The Rights Of States

American Rattlesnake ^ | July 3, 2012 | Gerard Perry

[OddLane]

It’s difficult to gauge the ultimate impact of this past week’s Supreme Court decision invalidating much of Arizona’s landmark immigration enforcement law, with the exception of Section 2(b), i.e. the clause empowering local police to ascertain someone’s immigration status if ”reasonable suspicion” exists when he or she is detained. Even this seeming bright spot is obscured by Justice Kennedy’s muddled opinion, which seems to invite future litigation by the usual suspects, who will have their cases heard before the same judge who has thwarted the implementation of the bulk of SB 1070 for the past two years.

Heather Mac Donald, of the Manhattan Institute, wrote an incisive analysis of the decision for National Review Online, which merits reading by anyone who marveled at some of the flawed reasoning involved in overruling a state law that mirrors federal law in most regards. Her exploration of Justice Scalia’s bold dissent-which has earned universal scorn among the commentariat-is especially compelling. Because the current administration has invested its political capital in administrative amnesty and abandonment of immigration enforcement, it has fallen upon the states to do the work which the Supreme Court has deemed the exclusive province of the federal government. Since the current POTUS believes he must bribe Hispanic voters-who presumably favor amnesty-in order for he and his party to survive politically, he will use the perquisites of the imperial presidency in order to thwart states-such as Arizona-which have the temerity to defend the territorial integrity of their borders.

That’s why the prospect of states reasserting their sovereignty-described so eloquently in Justice Scalia’s dissent-is so appealing. I disagree with the suggestion by some in the immigration reform movement that the Supreme Court’s refusal to preempt local and state enforcement constitutes a legal victory.

[loveliberty2]

We must rremember that it is "the People" who must determine the future of liberty. It is not the courts, nor the legislature, nor the executive branch--although each of those branches of "the People's" government seem to have deserted the Framers' passion for liberty as their primary motivation.

Under the Constitution's own provisions in Article V, "the People" are required to be involved in the process for any valid change in the Constitution's protections.

Conservative constitutional scholars need to step forward to enlighten the citizenry on their role, according to the Founders' Constitution.

In the meantime, here are some words from that generation on the importance of "the People" and the States:

"I do not think it for the interest of the General Government itself, and still less of the Union at large, that the State governments should be so little respected as they have been. However, I dare say that in time all these as well as their central government, like the planets revolving round their common sun, acting and acted upon according to their respective weights and distances, will produce that beautiful equilibrium on which our Constitution is founded, and which I believe it will exhibit to the world in a degree of perfection, unexampled but in the planetary system itself. The enlightened statesman, therefore, will endeavor to preserve the weight and influence of every part, as too much given any member of it would destroy the general equilibrium." --Thomas Jefferson to Peregrine Fitzhugh, 1798. ME 10:3

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278

"If Caesar had been as virtuous as he was daring and sagacious, what could he, even in the plenitude of his usurped power, have done to lead his fellow citizens into good government?... If their people indeed had been, like ourselves, enlightened, peaceable, and really free, the answer would be obvious. 'Restore independence to all your foreign conquests, relieve Italy from the government of the rabble of Rome, consult it as a nation entitled to self-government, and do its will.' But steeped in corruption, vice and venality, as the whole nation was,... what could even Cicero, Cato, Brutus have done, had it been referred to them to establish a good government for their country?... No government can continue good but under the control of the people; and their people were so demoralized and depraved as to be incapable of exercising a wholesome control. Their reformation then was to be taken up ab incunabulis. Their minds were to be informed by education what is right and what wrong; to be encouraged in habits of virtue and deterred from those of vice by the dread of punishments proportioned, indeed, but irremissible; in all cases, to follow truth as the only safe guide, and to eschew error, which bewilders us in one false consequence after another in endless succession. These are the inculcations necessary to render the people a sure basis for the structure of order and good government. . . . --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:233

"An enlightened people, and an energetic public opinion... will control and enchain the aristocratic spirit of the government." --Thomas Jefferson to Chevalier de Ouis, 1814. ME 14:130

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.

"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. And it requires no very high degree of education to convince them of this. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.

"Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789.

"Whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, the people, if well informed, may be relied on to set them to rights." --Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 1789.

From James Madison:

"Although all men are born free, and all nations might be so, yet too true it is, that slavery has been the general lot of the human race. Ignorant – they have been cheated; asleep – they have been surprised; divided – the yoke has been forced upon them. But what is the lesson?... The people ought to be enlightened, to be awakened, to be united, that after establishing a government they should watch over it."

"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

"To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea."

"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court even can do much to help it." - Judge Learned Hand

[An American!]

Here is the US Supreme Courts contortions:
Source: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-182b5e1.pdf on page 3 states...
“As a general rule, it is not a crime for a
removable alien to remain in the United States. The federal scheme
instructs when it is appropriate to arrest an alien during the removal
process. The Attorney General in some circumstances will issue a
warrant for trained federal immigration officers to execute. If
no federal warrant has been issued, these officers have more limited
authority. They may arrest an alien for being “in the United States in
violation of any [immigration] law or regulation,” for example, but
only where the alien “is likely to escape before a warrant can be
obtained.” §1357(a)(2). Section 6 attempts to provide state officers with
even greater arrest authority, which they could exercise with no
instruction from the Federal Government. This is not the system Congress created.”

These controversial rulings seem to hinge completely on Congress. It is in the courts
opinion then that this is a peoples problem. They want it fixed, elect a
new set of representatives to the legislature branch.

I love the fact that they think it is not a crime for an illegal alien (’removable alien’) to remain in the United States! Where do they get that from...you guessed it...Law...from congress.