Government in Exile

Is Political Correctness Destroying America?

"Ernie" has some thoughts on political correctness. 

I enjoyed reading Peter's article because it touched on a topic I wanted to write about....political correctness and how it's destroying our freedoms from top to bottom.  Whether its practicing our freedom of religion, our right to disagree, our freedom of speech or any/all of the other freedoms we've come to take for granted in a free society, they're being taken from us.  In simple terms we're losing the freedom to make our own life choices, or to just be ourselves.  Check out Common Core.  This travesty will take our career choices and our education choices away from the family and giving them to the government.  It would eliminate the right to home school our children.  Just another liberal program designed to "transform" America.

 

Many people think PC began under the Clinton administration, but actually it's been alive and well for thousands of years.  Everywhere there was an authoritarian style government, people were not allowed to voice an opinion or do anything that wasn't approved by the government.  Joseph Stalin was the most recent autocrat who demanded that people buy the government ideology or face punishment ranging from death to living forever in a Siberian gulag.

 

A noted authority on terrorism was asked by FOX yesterday what we need to do to protect ourselves from being destroyed by Muslim extremists.  His answer...."do away with political correctness".   How can we justify kissing the feet of people who want to wipe us off the face of the earth?  PC says because we want to show them that we're tolerant and respect their beliefs.  Okay, we've shown them so can we now shut down all the mosques in America, denounce Islam as an unrecognized religion, and quit sending them trillions of dollars for  their oil when we have more oil underground than they have?   An imam can rail against America, Jews, Christians, capitalism, American "luxuries", etc, and that's fine.  But just let a Methodist preacher read (from the Bible) something negative about same sex marriage, homosexuality or abortion, and the progressives want to shut him down, close his church and turn the ACLU loose on him.

 

I saw recently where a teacher was fired for giving a student a Bible.  It seems the student was constantly asking the teacher (outside the classroom) about various verses in the Bible.  When he asked the teacher if he could get him a Bible, the teacher took his own small Bible from his pocket and gave it to him.  He specifically told the student that it was a personal gift and had nothing to with school.  When the principal found out about it, he fired the teacher.  This is just one more example of PC gone crazy.  He could have given him a copy of the Koran and nothing would have been said.

 

There is an endless string of such examples of how PC is destroying our lives, and our country.  Over time I've even grown proud of some of the spiteful, insulting labels they hang on people like me.  Anything that shows I'm not "one of them" is OK fine with me.

Have We Raised a Generation of Obamabots?

"Ernie" has some thoughts on the loss of our freedoms.

     Some people have a problem defining freedom and liberty.  They do seem rather anonymous, especially to today's dumbed down electorate.  Freedom is basically the right to be free of government control, rules and regulations.  Liberty is defined as the type of government that grants you the right to exercise your freedoms.  Those are pretty general statements and would instigate healthy debates in most circles where contitutionalist adherents gather.  That would pretty  much rule out such locations as high schools and colleges.  For example, watching a youtube interview of students at Ohio State University, these brain dead "futures of the country" didn't even know what Benghazi or Libya was about.  They'd never heard of Ambassador Stevens.  All they knew was they were for Obama.  These kids had been thru high screwal and were half way thru college.  That bit of information should make you ultra proud of our educational system in this country.   In their defense, they did know who Angelina Jolene is and how to get their free stuff.

     The last time freedom and liberty made a bold and successful stand was in November, 2010.  That's when the TEA Party was able to generate enough patriotism to get many many conservatives elected at all levels of government throughout the country.  Now with the loss of Romney, the establishment republicans want to throw conservatives under the bus, jump on board the liberal express and ride it right into oblivion.  It seems winning is far more important than the constitution or American tradition and moral principles.  If we end up with 2 parties preaching from the same teleprompters, where does that leave America?  Answer.....to mimic and old song out of the 60's it leaves us on the "eve of destruction". 

