BY DAVID SCULLY, EDITOR

Well, I've been
following the news
in the Sacramento Bee
pretty regularly
over the past 3 months,
and it was probably there
that I read
a troubling remark
attributed to
Justice Antonin Scalia.

The topic, with which
you should all
be familiar,
was the legality,
the constitutionality,
of displays
with religious content,
in public places.

Well, it's an
interesting topic
for debate and discussion,
but a certain statement
in the paper
troubled me.

The paper said
that Scalia said
that The Ten Commandments
were appropriate for display
in (a Court House, I think)

because they showed
that the
authority to govern
comes from God !

I sure hope
that the reporter
or somebody
at the paper
made a mistake
on this one,

Because,
if Justice Scalia said that
and believes that,
then that's a big problem.

People, it's very basic,
and simple, and fundamental
that that is what
the Englightenment
and the American Revolution
and the French Revolution
were all about !

The very
Declaration of Independence, itself,
makes it clear
(doesn't it ?) that
the authority to govern
is given to the government
  by the people !
And that authority
to govern
can be taken away
from the government
by the people
if the government abuses it.

That's what the whole
Declaration of Independence
was all about.
Now this is from memory,
but I believe
The Declaration stated
that the authority to govern
comes from the
consent of the governed,
freely given.

Then the rest of the Declaration
was a litany of the abuses
by the King of England
which impelled the governed
(The Americans)
to recall
the king's authority
to govern them.

Oh, My Dear, Thoughtful,
And Most Intelligent Readers !
Do you not recall
the recall election of 2003 1/2 ?

Do you not understand
that, in that recall election,
we took back
from Governor Davis
the authority
to govern us
that we had given to him
in the previous election ?

It's a
    CONTRACT !
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
I shouldn't have yelled.
It's bad behavior
and very inappropriate
and I promised
no more bad behavior.
I'm ashamed of myself.

But the point is
a very important one
that the authority
to govern
is given
by the governed.

Rousseau wrote about it,
I believe,
in a book titled,
"The Social Contract."

It's like picking
the Captain of a Ship,
or the Head
of a Wagon Train.
SOMEBODY'S got to
be in charge,
making decisions.
It's better than anarchy.

So we make a deal.
We give certain people
the job and responsibility
and perks of leading,
in return for doing
a reasonably good job at it.

The leaders have to fulfill
their part of the contract
by being
reasonably competent leaders,
or we can rescind the contract.

Usually, in America,
we just let the contract term
run out
and then elect someone else.
In the case of someone
really corrupt
and incompetent,
like Gray Davis,
we couldn't wait.

But, the point is,
the authority to govern
comes from the people.

That's the way it works.

WHY ?

You see, BEFORE
the American and
French Revolutions,
the rationale
indeed was
that the
Authority to Govern
came from God.

Then, we had Religious Tyranny.
People had no power,
no voice,
no representation.
Their authority to rule
came from God,
the tyrannous leaders said.
From God to the Pope
to the Kings. Period.
End of Story.
According to them,
God said it,
They believed it,
That was it.

Then, after the Dark Ages
came the 1700's,
the period called
The Enlightenment.
Get It ?
en LIGHTEN ment, as in
"turn on the light,"
"put on our thinking caps,"
ABILITY TO SEE
through it all.

Rousseau, Voltaire,
Thomas Paine,
Tom Jefferson,
George Washington,
and our beloved
Ben Franklin
and his beloved
mouse that roared
were all part
of this SUNBURST.

Now, you may
believe in God
(as I do)
and believe that
everything comes from God
(as I do).

So, in a deep,
philosophical sense,
I suppose you can argue
that all things come from God,
and that this includes
the authority to govern.

But, you see, the long history
of the affairs of man
has shown than men
can corrupt this idea
to serve their
own personal
self-gratification,
as it were.

They can just come along
and say,
"By the way,
I had a little talk with God,
and he told me
that I'm in charge
of everything down here."

Are you with me on this, people ?
Are you following
where this is going?

You know, some guy
can say he went
up into the mountains somewhere
(like upstate New York)
and God or some agent of God
(like an angel)
told him he was in charge.

It's like a bunch of kids
quarreling when the parents
go away, and one clever kid
comes in and announces
that mom and dad said
that he (or she)
should be in charge.

You know, it may very well be true.
It's hard, or even impossible,
to prove or disprove.

So, in the political world of men,
as in this case of the quarreling children,
it was decided
that a good way to govern,
a fair way to govern,
(not necessarily the best way
under all circumstances,
but a reasonably fair way to govern)
was to give everybody some representation
by giving them the chance to participate
in the selection of the leaders.

That's what they did in the 1700's, people.
That period is called The Enlightenment
(as opposed to The Dark Ages which
preceded it).  They decided to go about
selecting leaders in a more business-like
manner, rather than just taking
some bully's word for it
or some clever guy's word for it
that God said they were in charge.

So, you see it's not
the authority of God
that I'm challeging here,
or that the wizards
of the 1700's were challenging.
It's the corruption of man
that we're challenging.

Do you get that now?
It's really pretty much
sixth grade stuff.

So, Please, PLease, PLEASE
tell me that the newspaper
made a mistake.

Or, at the very least,
P L E A S E   tell me
that Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia
doesn't say what he means,
or doesn't mean what he says.

Then, I will truly
be a very happy man.


( :


*******


P.S.
By the way,
I do believe that displays
of the 10 commandments are appropriate
in judicial venues, along with other
law-related monuments,
because they are
historically important documents
upon which our laws evolved.

Next

Gossip Page !

Internal Memo !

Justice Scalia's Remark

New Pope Controversial !

No Plagiarism Here ! Honest !

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The Mental Illness Of Bill Harris