Don't Tell Me About Disrespect (Rush: Liberals Think We're Mad And They Don't Have A Clue Alert)

RUSH: Jim in Clearwater, Florida. Welcome to the EIB Network. Great to have you with us.

CALLER: Yeah, thanks, Rush. I guess I can't believe I got through. I've never called before and I've never even tried to call before, but I think -- I'm an attorney here in Clearwater. This is where the Schiavo case originated many years ago. I know Judge Greer. I practiced before him, and in this case, I just think you're fostering a level of disrespect for the courts out there that's really dangerous. This is not the San Francisco appeals district. If Congress wanted that judge in 11th District Court in Atlanta to act differently, they should have worded their bill differently because the Schiavos came in asking for injunctive relief to require the tube to be put back in and to get injunctive relief under the rules of law, they've got to show that they have a clear and convincing chance of prevailing at trial. That's the standard that they could not meet, and the courts -- my point is, the courts -- are just doing their job. If the Congress wanted them to apply a different standard, then they should have added language to the effect that, "Okay, notwithstanding, you know, prior law and injunctive relief, you know, you shall put the tube in and then hear the whole case from the beginning." Whatever. But I think other hosts are trying to say that, "Okay, this is, you know, more of the same from the courts and, blah, blah, blah, and they're no good and all," and they're going to make people think every time there's a judicial opinion that it's some wild judge just doing whatever he wants to do.

RUSH: Well, I understand your sensitivity to this as a member of the bar. I understand a lot of people's sensitivity to this. But it's not just the judicial results in this case. Once again, I want to emphasize: This case allows light to shine on a whole bunch of things that are happening in society. I think, you know, everything you've said, I will accept as true since you're an officer of the court, since you're a member of the bar. I don't want to argue with you about it, but what it all boils down to at the end is that we have a government starving a citizen. The judicial branch is a branch of government. You know, there's going to be a lot of debates when this is all over: Who killed Terri? Some are going to say, "Michael Schiavo killed Terri," and some are going to say, "Jeb Bush killed Terri because he didn't act." The judiciary killed Terri. They're the ones that demanded that feeding tube come out and they're the ones that prevented that it go back in, and so --

CALLER: Well, there's an interesting identical case, the Cruzan, Nancy Cruzan case several years ago, where the parents wanted to allow her to die naturally and take her off of any artificial means of keeping her alive and the courts would not do it. So, I mean, the courts --

CALLER: I believe that was early '90s. It's a car crash [1983] and her brain was deprived --

RUSH: Maybe. I think it was a little earlier than that, ten, 15, 20 years ago. Whatever. Look at what's happened since. Now the courts do just the opposite. I understand all of this about the husband and the spousal rights and so forth. I just can't get past the fact there's no living will, there's no document here. But I don't even want to talk about that. I mean, because this is... This is... I'm just going to be repeating myself. But to answer your question, which is a good one, on a broader scale, we have the US Supreme Court now deciding policy, not law. The US Supreme Court -- and a bunch of courts, federal courts, judicial districts and so forth, District Courts, judges -- are imposing personal policy preferences. We've got judges who are usurping the power of the commander-in-chief on the conducting of the war on terror, vis-a-vis granting prisoners of war -- terrorist prisoners of war -- due process under the US Constitution as POWs. It's never happened before. We've got judges saying prisoners can't be transferred from Gitmo to other jails because they might be abused somewhere. We got judges interceding all over the place and people just accept it because they think there's nothing that we can do and there clearly is something that we can do. When you have the Supreme Court overruling state law on any number of cases that have come before them in the last three to four years alone, and then using foreign law or "international custom" or saying, "We should have signed a treaty that we didn't sign," like the International Rights to the Child Treaty.

