress would propose a constitutional amendment with real teeth in it is like hoping the fox will guard the hen house. The only realistic path to saving the nation from bankkruptcy is to call an Article V convention.
I know. I know. All the pundits and the academics wring their hands at the mention of an Article V convention. They posit all kinds of horror stories, claiming that a convention can rewrite the Bill of rights. And on and on. Crapola folks. Sheer crapola. An Article V convention can't change a word of the constitution. All it can do is propose amendments. Nothing that comes out of a convention gets into the constitution until Congress sends it to the states and three fourths of the states - 38 - have ratified the amendment.
One has only to remember the ineffectual Graham-Rudman Act to realize how Congress would propose a toothless amendment, even if it were bludgeoned into doing something to ward off a convention.
A real, meaningful, effective balanced budget amendment would have to be simple, clear, and automatic. Here is some language I think worthy of consideration:
"The Congress shall not adopt a deficit budget except in time of national emergency. Members of Congress shall receive no compensation for services rendered during a national emergency."
It will take a convention to get those words into our constitution. Either we are a mature people capable of self government or we aren't. It's time for a gut check.
How long do you suppose that will last?
Ten trillion is too big a number to be easily understood. How about this number: you and I and every last man woman and child in this great nation is in hock for $34,525.
Liberal economists used to shrug off such numbers by saying, "We owe the national debt to ourselves, so what does it matter?" Not so, anymore. We owe it to the Chinese, the Saudis, the British. We owe it to all the nations of the European Union. No doubt we owe some of it to Osama Ben Laden's family if not to him.
Back in the Eighties, when Ronald Reagan was President, there was a rather vigorous effort to adopt a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Some thirty-two of the required thirty-four state legislatures petitioned the Congress to call a convention for the purpose of proposing a balanced budget amendment.
Many of the states, and President Reagan himself, were not really intent on getting a convention as contemplated by Article V of the Constitution. They just wanted to threaten a convention, in hopes that Congress would propose a balanced budget amendment and send it to the states to be ratified.
I never thought they were wise. Hoping that Congress would propose a constitutional amendment with real teeth in it is like hoping the fox will guard the hen house. The only realistic path to saving the nation from bankkruptcy is to call an Article V convention.
I know. I know. All the pundits and the academics wring their hands at the mention of an Article V convention. They posit all kinds of horror stories, claiming that a convention can rewrite the Bill of rights. And on and on. Crapola folks. Sheer crapola. An Article V convention can't change a word of the constitution. All it can do is propose amendments. Nothing that comes out of a convention gets into the constitution until Congress sends it to the states and three fourths of the states - 38 - have ratified the amendment.
One has only to remember the ineffectual Graham-Rudman Act to realize how Congress would propose a toothless amendment, even if it were bludgeoned into doing something to ward off a convention.
A real, meaningful, effective balanced budget amendment would have to be simple, clear, and automatic. Here is some language I think worthy of consideration:
"The Congress shall not adopt a deficit budget except in time of national emergency. Members of Congress shall receive no compensation for services rendered during a national emergency."
It will take a convention to get those words into our constitution. Either we are a mature people capable of self government or we aren't. It's time for a gut check.
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