Dr. Richard Land: March 2008 Archives

The U.S. Supreme Court, by a 6-3 majority in the Medellin v. Texas decision, struck a significant blow for the U.S. Constitution and U.S. sovereignty against the encroaching power of international treaties and U.N. authority upon U.S. law.

Contrary to much of the reporting in the media, the Supreme Court decision in Medellin v. Texas was not primarily either a death penalty case or a decision regarding presidential executive power.

Both Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion (joined by Justices Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas) and Justice Breyer’s dissent (joined by Justices Souter and Ginsburg) make it clear the justices understood the Medellin case to be about the scope and authority of international law in domestic U.S. courts. Justice Stevens wrote a separate opinion concurring with the majority.

The Medellin Case involved José Medellin, a Mexican citizen who had lived in Texas since childhood and was convicted in 1993 of the brutal murders of two teenage girls and sentenced to death.

Medellin signed a confession, having been read his Miranda rights. However, Medellin was not informed of his rights as a Mexican national under the Vienna Convention to notify Mexican consular officials of his arrest and detention.

In 2005 President George W. Bush ordered the Texas judicial system to comply with a 2004 World Court (the International Court of Justice) decision that would have reopened Medellin’s case.

Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, acknowledged that President Bush’s motivations (to insure reciprocal observance by foreign governments of the Vienna Convention and to protect international relations) were “plainly compelling,” but concluded by saying that, “Such considerations … do not allow us to set aside first principles.” In this case, the “first principles” involved the president’s ability to issue a directive that “reaches deep into the heart of the state’s police powers and compels state courts to reopen final criminal judgments and set aside neutrally applicable state laws.”

The Roberts majority rightly decided that treaty obligations do NOT trump American law. Treaty obligations only trump American law when the Congress of the United States acts legislatively to incorporate them into American jurisprudence through legislative action, thus making the treaty obligations part of American law. As Justice Roberts pointedly concluded, “The primary role in deciding when and how international agreements will be enforced” must be left to the legislative branch of the U.S. government, the American people’s elected representatives.

This Supreme Court-erected “firewall” between international law and American domestic law and sovereignty was much needed and will be the enduring legacy of the Medellin decision.

I was aware that the ascension of Nicolas Sarkozy, known affectionately as “Sarko the American” to his countrymen, to the presidency of France was going to have positive ramifications, but I had no idea just how much difference it would make.

As the world has once again witnessed the thuggish behavior of the septuagenarian and octogenarian totalitarian rulers of the People’s Republic of China toward anyone who rubs their fur the wrong way, President Sarkozy has been among the first of the world’s leaders to speak out in a concrete way to condemn the brutal crackdown on Tibetan dissidents in recent days.

Sarkozy has gone so far as to issue a veiled threat of proposing a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics on August 8. This is a threat that will give the Chinese pause. They desperately wanted the Olympics in order to symbolize China’s ascension to the first rank of the world’s nations. If the leaders of the most influential countries in the world were to boycott the opening ceremonies it would be a devastating blow to the Chinese rulers pride and would cause them considerable loss of “face.”

When addressing the subject, President Sarkozy said “Our Chinese friends must understand the worldwide concern that there is about the question of Tibet, and I will adapt my response to the evolutions in the situation that will come, I hope, as rapidly as possible.”

When asked whether he supported a boycott, Mr. Sarkozy pointedly added, he would “not close the door to any possibility.” Kudos to President Sarkozy. When Nicholas Sarkozy was elected, I ended my self-imposed boycott on Perrier. Now, I’m going to start eating Camembert, Brie and Port-Salut cheeses again.

Seriously, I hope Americans will urge President Bush to join French President Sarkozy in making it clear that if the Chinese government does not substantially improve its behavior toward its own, as well as Tibet’s dissidents, there will be a lot of absent leaders at the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

Whenever Americans discuss the issue of race, there are always ghosts in the room with us—the ghosts of racial sins and racial hurts from our shared and tragic past.

Race has always been the serpent in the American Eden, the birth defect in our historic genetic code.

Senator Obama’s speech earlier this week used one of my favorite quotes from William Faulkner: “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past,” to make this point. Living in Mississippi, Faulkner understood the “Ghosts of Mississippi” always present in the room and part of every racial interaction. And that’s true of not just Mississippi, but the entire nation as well.

That is precisely why so many people have invested so much hope in Senator Obama—a candidate who is “black,” but not the black candidate—a man who has empathy for the hurt of all sides of our American racial tragedies.

What other American politician who is African-American could, or would, have the courage to articulate the frustrations of working-class whites as Sen. Obama did in his speech. Senator Obama acknowledged with empathy those millions of white Americans who:

“don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race” and when such Americans “hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.”

When Senator Obama acknowledges and understands such feelings, he is performing a healing act for the entire nation. Also, there is no question Senator Obama “feels the pain” of those generations of African-Americans who have been victims of extreme prejudice and destructive discrimination.

Senator Obama is absolutely right that we need to have a productive and constructive conversation about the past, the present and the future of race in this country. That is the only pathway toward the post-racial future which many hope Senator Obama represents—a country in which people truly will “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

We must talk about these things honestly, openly, and with great intentionality. I am reminded of a scene in Walk the Line, the 2006 film biography of John and June Cash. He asks her to marry him, and she reminds him of the obstacles in their path:

June: “Well how’s it gonna work, John? Where we gonna live? What about my girls? What about your girls? What about your parents, John? Your daddy won’t even look at me.”