That was the basis on which the Supreme Court ruled that juvenile death penalty cases are unconstitutional. We didn't even sign the treaty; we haven't even ratified the treaty, but yet the Supreme Court thought it was decent enough. So what you've got in many cases is judges using the power of their position to implement their policy positions, their personal policy positions, and then calling this law. Now, my point is, you know, when you foster disrespect for the courts, understand there's a risk for that, but I'm not suggesting anything other than constitutional means to deal with this. I'm not suggesting that people overrun the courts. I'm not suggesting that people ignore the rulings. I'm not suggesting that people throw up their hands and say, "Screw you," to the court. What I'm suggesting is that it is constitutional in this country for the courts to also be checked and balanced. The Constitution provides mechanisms whereby the people, through their elected representatives, can reign in the judiciary if it's out of control -- and I'll tell you, when American constitutional law gets determined by international custom or a treaty that hasn't been ratified, or some such thing, and it keeps on going; when courts find things not in the Constitution and say they are there, and when courts ignore things in the Constitution and say, "They're outdated. This is a living, breathing document, needs to expand, bend and shape," I'm suggesting only that there are remedies for this within the bounds of the US Constitution.

The Constitution can be amended. We could give Congress -- Congress could give itself; it doesn't have the guts to do it, but if they wanted to -- Congress could pass a law that would give itself veto rights over Supreme Court decisions. This would be totally constitutional for them to do. Now, you wouldn't believe when I tell people that, they think I have lost my mind. They think I don't understand the Constitution. They think I don't understand how the government works. What's happened is that the courts have become infallible. They've become the last step, the final straw, whatever they say goes, and as such, American policy and American political decisions are being decided there rather than in the halls of Congress and in the Senate, where our elected representatives are. It's one thing for these courts to come out and, say, "Okay, this is what we think is constitutional and what isn't. This is the law. This is this," but they don't have to administer it. They don't have to implement it. All they've got to do is rule on it. Other people have to go out and implement it and enforce it, and if the people that enforce these laws say, "This law, it's crazy." There is a means of dealing with this. I'm not trying to foster disrespect. I'm trying to inform people that the courts may be a little out of control here -- and not just in the Schiavo case, and that's why I've been talking about this for weeks before the Schiavo case hit the front burner. I appreciate your concern, but I don't know what else is going on out there, but storming the courts and ignoring them? That's not me. I'm not advocating it. I haven't even implied it nor suggested it.

RUSH: You know, this business of disrespecting the courts and disrespecting the judiciary? How many of you are skeptical of Congress on a daily or weekly basis? How many of you are skeptical of the president, no matter who he is? How many of you are skeptical of the Senate? I mean, we are constantly skeptical of power. We're especially interested in power, particularly power that's unchecked in a constitutional representative republic, such as ours. Are we not supposed to criticize Congress? Are we not supposed to criticize the president? Are we not supposed to criticize them? You talk about disrespecting and causing all kinds of acrimony. What about the left's criticism of Bush, Bush equals Hitler and so forth? What about all of that? There's this First Amendment that protects all this stuff. It's called free speech, and you deal with it in the arena of ideas. You discredit the people you think are wrong or you try to, and make your own case. It's a battle for the hearts and minds of the American people. It always has been. It always will be. I'll never forget, folks, one of the most tragic periods of time in my career. Yu know, people around saying, "Oh, you must have loved the Clinton presidency. Well, look at all you had to work with every day." You remember the Oklahoma City bombing and Mike McCurry and the Clinton administration attempting to blame me and talk radio for it because we were supposedly antigovernment and ginning up hate for the government and this sort of stuff? And then we refused to take this. I refused to accept it.

I'm not going to have the president of the United States blaming me for this. I had no role in it. You know, wackos go out and do what they do. (CNN: Defense: Waco Fueled McVeigh's Anti-Government Passion) The idea that the only wackos that behave on the right wing as wackos are motivated by talk radio or Fox News or what have you. That's what they attempted to imply back then, and we forced them to back down and they said, "Oh, no, no! We meant the Michigan militia shortwave network." That was the way they got around, but they still tried. They still tried. So I've been through all of this. I've had people tell me, "You're fomenting disgust," and all this sort of stuff and trying to blame me, and you in this audience, you're just a bunch of mind-numbed robots and, of course. You don't have minds of your own. You only do and perform the marching orders that I and other talk radio hosts give you and so forth. That's an age-old complaint. Nothing's new. The other night on Charlie Rose -- now just get this -- Jon Klein, who is the new president of CNN was on with Charlie rose. In fact, I've got the sound bite rather than just paraphrase it. It's audio sound bite #1. If you want to rather something that goes back to the very beginning, this is a rap that was placed on this program as early as 1989. Here is Charlie Rose and Jon Klein of CNN discussing the success of Fox News and me and here's Rose's question. He says, "If you look at talk radio, most people believe that talk radio is more conservative than it is middle of the road or even liberal. It's more right center than it is left. Fox clearly more right center than it is left. If, in fact, not Roger Ailes but somebody else had come in and not Murdock and said, "We believe there's the absence of progressive opinion as people now believe on cable news, would that...?" (laughter) Charlie! There's the absence of progressive opinion on cable news? (Chuckles) Anyway, these people live in a fog. Anyway, "As many people believe on cable news, would that have been successful on Fox has been if somebody had tried a liberal network before Fox tried being 'fair and balanced'? My question said another way, Jon, is this: Is it the fact that they have a formula and it doesn't matter what the politics are, or are the politics do make a difference? Which is it?"

