The Creeping Dark

It really hasn't been my intention to turn this into one of those political blogs, but sometimes politics seep in, much like the contents of a poorly maintained septic system. Well, I wasn't really going to post anything political until I got a gander at this editorial in the New York Times today. I then went around the Internet checking on quotes from different perspectives, and they all read the same.

So, I went to Senator Cornyn's website and sent the following email:

Dear Sen. Cornyn,

I've read reports from several different sources representing varied points of view concerning your recent remarks about the courthouse shooting here in Atlanta and the murder of Judge Lefkow's husband and mother in Chicago. Your remarks were inappropriate, thoughtless, politicized, and foolish.

On top of that, they were plain wrong.

Let me remind you that neither of these crimes was committed out of the frustration of which you speak. The murder of Judge Lefkow's husband and mother was motivated by her throwing out a lawsuit that is precisely the kind of lawsuit you and your Republican cohorts would like to do away with entirely. Her decision was correct and non-political.

Brian Nichols, the shooter here in Atlanta, has been quoted as saying that Judge Barnes was providing him with as fair a trial as possible. And, if the act were political in any way, it was as a reaction against the disproportionate incarceration of black men in this country, an imbalance that is exacerbated by a series of draconian laws promoted and pushed into law by the Republican Party.

Finally, even if these crimes had been committed as a result of the motivations that you ascribe to them, the people who would stand guilty of inciting those crimes would not be the judges, but the politicians, such as yourself, who speak recklessly and who wallow endlessly in a puddle of low cant.

At the very least, you owe an apology to Judge Lefkow and the family of Judge Barnes. To do that is the minimum; to do less is to push us one step closer to the dark.

Barry Goldwater is famous for having said that "Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," however, he was wrong. Extremists are like the crazy people who would kill their families in order to save them. And this is the right-wing approach to liberty. They seek to preserve it by destroying it because they secretly fear and loathe it.

Should anyone wish to contact Senator Cornyn himself, the page where the his contact information can be found is http://www.cornyn.senate.gov/contact/index.html.