 

     And with a poorly run campaign, the wrong candidate and the wrong campain strategists, who's being blamed for Obama's win?  Can you believe Rush Limbaugh, the TEA Party, Sean Hannity and anyone else who calls him/herself a conservative talk show host?  Obama and his Marxist pals have been trying to destroy talk radio for 5 years.  Who would have thought it would be the republicans to do the job for them.  Okay, back to liberty and freedom.  Are they dead?  Let's see:

 

* We've got Obama ready to turn the Supreme Court into a Marxist control board

* An Obama pledge to bypass congress to get his agenda passed

* Executive orders to implement Cap & Trade and rules/regs to strangle free enterprise to death

* A DOJ who serves the agenda of Obama rather than the Constitution

* Worst of all he's got a dumbed down, uninformed, mush brained electorate to keep him in office for as long as he wants

* A foreign policy that assures Iran gets a nuke, and Israel gets a war.

* A DOJ who'll sue anybody, any organization, any state or local government who defies Obama's Marxist dictates.
* An administration who's doing nothing to secure the border while Irani influences continue to expand like cancer in the Latin American  countries to our south.  No, he's encouraging even more illegal immigration.

 

  My view may be somewhat scewed by what I see happening to my country, but I think it's pretty close to where we are.  Freedom may not be dead...yet...but it's in bad need of R&M.  If today's conservatives don't fight for a return to fiscal sanity and compliance with the values and principles of the constitutional as was intended, then we're done as a nation of freedom and liberty.  This is not the time to run up the white flag, it's time to get busy and save this once fantastic country.

     We need some divine intervention here.

A Modern Day Book Burning

"Peter" has some thoughts on a modern day book burning.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/05/16/white-house-under-fire-for-adding-obama-policy-plugs-to-past-presidents-bios/

 

This is another example of a typical marxist practice. Simply rewrite history, and burn all the old books. They have done it in every country they took over.

 

When I was in mainland China, and it was my turn to host a dinner for the young engineers who were working with me, during the conversation I mentioned that they must be proud to live in a country with 4500 years of continuous history and unaltered civilization. They looked back at me, embarrassed and visibly afraid, as if I had advocated armed rebellion or something blasphemous. Then in a hushed voiced one of them sheepishly explained that the history of China began in 1949, when the current (communist) republic was founded by Mao; and that this is a topic that they do not discuss in public. I told them I spent my childhood in communist Hungary and I fully understand. In more rabid times just the look on their faces would have doomed them to torture and death.

 

Can it happen here? Is it happening here?

 

When SF built a new "modern" library, to replace the "old, inadequate one," and they discovered that it has LESS shelf space than the old one, they made a public announcement that they are offering to sell OLD books to the public, and anything they can't sell will go to the DUMP. They gave the public only a few days, in the middle of the week. Most books went to the dump.

 

What the heck is the purpose of a library if not to preserve history, to preserve civilization?

 

2. And what is the purpose of moving the storage of information from physical books to the ephemeral "cloud;" that is, internet servers under the control of whoever kowtows to their various lords and masters? This story, of Obama rewriting the biographies of past presidents, is one illustration what the purpose is of computerizing everything. 

 

Do you really think that once Google gets done scanning in all the contents of all of the world's libraries, that the contents will remain untouched, unedited and reliable as a historical record? Do you really think that "scholars" won't go back into the scanned documents to fix processing flaws, typos and to  "correct" historical "errors"?

 

 

Obama Writes He Was Born in Kenya

"Peter" has some thoughts on Obama and the "Birther" arguement.

Yea. Like a publicist would research, write or just make up this kind of stuff. No, it comes from the author:

 

Uh oh. Obama’s literary agent required clients to write their own bios » The Right Scoop -

 

Submission guidelines at the Dystel & Goderich website (original emphasis): “[Y]ou should describe in two or three sentences—no more—what the book will be about. This is followed by another brief paragraph on why it is being written and then another on why you are qualified to write it….Finally, there should be a more formal narrative Bio of the author.”

And therefore:

All material she used in our proposals came directly from me and my writing partner. She edited our rough-draft proposals and gave us feedback, but the final versions were all ours. Our final versions, bio included, were then simply photo-copied ...... I was asked to write the bio in the third person.

 

Why would they change the procedure just for Obama, in 1991 or 1998 or 2003 or 2005 or 2007? 

 

They wouldn't. Obama was just continuing his lifelong practice of changing his story for momentary personal gain, as he did in his school and college years, conveniently switching between minority and immigrant status and family names as he needed to. 

