McCain Speech to Shed Light On Judicial Philosophy Social Conservatives Look for Assurance

John McCain steps out of his comfort zone Tuesday to address his judicial philosophy, a hot-button matter for social conservatives that encompasses abortion, guns and gay rights -- all topics on which Sen. McCain has rankled the right.

On nearly every score, Sen. McCain agrees with conservatives, but he has made a series of exceptions to their orthodoxy. As a result, while liberals think he is a conservative, conservatives fear he is a liberal.

These never have been matters that animated Sen. McCain's quarter-century in politics the way military or spending issues have. And while he considers himself religious, the likely Republican presidential nominee rarely speaks in public about religion or his personal faith.

Combined with his record of breaking with the party line on issues such as immigration, torture and campaign finance, this has led to a sense that Sen. McCain is something of a moderate on social policy... That impression hurts him with the social conservatives who form a critical part of his party's base, but it could help him with independent voters...

It is hard to satisfy both, and when asked, Sen. McCain always emphasizes his conservative credentials. "I think I've been very strong on, quote, 'conservative social issues,' " he said...

At Tuesday's speech at Wake Forest University...he will articulate a conservative judicial philosophy and the principles he would use to appoint justices to the Supreme Court. That includes "strict interpretation of the Constitution" and antipathy for "judicial activism..."

In the past, he has praised Supreme Court justices Antonin Scalia, John Roberts and Samuel Alito.

Judges are a key issue for conservatives, who have concluded that they can't advance their agenda unless they have backing from the courts. The Tuesday speech is likely to tell them what they want to hear...

If McCain and conservatives were up to speed with the Constitution and its history, not only would they understand the honest interpretation of the Constitution is decidedly conservative without needing more conservative justices, but they would understand that there's a major need for a shakeup in the USSC.

Although I despise activist judges as much as McCain does, McCain either doesn't understand or is ignoring the main problem with our courts.

The biggest problem with the courts is actually the people. The people are the problem because ignorance of the Constitution and how the government is supposed to work is epidemic. Widespread constitutional ignorance is evidenced by the following links.

http://tinyurl.com/npt6t
http://tinyurl.com/hehr8

The consequence of widespread constitutional ignorance is that the people are impotent to stop activist judges from walking all over our constitutional freedoms.

The way that we got into this mess with respect to activist judges versus constitutional ignorance, in my opinion, is as follows.

Judicial activism took a turn for the worst in the days of FDR's dirty politics. This is because FDR got the USSC to give the green light to his constitutionally unauthorized New Deal programs; the Court scandalously politically repealed 10th A. protected state powers in order to give FDR what he wanted. And by politically nuking 10th A. protected state powers, FDR foolishly created a political situation where there's now "nothing" in the Constitution that stops corrupt justices from allowing the feds to interefere with state affairs. And decades of activist justices ignoring 10th A. protected state powers has ultimately weakened traditional family values.

This post (<-click), while addressing tax issues, provides more details as to how the 10th A. stood in the way of FDR establishing his New Deal programs.

And this post (<-click), while addressing abortion, gives examples of how corrupt justices then began using FDR's "license" to ignore 10th A. protected state powers to eventually stifle traditional family values. The USSC's scandalous legalization of abortion and today's suppression of ID discussion in public school classrooms are examples of this corruption.

Again, because of widespread ignorance of the Constitution and its history, it seems that the best that response that people have given to Constitution-ignoring activist judges is to sit on their hands with their mouths wide open.

The bottom line is that, instead of putting all the blame for the USSC's injustices on activist justices, the people need to reconnect with the Founder's intentions for the division of federal and government state powers. The people then need to get in the faces of the feds, demanding that the feds start respecting the Constitution that they have sworn to defend, particularly where wrongly ignored 10th A. protected state powers are concerned. This not only includes allowing religion-related discussions in public schools while respecting people's 14th A. protections, for example, but also putting a stop to all constitutionally unauthorized federal spending while appropriately lowering federal taxes.

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