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Obama's Court

Posted by Boomer911 on Thursday, July 24, 2008 11:40:34 AM
While the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down some senseless and shaky decisions, long on ideology and short on precedent and constitutional deliberation, there has been occasion to celebrate. There is no doubt President Bush's additions of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito have done wonders in helping to balance a court that was on the verge of a tyrannical power-trip and helped to re-introduce "original intent" back to the court. One could only imagine what the Supreme Court would look like if Al Gore had been the one to win two terms and had his judicial nominees put on the court. But can't we say the same thing about an Obama presidency as well? There is speculation the next president will get to fill 2 to 3 seats on the Supreme Court. The question is, could our democracy withstand this shift from justices who believe in precedent and the Framer's original intent to those who do not use the U.S. Constitution as their guide, justices who have substituted our founding document for "public sentiment", political and philosophical ideologies, and "world views"? How can we claim to still have a democracy when the will of the people is superceded by judicial activism? We can already see this playing out in court rooms across America today and one wonders if the American people will stand for our founding principles or lay down to a new master and a new Obama court?
 
Barack Obama has already discussed his judicial philosophy in numerous lectures including one at the University of Chicago Law School where stated that ultra-liberal (socialist) Justice Ruth-Bader Ginsberg was a "very sensible judge". I think it is a safe bet Obama will nominate, if he is elected, justices who share his political ideology and use the courts not as they were constitutionally designed, but as a weapon to subjugate and push his liberal philosophy onto the American people. This has been the weapon of the liberals for decades as they know the American people would never pass their measures and endorse outright socialism at the ballot box, so they use the courts to bypass the will of the people leaving us only to wonder what happend to our country and her freedoms?
 
One cannot state enough how critical this falls election will be if for this reason alone. John McCain has already stated he will nominate based on their ability to interpret the Constitution and those who use that very document to arrive at their decisions and not political and philosophical winds. Our entire system of self government will be on the ballot this fall and I pray that America has the sense to take back what has been taken from them, the right to self govern.
 
 
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Activist Judges and A "Living Constitution"

Posted by Boomer911 on Friday, June 27, 2008 1:34:18 PM
I have put together some wonderful quotes from a wide range of eras and people concerning the Courts and various issues taken up by the courts. The lefts idea of a "living constitution" is a fabrication of the worst kind and has no basis in intellectual honesty, logic, or reason. Let the following quotes serve as proof.
 
“[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution...” - Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 81
 
“The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch.” - Thomas Jefferson
 
“As long as judges tinker with the Constitution to ‘do what the people want,’ instead of what the document actually commands, politicians who pick and confirm new federal judges will naturally want only those who agree with them politically.” - Justice Antonin Scalia in 2005
 
“Nowhere else in the Constitution does a ”right“ attributed to ”the people“ refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention ”the people,“ the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset... The Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms... The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it ‘shall not be infringed’.” - Justice Antonin Scalia in Heller decision
 
“We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad... Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded. That is perhaps debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct.”
-  Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom the Constitution has long been an unerring compass in Heller decision
 
“The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” - Samuel Adams
 
"The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based upon bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. ... The greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intention of the drafters of the Bill of Rights." - Chief Justice William Rehnquist
 
"[The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment...liberty can have nothing to fear from the judiciary alone, but would have everything to fear from its union with either of the other departments." - Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78
 
"[T]he true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." -Thomas Jefferson
 
"The constitution of the United States is to receive a reasonable interpretation of its language, and its powers, keeping in view the objects and purposes, for which those powers were conferred. By a reasonable interpretation, we mean, that in case the words are susceptible of two different senses, the one strict, the other more enlarged, that should be adopted, which is most consonant with the apparent objects and intent of the Constitution." - Joseph Story
 
"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." - James Wilson
 
"The Constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please." - Thomas Jefferson
 
 
 
 
 
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Finally....A Constructionist Decision

Posted by Boomer911 on Thursday, June 26, 2008 8:05:28 PM
“The Constitution shall never be construed... to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” —Samuel Adams
 
 
The United States Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in favor of an individuals right to keep and bear arms was the latest in a series of opinions handed down from the high court. However, this is one the American people should rightly celebrate. Why, you may ask? Well, the Supreme Court used a strict constructionist approach to arrive at their decision, at least as far as the majority opinion is concerned. A course of action that has been all to prevelent in the last 50-60 years has been the actions of liberal judges using everything but the Constitution, including foreign laws, global litmus tests, and their own left-wing ideologies, to force issues down the throats of the American people by assuming the Constitutional role of the legislature. These left-wing ideologies and and new "rights" not found in the Constitution are issues that democrats could never pass at the ballot box. I have eluded to the threat posed to our freedoms by the runaway judiciary in an earlier post.
 
But what strikes me the most as I read the various blogs and commentaries on today's decision is how many now see the judiciary as an extention of an ideology and an administration. One went even so far as to say conservatism beat  liberalism 5-4. See, I don't see it so much as conservatism as I do constructionism. The ridiculous dog and pony shows that the judiciary nominees have to endure are a perfect example of the role the left thinks the judiciary should play in our system of government. "Whats your views on guns, abortion, the death penalty, and so on...", are some of the ridiculous questions nominees must answer during the confirmation hearings. Whatever happened to upholding the Constitution and using it as the basis on which your decisions are based? The United States Constitution is the only criteria to be used by the justices.
 
