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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lane3 who wrote (84598)	9/15/2008 3:28:36 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541219

I assume your point about the courts is about the political war, not the street-level culture war, which seems to pretty much ignore the machinations of the courts. I see a much more mixed bag on what you are calling the street level. The textbook war is almost, for instance, lost in Texas and if that becomes the case it will be hurt nationally. Abortion rights are severely limited, in practice, in a great many states with little defense of a woman's right. The DOJ no longer provides protection for women at abortion clinics (Reno prosecuted violaters vigorously so long as federal law was involved.) Gay rights is a very mixed bag--some improvements but most very vulnerable. I could go on. ON the political level, the SC decision on gun control was a bad one, leaving it difficult for cities to control gun violence; Roe v Wade hangs by the slender thread of one vote; some appellate courts (the one that includes Texas for certain) are largely right wing bulwarks, the Federalist Society; Kennedy's vote in the gay rights cases could be swamped by a right wing appointment to replace Stevens or Ginsberg or Souter. I could go on. I simply think a great deal hangs in the balance right now. A McCain election fueled by Palin most likely drops the country into four years of genuinely intense culture wars stuff. It may well do so if Obama wins but, at least at the moment, that looks less likely. Particularly if it includes a filibuster proof majority in the senate. I would think 57/58 might do that.