thedrifter
03-06-05, 09:49 AM
The Two Edged Sword of Jurisarchy
March 5, 2005
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by Bruce Walker
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The Leftist decision to rely exclusively upon the federal judiciary as the source of its power in our federal system of national and of state governments, each with internal checks and balances, is a very bad and potentially very self-destructive policy. The metaphor from military history which best describes this approach is not so much “burnt bridges” as “scorched earth.” The heart of judiciary theocracy is not so much an embrace of Leftism as a rejection of the sovereignty of the people.
Risible constitutional “principles” magically discovered by the alchemists of the Supreme Court which divine the intentions of some of the clearest writers of intention in human political and legal history - the Founding Fathers - lack all pretense of popular will. Five justices form a college of cardinals, a sharai, a Sanhedrin - a gaggle of religious experts, not legal experts - who decide what should be the laws and Constitution.
The Founding Fathers, of course, not only created a concise, simple and elegant text which explains precisely what the Constitution intends, along with a commentary in the form of the Federalist Papers to assist that more, but the Constitution itself provides a mechanism for change. The idea that federal theocrats rather than the people should manufacture whatever “growth” the Constitution requires is belied by the fact that the Constitution itself prescribes a process of amendment, and when a strong national consensus has been reached that an amendment is needed, the Constitution has been amended.
The Left and its judicial theocrats - the American equivalent or the odious Iranian Council of Guardians - will lose its connection with the people the more it leans on Leftist theology to force people to act and to speak the way they command. As I have written in other articles, like the two-edged sword of gerrymandering, when the Left sows the wind, it may end up reaping the whirlwind.
Consider what the Left is compelling conservatives and other normal people to do: use the federal judiciary, through a gradual process of appointing conservatives jurists, to undo the damage done by the Left. The opinion of conservatives over the last thirty-five years or so has been that we want “strict constructionists” on the Supreme Court: justices who do not make law or rewrite the Constitution, but rather who read the Constitution literally.
Now consider the inculcation of the American civic mind which the Left has pursued over these decades: courts, not legislators or other elected officials, are the only officials who can be trusted to be just in determining the complex problems of our time. What this may mean over time, what this probably will mean over time, is that conservatives will begin to quite consciously move away from “strict constructionist” jurisprudence and move instead to judicial activism of their own.
I wonder how many Leftists have considered just how bad that might be for them. What if, for example, the Supreme Court of the future rules that granting tenure to professors who benefit directly or indirectly from government help “offends the equal protection of the laws encompassed by the 14 th Amendment by granting these individuals special and unequal rights”? What if that opinion went on to place within the hands of the chief executive of every state the power to hire and to fire professors and other officials within public academia? To whom will Leftists shrilly scream?
What if an activist conservative Supreme Court found that white Christian males had been unfairly discriminated against over the last quarter century, and so required a quarter century affirmative action plan to remedy that by granting preferential treatment to white Christian males? Given the difficulties that Republicans are having in moving the Supreme Court from very unpopular political decisions masquerading as judicial rulings, what luck would Leftists have in reversing such a “remedy”?
The heart and soul of heartless and soulless Leftism is coercion - government, intimidation, ridicule, gangsterism - and ultimately those who live by the sword will die by the sword, including Leftists who abuse and misuse the Sword of Justice. Politicizing courts will, inevitably, create systems for imposing conservative values on society, unless the Left surrenders its reliance on this especially bad form of aristocracy.
Bruce Walker
Ellie
March 5, 2005
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
by Bruce Walker
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Leftist decision to rely exclusively upon the federal judiciary as the source of its power in our federal system of national and of state governments, each with internal checks and balances, is a very bad and potentially very self-destructive policy. The metaphor from military history which best describes this approach is not so much “burnt bridges” as “scorched earth.” The heart of judiciary theocracy is not so much an embrace of Leftism as a rejection of the sovereignty of the people.
Risible constitutional “principles” magically discovered by the alchemists of the Supreme Court which divine the intentions of some of the clearest writers of intention in human political and legal history - the Founding Fathers - lack all pretense of popular will. Five justices form a college of cardinals, a sharai, a Sanhedrin - a gaggle of religious experts, not legal experts - who decide what should be the laws and Constitution.
The Founding Fathers, of course, not only created a concise, simple and elegant text which explains precisely what the Constitution intends, along with a commentary in the form of the Federalist Papers to assist that more, but the Constitution itself provides a mechanism for change. The idea that federal theocrats rather than the people should manufacture whatever “growth” the Constitution requires is belied by the fact that the Constitution itself prescribes a process of amendment, and when a strong national consensus has been reached that an amendment is needed, the Constitution has been amended.
The Left and its judicial theocrats - the American equivalent or the odious Iranian Council of Guardians - will lose its connection with the people the more it leans on Leftist theology to force people to act and to speak the way they command. As I have written in other articles, like the two-edged sword of gerrymandering, when the Left sows the wind, it may end up reaping the whirlwind.
Consider what the Left is compelling conservatives and other normal people to do: use the federal judiciary, through a gradual process of appointing conservatives jurists, to undo the damage done by the Left. The opinion of conservatives over the last thirty-five years or so has been that we want “strict constructionists” on the Supreme Court: justices who do not make law or rewrite the Constitution, but rather who read the Constitution literally.
Now consider the inculcation of the American civic mind which the Left has pursued over these decades: courts, not legislators or other elected officials, are the only officials who can be trusted to be just in determining the complex problems of our time. What this may mean over time, what this probably will mean over time, is that conservatives will begin to quite consciously move away from “strict constructionist” jurisprudence and move instead to judicial activism of their own.
I wonder how many Leftists have considered just how bad that might be for them. What if, for example, the Supreme Court of the future rules that granting tenure to professors who benefit directly or indirectly from government help “offends the equal protection of the laws encompassed by the 14 th Amendment by granting these individuals special and unequal rights”? What if that opinion went on to place within the hands of the chief executive of every state the power to hire and to fire professors and other officials within public academia? To whom will Leftists shrilly scream?
What if an activist conservative Supreme Court found that white Christian males had been unfairly discriminated against over the last quarter century, and so required a quarter century affirmative action plan to remedy that by granting preferential treatment to white Christian males? Given the difficulties that Republicans are having in moving the Supreme Court from very unpopular political decisions masquerading as judicial rulings, what luck would Leftists have in reversing such a “remedy”?
The heart and soul of heartless and soulless Leftism is coercion - government, intimidation, ridicule, gangsterism - and ultimately those who live by the sword will die by the sword, including Leftists who abuse and misuse the Sword of Justice. Politicizing courts will, inevitably, create systems for imposing conservative values on society, unless the Left surrenders its reliance on this especially bad form of aristocracy.
Bruce Walker
Ellie