As usual, The Heritage Foundation says it best in its commentary on the issue:
 
    Far-left critics of the decision are already claiming that the decision represents “judicial activism.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Justice Antonin Scalia’s majority opinion is a textbook example of constitutional originalism. Using simple grammar and crystal-clear logic, Scalia destroys the argument of dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens that the first half of the Second Amendment — “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a Free State” — negates the second — “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Scalia writes:

Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command. The Second Amendment would be nonsensical if it read, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to petition for redress of grievances shall not be infringed." … That requirement of logical connection may cause a prefatory clause to resolve an ambiguity in the operative clause. But apart from that clarifying function, a prefatory clause does not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause.

Justice Stephen Breyer’s defense is equally specious, constructing a convoluted balancing test that ultimately reaches the conclusion that the state’s interest in controlling crime outweighs an individuals right to bear arms. Nevermind that since the District of Columbia first instituted its ban on handguns, there has been only one year (1985) that the homicide rate in the city fell below what it was in 1976. Worse, in 15 of the 29 years since the ban went into effect, D.C. had either the first or second highest murder rate among the nation's 50 largest cities. A National Academy of Sciences report based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications and a survey of 80 different gun-control laws, shows no link between restrictions on gun ownership and lower rates of crime, firearms violence or even accidents with guns.

Even if the court’s four far-left members who dissented in the decision do not understand the issue, the American people do. According to Gallup, 73% of the U.S. public believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns. And almost 7 out of 10 Americans are opposed to a law that would make the possession of a handgun illegal.

 
I will close with a quote from James Madison, the Father of The Constitution:
 
          "I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. ... If the meaning of the text be sought in the changeable meaning of the words composing it, it is evident that the shape and attributes of the Government must partake of the changes to which the words and phrases of all living languages are constantly subject. What a metamorphosis would be produced in the code of law if all its ancient phraseology were to be taken in its modern sense. And that the language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to its founder, will I believe appear to all unbiassed Enquirers into the history of its origin and adoption."
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"A Despotic Branch" - A Runaway Judiciary

Posted by Boomer911 on Friday, June 13, 2008 4:45:28 PM
"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."
 
                                                                                             - Thomas Jefferson in 1804 letter to Abigail Adams
 
The above quote shows the genius of Thomas Jefferson. His ability to see the weakest link in our new form of self government is one of great importance if only for the fact that his greatest fears concerning the judiciary seem to have come to fruition. Jefferson's warning speaks volumes to what he felt was the greatest threat to our freedoms, the whims of a few elite judges to overrule and circumvent the will of the people.
 
"The Constitution...is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."
 
                                                                                               - Thomas Jefferson in 1819 letter to Judge Spencer Roane
 
It certainly would seem that the last month has been a perfect example of what Jefferson was talking about. The California Supreme Court overruled the will of the people and decided same sex marriages was a Constitutional right protected under that very document. Although 61% of Californians voted to make law the definition of marriage to mean "between a man and a woman", the courts somehow found a "right" for homosexuals to marry. Now I have read the Constitution many times and I have yet to stumble upon that right, or the "right to choose", and whole host of other so-called rights the courts have imposed on the American people.
 
And just when you thought the courts could not have sunk any lower, the United States Supreme Court voted yesterday to allow alien combatants the "right" to habeas corpus. Habeas corpus is a constitutional right for U.S. citizens, but now that right has been extended to people who have been captured fighting against the United States, fighting and attempting to kill our beloved men and women in uniform, just as if it they were part of the American system. Fred Thompson's opinion sums it up rather well in his latest article at townhall.com when he wrote the courts have created "a new right for our nation’s enemies commiserate with the displeasure that they and the rest of the “enlightened” people have with this “war,” Guantanamo and the Bush Administration."  I wonder what the terrorists think of this "right"? They now have the freedom to fight their detention in a system of law they openly abhor and were captured fighting against. Let me remind you that these "detainees", or prisoners of war, have been captured taking up arms against the United States and are not citizens of the U.S..
 
The American people should know the adherence to legal precedent is the bedrock of the rule of law. And the fact is, the legal precedent concerning combatants captured in times of war had been established. But nevermind the precedent right? Nevermind the U.S. Constitution right? This last month is not the beginning of such decisions by a runaway court. The courts have been bypassing the people's will for decades now. Liberals view the courts as their last best hope for pushing through their agenda without allowing the American people to have a say on such issues. Liberals know the American people would never vote for such radical views so they look to the courts to impose their agendas. And the sad fact is that these courts have put the Constitution last as their guideline to make their decisions and used everything but the Constitution, including global public opinion, to make their rulings. When one branch of government has taken on the Constitutional role of another, we no longer have a democracy.
 
One alarming point that needs to be brought up is the statement Barack Obama has made concerning his views of the courts and the judges that should be appointed to those courts. "We need somebody who's got the heart … the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old. And that's going to be the criteria by which I'm going to be selecting my judges."  Really Barack? How about having your criteria be judges who interpret the Constitution? How about those who adhere to the rule of law? How about those who recognize the role of the judiciary as set forth by the Founding Fathers in our Constitution? You might recall Obama voted against the confirmation of Justice Antonin Scalia because his record showed "extraordinarily consistent support for the powerful against the powerless."  In other words, a judge should base their decision on an abstract notion of fairness instead of the Constitution.
 
Never has there been a more important election for America than the one this fall. We cannot afford a president Obama to nominate radical, leftist judges to our courts if we have any hope of restoring the courts to their original Constitutional role. Democrat Senate majority leader Harry Reid has already held up the judges Bush has nominated by not allowing them to be brought to the floor for a vote. Reid is counting on Obama winning and an even larger majority in both houses of Congress after the elections this fall. If he gets his wish, the Bush nominess will disappear, leaving Obama the distinct pleasure of putting his radical judges on the courts. We cannot afford this scenario and its time to act.
 
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