Five girls, seven killers, one nation
In 1993 Jose Medallin his 14 year-old brother and four other men tortured, raped and murdered two teenage girls, Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena. Jose confessed and was awaiting execution when the Mexican government demanded that since he hadn't been told he could call them, the conviction must be thrown out. Why the Mexican government feels the need to defend a confessed rapist and murderer is beyond me, but they've taken their case to the International Court of Justice, which ruled that the United States "violated" Medallin's rights by not assuming he was a complete idiot as well as a rapist and murderer and telling him what he should have already known--that as a Mexican citizen, he could contact his government for assistance, not that it would have done any good.
Mexico seem a whole lot more concerned about disreputable citizens outside their borders than honest citizens inside their border.
WorldNetDaily reports...
The court ruled in Mexico's favor in late 2004 and ordered the U.S. to reconsider the Mexican inmates' murder convictions and death sentences. In February 2005, Bush announced that while he disagreed with the World Court's decision, the U.S. would comply. He ordered courts in Texas and elsewhere to review the cases.
A few days later, however, the president withdrew the U.S. from the part of the Vienna Convention that gives the World Court final say in international disputes.
Bush is now obligated by international treaty to side with the Mexican government, and therefore the vermin remains stewing on death row. In April the Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments whether the White House has the authority to reverse a state's criminal court system. You'll remember Bush used to be the governor of that state and oversaw his share of executions while there. Bush, however, finds himself, as president, bound by the Constitutional mandates regarding international treaties. The Supreme Court will determine whether or not those treaties, entered into by the Federal government, also are enforceable on state governments.
Randy and Sandra Ertman, parents of one of the victims, simply want to know why the man who murdered their child is still alive.
Meanwhile, in Colorado, Jessica Lenahan whose three daughters were murdered by their father, Simon Gonzales, has pursued her case against the police who allowed it, all the way to the Supreme Court, and was told that the police aren't actually obligated to do what it is we naively assume they are paid to do--enforce the law and protect the innocent.
WorldNetDaily reports...
She has maintained that Castle Rock police could have prevented the deaths of her daughters if they had enforced the restraining order she had obtained against Gonzales, requiring him to stay away from her and the children.
Instead, police did not aggressively pursue him when she reported that he had picked up the girls in violation of the restraining order, and it later was revealed that he shot and killed the three – at some point during the evening while Lenahan was asking police for help – prior to dying in a shootout with Castle Rock police....
The tragedy developed on the night of June 22, 1999, when Gonzales picked up the couple's daughters – without Lenahan's knowledge. She reported that she contacted police multiple times over the course of the evening, pleading for them to track her estranged husband down and retrieve her daughters, but repeatedly was told the police had limited authority to track down restraining order violators.
Early the morning of June 23, authorities reported, Gonzales parked at Castle Rock police headquarters and shot at an officer. He then refused to put down his weapon, and was shot and killed by police.
Investigators said the bodies of the three girls were in the truck, killed by Gonzales before he arrived at the police station.
Lenahan has taken her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Commission has no real authority, but a declaration by them that the US, via the Castle Rock police violated Lenahan's and her daughters' human rights would carry political weight in the international community. Except that the Castle Rock police do not represent the entire US, not that that will matter since those who love to attack America will find yet another reason to claim America is the top human rights violator.
Of course while domestic violence is toward the top of the priorities list for Liberals, there's an unwritten list that plays a much more prominent roll among Leftists in this nation--that the "right" to NOT enforce the law is much more important than enforcing the law. When you start from the assumption that police, judges and others in authority have the right to selectively enforce the law, then the real law is taken away from the system of governance built by our Founding Fathers and placed under the control of individuals. We become a nation not governed by laws, but by an oligarchy of people who enforce or ignore increasingly draconian laws. We are expected to be grateful that those in authority grant us mercy when they choose to not enforce laws we inescapably commit, rather than oppose the idea of the law becoming nothing but a toy for the police, district attorneys and judges to play with.
In both cases right and wrong have been dismissed as irrelevant. In both cases the tragedy that struck those among the most helpless in our society is being used to further politics and power. The ever increasing power of the UN to dictate American law and the ever increasing power of those in the government to personally dictate the law, rather than be under it. Both goals are the same, just beginning from different points, outside the US and inside the US. The goal is to remove the law itself as a factor, and replace it with raw power in the hands of whoever can manipulate themselves into power.
There's a reason our Founding Fathers established a Republican government bound by laws--laws which themselves were based on a moral foundation, and expected to adhere to that moral foundation. Such a system prevents despotism.
Destroying such a system would began by divorcing the law from it's moral and ethical roots. That we've seen clearly in the past few decades as the myth of separation of church and state attempts to demand that voters as well as politicians should shed their morality rather than risk mixing religion and politics. While the absurdity of such a demand should have been plain, it nonetheless has been adopted by far too many, and our laws are becoming less and less founded on actual morals and ethics.
The next step would be to place the law itself under the control of people, rather than the other way around as it is meant to be. When judges can "interpret" any law to suit their own agenda, the law becomes meaningless. When police can choose which laws they will and will not enforce, and choice empowered by the courts, as we see above, the law becomes meaningless. When our laws become subservient to the whims of international courts, they become meaningless.
If a law is bad, we have the power to change it. That's the way it's supposed to work. Any other route crumbles the freedom we've enjoyed so long.
Posted by Danny Carlton at April 18, 2008 10:45 AM