my, how time flies...
i have been tweaking (you know how i am with tweaking...) a new blog which i started on a whim. i guess the germ of the concept was planted when bernard (happy birthday, bernard!) told me of a court case in which a former FBI agent accused of drunk driving was ordered to repeat, exactly, the hoisting of drinks and gorging of Mexican food he did on the night in question. The judge in that case -- apparently a 'law-and-order' man -- is engaging these extraordinary departures from judicial practice in an effort to acquit the lawman based on some bizarre logic that says we can make you repeat what you said you did (as if that's the truth) and thereby 'prove' that you were not drunk (as if that's proof).
it started me thinking how there may be many ultra-conservative, fanatically religious, racially biased judges out there who, inspired by the Supreme Court's gerrymandering of law, may now feel freed from the judicious restraint they have imposed on their biases in the past. why bother now that the gang of five has, on the basis of untenable arguments, so vigourously expressed their true colors? <fade to rehnquist doing plies in a sunny flowered field while cindy lauper sings>
well anyway, that's what got me started on starting the other blog, and to tell the truth, it scares me, looking at those fleeting dark thoughts out here in print, and observing the shift in the behavior of many judges and the new boldness of some of them to violate long-standing ethical prohibitions against partiality.
there is a courthouse in worcester, massachusetts with this harsh motto carved in stone: obedience to law is liberty. i have never liked it, but my observations of new judicial excursions outside the law while under the color of authority make me want to re-carve it thus: obedience to truth is liberty.