 

There is no mystery here, just calculated confusion.

 

Speaking of which, now there is a "documentary" claiming that Obama Sr, is not his father?

(Film: President’s father not Barack Obama). YEE HAW. Don't we live in interesting times...

 

Begin forwarded message:

 

Subject: Fwd: Hey birthers: In His Imperious Majesty's Own Words....

 

...And those of others:

 

Shocker! Obama was still ‘Kenyan-born’ in 2003

 

WND found an August 2003 listing of Dystel & Goderich’s author bios, including the following: “Barack Obama was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He was born in Kenya to an American anthropologist and a Kenyan finance minister, and was raised in Indonesia, Hawaii and Chicago. His first book is ‘Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.”  

 

the biographies are just a few of numerous published reports – as well as personal claims – that Obama was born abroad, including the recent testimony of a Chicago-area postal worker who reported he was told by the parents of Bill Ayers that Obama was a foreigner.

 

an internal bulletin from the Kenyan National Security Intelligence Service, or NSIS, that states that the Kenyan government in 2009 commissioned a cultural museum in the Obama home village of Kogelo to honor the “birthplace of President Barack Obama” ...... The Daily Nation, which published an artist’s sketch of the proposed Kogelo cultural center, referred to it as Obama’s “ancestral home.” ......Kenyan MP James Orengo at one point asked the nation’s parliament, “How could a young man born here in Kenya, who is not even a native American, become the president of America?” ...... after Obama’s election, MP Boni Khalwale asked fellow members, “Could we allow … a Motion for Adjournment so that we could also continue the celebrations of having a Kenyan ruling the USA?”

 

Michelle Obama herself created a stir of new questions when she spoke of her husband visiting “his home country in Kenya”

 

Begin forwarded message:

 

“Barack Obama, the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, was born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii” » The Right Scoop -

 

I guess this makes him one of the few people who can truly be called "African-American." This hyphenated formulation has traditionally been reserved to new or recent immigrants, not to people who have been Americans for dozens and dozens of generations....

 

 

Wikipedia - The Watchdog of Political Correctness

Who decides what is "controversial," and on what basis? 

What does this say about ANYTHING published on Wikipedia?

 

Wikipedia Entry on Obama/Biden ‘Forward’ Slogan Scrubbed of References to ‘Leftwing Newspapers & Publications,’ Sparks Censorship Debate | TheBlaze.com

 

the original entry had three citations: an NPR article, “Microform review, Volume 10,” and “Body Cultures: Essays on Sport, Space, and Identity.” But since the writing of this article, both “Microform” and “Body Cultures” have been removed.

 

any linking to socialist/communist causes would be original thought. 

 

Oh, no, the people must never know that "Forward" is a LONG time communist slogan, even used as a form of greeting to replace Hello, Good Bye, Good Morning, etc., and of course the title of countless communist publications all over the world. 

 

This is not OPINION, it is HISTORICAL FACT.

 

OPINION is when the reader concludes that Obama has been doing everything to rub your face into the fact he is a Muslim communist (FACT), and has been so since childhood (FACT), but he thinks he is free to toy with you as he pleases because you will never see through him and his well documented life-long associations (FACT). 

 

THAT is "opinion," or in Wikipedia parlance, "original thought."

 

 

American Government Burns Bibles to Appease Muslims

“Rook” has some thoughts on this video about the American government burning Bibles.  First, view the video.

 

http://patriotupdate.com/videos/shariamerica-islam-obama-and-the-establishment-clause  

“Well, we COULD

* Flood the war zones with thousands and millions more Bibles sent directly to the troops, 

 

* Court-martial the commanders who order such sacrilege, 

 

* Bring civil rights suits against the civilian officials who order such sacrilege, 

 

* Warn them that "we know where their families live," 

and picket their homes and offices,

 

* Threaten to de-fund the Pentagon's favorite programs, 

 

* De-fund the State Department's favorite programs, ...

 

“But of course we'll just ignore it, in the name of not wanting to enflame the rabid the "Arab street." Like spoiled toddlers, all they have to do is throw a tantrum -- the more murderous the better -- and we turn the other cheek, and even eat our own if necessary to prove that we are not on a "crusade."

