Wednesday, November 05, 2008

May God Bless and Guide the President Elect

Congratulations to President Elect Obama. The best thing about his election is that it shows that whatever difficult people may still exist in the world, if, in America, you are smart, hard working, friendly, well spoken, polite, optimistic and creative, you can become or do almost anything humanly possible – including becoming President – no matter who your parents were or were not, no matter where your ancestors were from, and no matter what your background has been.
In addition, all the leftists who predicted the Republicans could or would steal the election, or that Americans were too racist to elect Obama, were proved wrong.

No country is perfect. But by the grace and mercy of God America is a great and very blessed country. I hope Obama's election reminds people of that.

We will now see what the Democrats can do to fulfill their many conflicting promises of utopia. I am confident that if closely observed, the Democrats will demonstrate they are even more involved in what remains of legal opportunities for graft and government partnership with “big business” than the Republicans, despite folk legends and examples to the contrary.

I hope and pray we do not see laws and Presidential orders dehumanizing very young and very old human beings signed by the very man who claims to be the embodied remedy for past dehumanizations of minorities. I hope and pray we can avoid a more costly war than the one we now face. I hope and pray our religious liberties will not be trashed by those appointed by a man who used more religious language and iconography in his campaign than anyone in memory. I hope and pray the government does not seize our retirement accounts "for our own good" or limit access to beneficial medical treatment. And I hope and pray the government does not worsen the economic crisis in the name of saving us from its deprivations. Actually I have little hope. But not no hope. Nothing is impossible for God - but many things are impossible for man, whether we say "yes we can." So long as we remember we are not God, respect the rules and order he established, and seek God's help, there is real hope. If we think we can build heaven on earth by human means there is no hope for those plans to succeed.

Best of wishes to President elect Obama. May he have four wonderful years in the White House that are much much better for America than I expect.

5 comments:

C Stevenson said...

Will Obama increase the size of Supreme Court, to tip the balance toward the left?

The most far-reaching impact a president has is whom he names as judges, whether Justices of the Supreme Court, or lower court judges. A judge has tenure long after the president who appointed him retires. His decisions influence generations long after the judge is dead. This term’s crop of lower court judges become next term’s crop of SCOTUS candidates.

Sans untimely tragedy, President Obama will probably have a chance to replace at least two of the more liberal justices (who happen to be the most elderly) with other liberal judges, thus maintaining the current balance, which is conservative enough to thwart some of his dreams.

When FDR was confronted with a similar problem, he tried to swing the court in his favor by adding more seats to the court. That particular effort was frustrated, but what about today? The duties of a Justice seem to have grown as the country has grown. Is it time to enlarge SCOTUS? An act of Congress could change 9 to 11. If 60 Democrats make Senate filibuster-proof, with will he do what FDR couldn’t?

There are still 2 senate seats undetermined. If the Senate remains filibuster-able (filicombustible?), it is time for John McCain to prove to some of us skeptics that his “Gang of Fourteen” was right. Let him prove this supposed leadership that he could not convince us of during the last election. He must revive The Gang and steer a more moderate course toward the middle, away from the left, as he did when his Gang steered us away from the right, toward the middle.

Professor McConnell said...

C,
Yes, the most difficult problem posed by Obama in the white house is the possible affect of his appointments to the Supreme Court. We are within one vote of overturning abortion on demand. If Obama is able to appoint justices to the Supreme Court, the pro-abortion majority may be preserved by Obama for another generation. Some of the pro-abortion judges are quite aged, so they may retire and be replaced by younger judges. I hope and pray the relatively pro-life judges hang in there for eight years if necessary and that if Obama replaces a pro-abortion judge, he chooses someone who turns out to be pro-life. "Conservatives" have been repeatedly hoodwinked by choices who prove to be different from what they expected. I hope that Obama gets a more pro-life, pro-rights, pro-property, pro-morality judge than he bargained for (thought the left is far more careful; about these things and has more people to choose from, so it seems unlikely from an empirical standpoint.)

C Stevenson said...

What do you think of the likelihood of increasing the number of Justices on the Supreme Court if he has a Democratic house & 60 Democratic Senators? I've never heard anyone suggest it. Maybe I should keep quiet!

Professor McConnell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Professor McConnell said...

Wow. I suppose they could try - F.D.R. did. I do not know if the so called Blue Dogs would break party discpline to block such a move or not. It certainly could cost the democrats at the next election cycle. Judging by the way they are handling appointments they seem sensitive to the threat of the ballot box. Son they might hold back from court packing.