Good-bye Justice O’Connor. Good-bye.

The US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the (Republican) party’s rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.

~Justice Sandra Day O’Connor~

You know that our country is in trouble when you hear these words from a Republican appointed Justice of the Supreme Court (retired)

Many American’s have been pointing out that we are fast falling into a Fascist Dictatorship. And of course, they are instantly dismissed for using the “F” word. Remember “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power”. Benito Mussolini. And this is “The Corporate President and most of his Administration comes from the Corporate world, especially the Oil Industry”.

Justice O’Connor singled out a warning to the judiciary issued last year by Tom DeLay, the former Republican leader in the House of Representatives, over a court ruling in the “right to die” Terri Schiavocase case. After the decision by the courts, Mr. DeLay said: “The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior.” Mr. DeLay called for the impeachment of judges involved in the Schiavo case, and called for more scrutiny of an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at Congress and the president.

Justice O’Connor continued, ”These warnings pose a direct threat to our constitutional freedom. I want you to tune your ears to these attacks. You have an obligation to speak up. Statutes and Constitutions do not protect judicial independence, people do.”

”Death threats against judges were on the rise and the situation was not helped by a senior Senator’s remarks”. (Reference to Senator John Cornyn, who made his remarks last April, soon after a judge was shot dead in an Atlanta courtroom and the family of a federal judge was murdered in Illinois. He made the suggestion that there might be a connection between the violence against judges and the decisions they make).

”That if the courts did not occasionally make politicians mad they would not be doing their jobs, and their effectiveness is premised on the notion that we won’t be subject to retaliation for our judicial acts”.
Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, A Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the Supreme Court.

We will miss you on the Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor. Even though I did not agree with your decisions every time, I believe that you judged every case based on your opinion of the true meaning of the Constitution. Except for the decision you joined which installed Mr. Bush into the Presidential Office. I had hoped for our Constitutional Republic, that you would stay on for another three years. Or at least until we had a President who would appoint a Justice worthy of the postition. Now, we can only hope that all those sitting on this Supreme Court stay well and stay on the job until we do have such a President.

Good-bye Justice O’Connor. Good-bye.