 

“EXCEPT, we ARE on a crusade. By its very definition, a crusade as practiced a thousand years ago, even as today, is a military REACTION to sustained murderous Muslim attacks on Christians and other "infidels" for the simple reason that they are not Muslims. A thousand years ago the reason was the Muslim conquest and murder of Christians in the Holy Land. A decade ago it was a murderous Muslim attack on NYC and DC using our own airplanes as missiles. Our soldiers should be proudly wearing the crusader cross on their uniforms -- except we won't let them because our misguided civilian officials are desperately hoping against hope that we are engaged in "nation-building" and "spreading democracy" in lands, peoples, cultures and a religion that is totally incompatible with and incapable of understanding, accepting, accommodating and assimilating our western ideas and ideals. 

 

“The only reasonable or possible US foreign and domestic policy under these conditions would consist of:

 

1. Free trade, restricted to the exchange of goods, not free travel to our country.

 

2. Overwhelming military retaliation on their most sensitive targets -- military, governmental, civilian, religious --in case of terrorist or other attacks on our country.

 

3. Demand, on pain of deportation, that those muslims who already reside in our country actively support and engage in our anti-terrorist activities, using their knowledge of language and culture to help us foil their plots and round up the potential perpetrators.

 

4. Deport all imams who preach jihad and other forms of islamist expansionism. They already have their lands, let us have ours. We cannot tolerate and accommodate a religion of murderous intolerance to thrive among us in the name of "religions freedom;" the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If mosques and imams are to be tolerated in our country, they must be at the forefront of an Islamic Reformation that results in the conversion of Islam from violent and murderous evangelism to total tolerance of and co-existence with all faiths. Otherwise, send them all home and demolish their houses of "worship," eradicate all signs that they had ever set foot in our country -- as they have always done in countries that they conquered.”

 

Pastor Jones and the Quran Burning

 

  It appears Pastor Terry Jones has stirred up the proverbial hornets’ nest in Afghanistan and the Middle-East.  Jones, the head of a small church in Florida, had once before threatened to burn a copy of the Quran, but was persuaded to put down the torch by cooler heads.  Jones went ahead and with his planned burning on March 20, but this time with the added melodrama of a mock trial of Islam.  Then all hell broke loose, as the saying goes, when Afghans went on a rampage that has claimed 23 lives, including seven foreign U.N. staff and two Afghan police officers.

 

Angry protestors have laid siege to at least five major Afghan centers, with violence in Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

 

While much ink and airtime has been devoted to the Quran burning, almost no press attention was given to the mock trial of Islam.   According to CNS, only 30 people showed up, none of which were from the mainstream media.   One doubts that the trial would have changed many liberals’ minds; after all the activities of the Islamic fundamentalists are well known.  That would be well known to liberals, but not necessarily believed.  Most liberals tend to block out facts that conflict with their core beliefs.

 

Be that as it may, Terry Jones’s press releases were widely circulated in Muslim nations – and it did not go unnoticed.  As of this writing, their furor continues unabated.

 

Some serious and long ranging questions arise out of this Quran burning.  Jones was warned by our military that such an act would place our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.  And, yes, the riots and killings came as a direct result of the Quran burning.  On the other side, there are those who say Jones should be congratulated on bringing to light the excesses of radical Islam.  And, should Jones be intimidated by the mullahs, whose religious convictions lead them to openly encourage murder of those who believe differently.  Should the safety of our military and embassy personnel trump Jones’s right to tell the truth as he sees it.

 

The big question is what our government will do to restore calm to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and the other offended countries.  There are rumors our president and/or congress will issue some sort of official policy on the Quran burning.  If so, what kind of message does this convey to the world?  That intimidation works?  That we are wrong to condemn radical Islam?

 

Is Sharia Law Derived from the Old Testament?

There has been much discussion about Sharia law, which the average American assumes comes directly out of the Quran.  The news is replete with stories of women being stoned to death for adultery and other so-called “crimes,” honor killings, and horrible punishments of individuals for minor crimes.