KLEIN: They've tapped into an outrage that's lurking among a certain small segment of the population, mostly angry white men and those men tend to be rabid, they tend to be habitual, they tend to like to have their points of view reinforced. And a, quote-unquote, progressive or liberal network probably couldn't reach the same sort of an audience because liberals tend to like to sample a lot of opinions [sic].

KLEIN: -- and, you know, they don't get too worked up about anything and they are pretty morally relativistic and so, you know, they allow for lots of stuff [sic].

KLEIN: You know, Fox is very appealing to people who like to get worked up about stuff.

RUSH: So we're back now. The cycle repeats itself, and I long ago learned to ignore it. If these dunces want to continue to sit here and not learn why it is that their competitors are out-rating them, that's fine. Helps us all out. Now we're back to "angry white men." You people just a bunch of angry white men. You are idiots and all you are is "pissed off." As CNN's new guy with Charlie Rose. You're just mad. You're just angry. You're just pissed off, and you want to stay mad, and so what I and Fox News do for you is keep you mad and keep giving you reasons to get mad while the liberals like to have a loooooot of different opinions. Oh, of course! They like to sample a lot of different opinions. He got one thing right. They are morally relativistic. They do have a relative moral code, folks. It shifts as the sun crosses the sky. That is the one thing he got right.

Yeah - liberals are enlightened to the point of having different opinions - on good and evil. They're the ones calm and rational and in contrast, the people who watch cable news are angry white men filled with seething rage who blindly follow the Maha Rushie's orders. You conservatives are just a bunch of easily commanded idiots. Give it up - liberals are way smarter than you and keep your bleeping disrespect of THEIR courts to yourselves. And yeah... the sky's green and the grass is blue.

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

I heard this bozo today. My ears perked up because I've had the sad occasion to become acquainted with numerous Clearwater attorneys. It's a despicable lot.

Let the jurists earn our respect, like everyone else has to.

The caller says: "I just think you're fostering a level of disrespect for the courts out there that's really dangerous."

Ain't that just like a Democrat? They demand respect without earning it.

Disrespect of the courts if fairly uniform throughout society, except in the minds of the lawyers who make their living sucking up to the judges.

Just look at what happened in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago ~ a judge was killed at his bench, a couple of courthouse guards were also killed, as well as a customs guy.

So, who did we all focus on? Well, it wasn't the judge and his cadre of armed guards ~ we felt sorry for the poor customs guy, and spoke well of the court reporter who was killed, and actually made a public hero of the lady who was taken hostage but talked the killer into surrendering.

So why was it we didn't particularly care about the judge?

Whatever the reason, I really don't think the actions of the courts in the Schiavo case have done anything to change our collective minds.

This is, in the long run, very bad news for judges. It's a shame none of them understand, or can understand it!

Read this over and send it to Rush. http://www.caught.net/juror.htm

It's time to overturn the 1895 supreme court ruling that jurors need not be told of their rights. It's time to return judges to the position of simple mediators.

Nancy Cruzan did not starve to death. She was removed from the respirator but lived another 7 (SEVEN) years with a feeding tube. She DID die of natural causes. A fact the evil ones fail to mention.

Any respect I had for the judicial branch is gone.

