BTW - ran across this quote from Rorschach today...
“They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father, or President Truman. Decent men, who believed in a day’s work for a day’s pay. Instead they followed the droppings of lechers and Communists and didn’t realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don’t tell me they didn’t have a choice.Now the whole world stands on the brink, staring down into bloody hell, all those liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers… and all of a sudden, nobody can think of anything to say.”
Rorschach – from The Watchmen movie
Reminds me of this one:
"On August 9, 1932, the government decreed the death penalty for those convicted of ‘political’ murder. The next night a band of Nazis invaded the home of a Communist worker in the Silesian village of Potempa and stomped him to death, kicking his larynx to pieces. When the killer s were arrested, tried, and sentenced in accordance with the new law, Hitler responded with threats and demonstrations. On Sept. 2, the government gave its answer: the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The killers were freed by Hitler next year.The civilized men in the country did not know what to do. In the words of one historian, the moderates voiced desperate "appeals to reason… [But] their techniques were distinctly out of tune with the wild emotionalism that seemed to have gripped a large part of the nation"
The civility cherished by the civilized men had finally been defeated by their ideas, although they did not know that this was the cause. After years of preaching contradictions and of evading principles with an anti-ideological shrug, these men were astonished to see the nation conclude that man cannot live by principles, that reason is no guide to action, and that anything goes. After years of institutionalizing interest-group warfare, which they had justified as sacrifice or collective service, these men were astonished to see hostile gangs take to the streets and demand one another’s sacrifice. After years of undercutting the mind by preaching the primacy of gentle feeling (whether ‘progressive’, religious, or skeptical), these men were astonished to find that they had nothing more to say, and that there was no one left to listen.
The moderates were helpless. The authorities were helpless. The killers were taking over. On January 30, 1933, after due attention to every requirement of German law and of the Weimar Constitution, Nazi rule was made official… It took six months for the Chancellor to transform the country into a totalitarian state." Leonard Peikoff - The Ominous Parallels
I think we are seeing that sort of slipping and sliding today; the truly horrifying thing about it is that it is being done “as the law.”
As an example, I went to the municipal court today and there on the door it is posted “No Weapons;” I asked the security guard at the entrance about this and cited the State Constitution prohibiting “count[ies] or municipality from regulating, IN ANY WAY, an incident of the right to keep and bear arms.” (Emphasis added.)
His reply: “What the judge says goes, you’ll have to talk to the judge about it.”
Now, Blaise Pascal said that “not even the most equitable of men is allowed to be judge in his own cause;” and this situation, where I would confront the judge about the legitimacy of the prohibition, seems to fall exactly into that place. Our system has been gradually resigned thus: with the emergence-of and reliance-on case-law [and ‘precedent’ *spit*] we have a judiciary that is playing the Children’s game of telephone with our rights, dissolving even those rights a Constitution officially recognizes.
IOW, because “other people say” or “we did it before” the court can ignore the State Constitution.
The truly ironic thing is that EVEN IF judges were allowed to make law they STILL would be bound by the Constitution’s prohibition against such laws and to claim, or act, otherwise the Judge is declaring himself to be above the Constitution and therefore above ALL law.