 

Apparently, the Quran is often misunderstood, even by rank and file Muslims.  According to the Skepic’s Society there is no mention of execution by stoning in the Quran.  (The Skeptic’s Society is far from an apologist organization; they take a critical look at all of the holy books, including the Bible and the Book of Mormon.)  What is not understood by many is the fact that much of Sharia law is derived from the Hadith, which was written by Muslim scholars.  The Hadith was the scholars’ interpretation of what they thought Mohammed wished for his followers.

 

So, how did all of those horrible punishments wind up in Sharia Law.  Many suggest it was lifted from the Old Testament of the Bible, which contains the “law books” as written by Moses.  Below, is a list of verses taken from the Old Testament.   Does any of this sound familiar?

 

 

FOR TOUCHING MT SINAI

 

Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. Exodus 19:13

 

FOR TAKING ACCURSED THINGS

 

Achan ... took of the accursed thing. ... And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned them with stones. ... So the LORD turned from the fierceness of his anger. Joshua 7:1-26

 

CURSING AND BLASPHING

 

And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. Leviticus 24:16

 

ADULTRY

 

If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. Deuteronomy 22:23-24

 

ANIMALS

 

If an ox gore a man or a woman, that they die: then the ox shall be surely stoned. Exodus 21:28

 

WOMEN WHO HAVE PREMARITIAL SEX  (Honor Killings)

 

If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her ... and say, I took this woman, and when I came to her, I found her not a maid: Then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel's virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: And the damsel's father shall say ... these are the tokens of my daughter's virginity. And they shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. ... But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not found for the damsel: Then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her with stones that she die. Deuteronomy 22:13-21

 

WORSHIPING OTHER GODS

 

If there be found among you ... that ... hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them ... Then shalt thou ... tone them with stones, till they die. Deuteronomy 17:2-5

 

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers ... thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 13:5-10

 

DISOBEYING PARENTS  (Honor Killings)

 

If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother ... Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city ... And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die. Deuteronomy 21:18-21

 

WITCHES AND WIZARDS

 

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. Leviticus 20:27

 

GIVING YOUR CHILDREN TO MOLECH  (An ancient Semitic god in particular a god of the Phoenicians, and the name of a particular kind of child sacrifice associated with that god.)

 

Whosoever ... giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. Leviticus 20:2

 

BREAKING THE SABBATH

 

They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. ... And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones.... And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses. Numbers 15:32-56

 

CURSING THE KING

 

Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die. 1 Kings 21:10

 

One cannot help but see the irony in the similarity between the laws laid out in the Old Testament versus what is practiced by those adhering to Sharia Law.  Can the Jewish law of old be that different from what is practiced in Sharia Law?

 

Empathy and American Politics

Are we losing our empathy for our fellow man?  A new study, led by Sara H. Konrath of the University of Michigan, found that college students’ empathy has declined since 1980, with an especially steep drop in the past 10 years. To make matters worse, during this same period students’ narcissism has reached new heights, according to research by Jean M. Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University.

 

Researchers found in a Yale study that suggests the lack of empathy starts when one is a toddler.  However the Michigan study cites the increase in social isolation, which has coincided with the drop in empathy.  Americans are now more likely to live alone and less likely to join social groups, such as existed as recently as the ‘60s.

 

According to the Scientific American, Steve Duck of the University of Iowa has found that socially isolated, as compared with integrated, individuals evaluate others less generously after interacting with them, and Kenneth J. Rotenberg of Keele University in England has shown that lonely people are more likely to take advantage of others’ trust to cheat them in laboratory games.

 

Reading may be linked to empathy. In a study published earlier this year, psychologist Raymond A. Mar of York University in Toronto and others demonstrated that the number of stories preschoolers read predicts their ability to understand the emotions of others. Mar has also shown that adults who read less fiction report themselves to be less empathic.

 

While one may disagree with the reasons for the decline in empathy, it may have a long-range impact on politics.  Will voters tend to look at social situations more critically, thus lessening the liberal’s grip on their social agenda?  To what extent will the lack of empathy reach in the next 30 years?

Will California's Jerry Brown be Tough on Criminals?

Jerry Brown, aka “Governor Moonbeam,” will once again assume his throne in January.  Why he was elected can only be laid to the fact that nearly 30 years has passed and a new generation of voters voted in the recent election.  And, the older voters had forgotten why they were glad to see him go when he was governor the first time. 