A Congress and a President and a Governor (alleged) say to a judge, "Do you mind if we try to save an innocent life here, please?" And some judge says "No", and so they all back down. Terri needed a hero, but there aren't any left. Not congress, not the President and as sure as Hades, not the alleged Governor of Florida.

This is, in the long run, very bad news for judges. It's a shame none of them understand, or can understand it!

They have too much clout - real or imagined - to care, IMO. History is full of misguided, thick, and/or evil judges, most with the hubris of an emperor.

Rush says he is not fomenting disrespect for courts. Well then somebody has to. They are a pack of ranting sophists and self important idiots proclaiming their windbag fantasies as laws, as though the rest of us can't be expected to tie our shoes, let alone read English sentences in documents our actual representatives drafted. They are out and out tyrants and they ought to be impeached wholesale, and until they are, I suggest the next time anybody gets a court ruling they interpret that ruling as "innovatively" as courts have been "interpreting" the law. Just make up whatever the heck you want and pretend that is what they meant, and do what you were going to do anyway. And let them lecture us about the meaning of their edicts, for a change. We can blow raspberries at them as easily as they blow them at us. At some point maybe they will realize, their authority was granted on the express condition that they read and follow the actual law, not make up whatever they want and try to shove it down our throats.

Put me down as one who won't give a damn the next time I hear about a judge getting shot. I have lost all respect for laws and courts as a result of this. And anyone charged with carrying out the orders of the courts is suspect as well. It's all nothing more than an exercise of raw and brutal power by barbaric pagans in black robes.

The Bush brothers (of whom I am a supporter) have failed miserably on this one because they were so afraid of a "constitutional crisis". Well, here's a clue, boys: we've been heading for this constitutional crisis ever since our elected representatives rolled over and allowed the courts to start witing law. What both the Bush boys missed was a chance to turn that back.

I'll get flamed for saying I don't give a damn if some judge is shot. I'm not endorsing it, but I believe it's going to happen. I'll get flamed for seeing the failure to act decisively on the part of George and Jeb Bush. Flame away 'cause I don't give a damn about that either.

In my opinion, first one up for impeachment would be Judge Greer. I pray the people in Florida correct that problem ASAP. Next, the Republicans in Congress need to find their manhood (do you think that's possible?) and stop the Liberals threatening filibuster.

I think there needs to be a thread about what happens once Terri passes on (barring a miracle of the first order, I feel pretty certain that the Libs won't allow any other outcome -- their political power in this country depends upon it). If there is to be any justice, this judge must not be allowed to remain on the bench. Is he elected or appointed? Can he be recalled? I understand that one has to show cause in order to impeach someone, but it seems to me that it's high time to start serving notice to activist judges -- if they start acting like God, they can kiss their benches goodbye.

Gee. We can criticize the President. We can criticize the Congress. . but don't anyone DARE to criticize the Judiciary. They have assumed the positions of little demigods and big demigods in the case of the Supreme Court. Checks and balances are DESPERATELY NEEDED, and they need to have started years ago.

They'd all be much better behaved if they removed all that security at the front door of the courthouses where they work.

Old time judges, who were respected, kept a pistol under the bench for use if needed. People came to court on an equal footing with the judge, not as their inferiors!

Well, I care if a judge or lawyer gets shot because that is a crime, and crime harms us all, directly or indirectly.

Moreover, it is one thing to say you have lost respect for the courts, and quite another to say you have lost respect for laws. The two are not the same except in the fantasies of judges and lawyers.

That said, I agree that "our elected representatives rolled over and allowed the courts to start writing law." What worries me is that so few of our fellow citizens see anything wrong with that.

Why did Michael Shiavo, after the medical records were finally released to the Schindlers, seem to suddenly be concerned about getting a cremation order? Or, am I mistaken about the order of occurrences?

He may not be guilty of injuring her initially, but then cremation in the event of Terri's death should be barred due to the absolutely questionable way it looks. At that point, a Christian burial after her religious beliefs should go to her basic Constitutional rights.

Erm, I was raised Catholic, and (someone correct me if I'm wrong), I don't think there's anything wrong with cremation in the Catholic church. It generally isn't done (family plots are tradition), but I don't recall any of the nuns in grade school mentioning it as a sin. Of course, the Catechism is pretty long and it could be in some subsection there, but I think I would have remembered that.

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