John: “June, that stuff will just work itself out.”

June: “No, it does not work itself out! People work it out for you and you think it works itself out.”

We, as Americans, must work these things out. If we don’t, others with less hopeful and constructive agendas will work them out for us in less healing and far more hurtful ways.

And in working these things out on our journey to a post-racial future, Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s hateful, hurtful statements must be recognized as echoes of the ghosts of the past that we must overcome in order to go where the vast majority of our nation, “red, yellow, black and white” and every combination in between earnestly desires to go.

That’s the dream that can truly dispel the ghosts forever.

The California Second District Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 28 that parents who do not hold a “teaching certificate” but continue to educate their children at home can be found guilty of breaking the law.

This is an outrageous decision. This court decision also serves as a graphic illustration of the titanic struggle going on at virtually every level of American society between parents and governmental authorities over who should have ultimate control over the parents’ children and their education.

Let us be clear. The government has the right to say that the major and most time-consuming activity of a child between, say, 5 and 18 years of age will be education. In our modern society, it is difficult, if not impossible, for children to become productive members of society unless they have sufficient education (hopefully provided by K-12 education).

The government also has the right to stipulate that certain subjects are to be taught—such as English (including spelling and grammar), math, history, and civics. The government also has the right to monitor through standardized testing whether or not such subjects are being taught and educational progress is taking place.

However, the government does NOT have the right to dictate where such education takes place and who will provide the education. In other words, parents have the right to determine whether their children will be educated at home, or in a private school or public school setting. As long as education is taking place (as monitored by periodic standardized testing), parents have the right to teach their children whether or not they have a “teaching certificate.”

We have far too much sad evidence that a “teaching certificate” does not guarantee either that education is taking place or that its holder is a good teacher. In fact, homeschooled children do better than their public school counterparts on standardized testing and in college performance. The right of parents to maintain control (within the governmental rights outlined above) is a fundamental freedom and is certainly encompassed within the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This dangerous and destructive decision by the California court needs to be rectified immediately.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I am the product of public school, K-12; private schooling, A.B., Th.M.; and public school, Ph.D. Of my three children, my oldest daughter is the product of private schools, K through Bachelors degree and has taught both in public and private schools. My son went to private school K-12 and began his post-secondary education at a public school and finished at a private college. My youngest daughter is the product of private school, with a homeschool component, K through Masters degree, and is currently teaching homeschoolers through tutorials that supplement what the parents provide.)

Geraldine Ferraro, a trailblazer for women as the first woman on a major party national ticket (Walter Mondale’s presidential running mate in 1984), said the following about Senator Barack Obama: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is.”

One hardly knows where to begin in commenting on this infamously insensitive and inaccurate statement. Do I think Geraldine Ferraro is a racist? No, I do not. Do I think she radically underestimates the difficulties that African-Americans, even when highly educated and wealthy, still face every day in our society? Yes, I do.

Otherwise, she would never say what she did—and then be so uncomprehending of why it was offensive to blacks. First, no one who has lived as a black person in America for even one day would ever equate being black with being “lucky” in the sense that blackness confers preference and societal advantage. I have been educated and sensitized to this through many long discussions with black friends and colleagues over the years. They have made me aware of the many slights and indignities African-Americans face on a weekly, if not daily, basis that most whites never see because the offending whites do not behave the same way around us. For example, an African-American walks into a department store and the white security personnel follow only him or her, not any white shoppers. Or, a black graduate student notices that when he walks alone across a campus parking lot, people in the cars he passes often lock their doors—something they don’t do when he is walking with a white student or students. Or, black men find they are pulled over by police at disproportionate rates, no matter how expensive their automobile – just because they are black. How can anyone call such experiences “lucky?”

One black businesswoman, trying to explain the outrage she felt at Ferraro’s remarks, said, “You’re always dealing with race and how not to make it part of your message and how really to get people to transcend these lines . . . that’s what it is to be black. It’s to really hope that people really see you for you.”

Barack Obama has been engaged in a Herculean struggle to transcend race in his presidential campaign and to be judged for who he is as a candidate—to transcend identity politics, of race or gender.

Ferraro’s comments also signal that she may herself be a prisoner of the gender and racial identity politics of her era. Born in 1935, Ferraro seems oblivious to the post-racial culture of those under 35 in America—young people who see much hope in Barack Obama precisely because he is a brilliant candidate for national office who happens to be a black man—not a black man running for president.

Lastly, Ferraro’s comments seem to dismiss Obama as an “affirmative action hire” who is where he is only because he is black. Given the fact that he is one of the most naturally gifted and charismatic politicians to arise in the last twenty years, that is a lot like saying that Tiger Woods is where he is because he is black and that he is “very lucky” to be where he is in the PGA Tour.

Of all the sad and pathetic aspects of the fall of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, when his almost decade-long use of prostitutes was uncovered, the most pathetic was Prof. Alan Dershowitz’s assertion that prostitution was a “victimless crime.” A vicious and...

The news reports of the recent election in Pakistan emphasized the decisive defeat of President Musharraf. Unfortunately, not enough attention has been paid to the dramatic defeat of the radical Islamist parties. The parties sympathetic to al Qaeda and the...