Those people might do well to read Edward R Jagel’s new book, Jerry’s Judges.  Jagels is Kern County’s long serving District Attorney.

The review and Ed Jagel’s comments are on Amazon.com and quoted below.  It’s worth the read if you’re interested in Jerry Brown’s appointments. 

“By 1981, Governor Jerry Brown’s appointments to the State Supreme and appellate courts had changed the azimuth of California criminal law and procedure. As this book demonstrates, his appointees, some personally strange or venal and some merely dedicated ideologues, transformed the State’s criminal jurisprudence into something which lawyers in the rest of the nation found almost incomprehensible.

I well remember during that time attending a National District Attorneys Association narcotics conference in Kansas City for prosecutors from throughout the nation. During the group discussions, I would occasionally explain some aspect of judicially created law or procedure imposed by Brown’s judges. My colleagues were shocked, fascinated, and aghast. By the end of the conference, whenever the moment called for some comic relief, they would ask me to “tell a California story!”

“While I was happy to amuse my prosecutorial colleagues, it really wasn’t a laughing matter. It seemed that each week a new blockbuster decision would come down from Brown’s judges, depriving the police or the prosecution of a tool they had previously been able to utilize. Evidence admissible in any other court in the country became inadmissible in California. Police techniques or activities perfectly legal in the rest of the nation were held to be illegal in our state. Rules of criminal procedure which attempted to balance the defendant’s rights with those of victims, witnesses and jurors were struck down, all to the benefit of criminals. Thousands upon thousands of serious cases went unsolved or unprosecuted in California. As a result, thousands of people who otherwise would have been protected by the criminal justice system became future victims.

"Although the death penalty was not the most important aspect of the Jerry Brown judicial revolution, it was the thing that got the most public attention. Nothing better illustrated the result-oriented fanaticism of Brown’s judges than his Supreme Court appointees’ determination to abolish the death penalty, in fact if not in law. In case after case, Brown’s majority on the Supreme Court combed through the record, discovering reversible error where it did not exist. Perhaps the most notorious vehicle adopted by the Court to insure wholesale reversal of death penalty sentences was its invention of an “intent to kill” requirement in felony murder cases. That is, Brown’s judges ruled that the prosecution was required to prove that a particular defendant intended to kill the victim during the commission of an inherently dangerous felony such as robbery, rape or residential burglary. Obviously, death penalty juries had not been instructed on this “intent to kill” requirement, since it was found nowhere in the statute. Brown’s justices simply invented it out of whole cloth so they would have a rationale for reversing the death sentences.

“The Attorney General attempted to save some of these convictions by arguing that in many cases the evidence of intent to kill was so overwhelming that any “error” was harmless, and therefore that the convictions and sentences should be affirmed. Not so, opined Chief Justice Rose Bird, Brown’s most notorious appointee. Even in the case of a Brinks guard shot by the defendant five times in the chest at point blank range, she speculated that perhaps the defendant shot “with the intent to wound the guard – so he would release the money bag.” (People v. Fuentes [1985] 40 Cal. 3d 269).

"The damage done to the criminal justice system by Jerry Brown’s judges received enormous attention and culminated in 1986 with the unprecedented election defeat of three of his Supreme Court appointees, Bird, Joseph Grodin, and Cruz Reynoso.

"But while the public’s attention was focused on the Brown judges’ anti-public safety crusade, equal damage was being done on the civil side. Governor Brown’s judicial appointees never saw a property right that couldn’t be compromised, a government act that infringed on a citizen’s freedom (unless that act was perpetrated by the police), or a company or corporation that couldn’t be held liable for unlimited punitive damages. The harm to California’s economy created by the Brown judicial system’s anti-business bias far outlasted the Governor’s term in office.

 “Recently I asked Jerry Brown, now the Attorney General, what sort of judges he would appoint were he to be elected Governor again. He replied that he probably wouldn’t appoint judges of the sort he had chosen the first time around, but that “they won’t be judges that you’ll like either.” Fair enough. It is not a Governor’s job to appoint judges whom prosecutors like, but given Jerry Brown’s history of judicial appointments, as discussed in this volume, it behooves every Californian to make a serious study of his legal philosophy.”

 

Yes, I’ll be we won’t like his choices for judges.