Time for a new Boston Tea Party

Town Hall ^ | November 23, 2003 | Pat Buchanan

[LowCountryJoe]

...From the sublime to the ridiculous, we have one Margaret Marshall, chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, ordering the state legislature to enact, in 180 days, a law giving homosexuals the right to marry. What is to be done with this Justice Marshall?...

...If Bay State legislators will refuse to pass the law demanded by the court, and Romney will refuse to sign such a law and orders the bureaucracy to ignore the court, what could the court do? Order his arrest? Declare him in contempt...

...It is time for elected representatives to take back powers that were never constitutionally granted to any court. For the issue here is not, "What is decided?" but, "Who decides?" In a republic, the power to write laws is given to elected representatives, not judges or justices...

[LowCountryJoe]

I find myself disagreeing with Buchanan on several occasions because of his protectionist and isolationist stances. But here, Mr. Buchanan illustrates the dire state of affairs that exists because of judicial activism.

Regardless of where one stands on the 'gay' issue, what this state supreme court chief justice has ruled has to set off the 'bulls--t' alarm.

[narses]

A Pat Buchanan Ping.

[jimkress]

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut, occasionally. Such is the case for Mr. Buchanan with this article.

[MJY1288]

PJB is a bitter old man that is incapable of doing anything other than complain. If he has all the answers, why is it that he has never been elected to any public office?

I know why, It's because he much rather complain about everyone, and everything, while contributing absolutely nothing. I have had many firends like old Pat, unfortunately for them, they don't have the luxury of having their negativity posted in the media for the world to see. They are all by their lonesome stairing at a half empty glass of water wondering why nobody ever comes by to visit

[hunter112]

Kind of silly for Pat to ask:

...If Bay State legislators will refuse to pass the law demanded by the court, and Romney will refuse to sign such a law and orders the bureaucracy to ignore the court, what could the court do?

Courts have fashioned their own remedies in the past, getting involved in minute detail, if they felt they had to. This Court will just simply declare that being gender opposites is no longer a qualification for marriage, and will order lower courts to accept applications on that basis. All subordinate courts are bound by the state's Supreme Court, and they won't even bother ruling against a gay couple who brought a case based on a refusal of whoever registers marriages to do so with theirs.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court did not set up the 180 days as a period of time to allow people to thwart it. It could have ordered gay marriages to be registered immediately. It was giving the governor and the legislature a chance to avoid a Constitutional battle on the US level, and adopt a civil unions plan.

If the governor tries to stick a finger in the Court's eye, he might find their fist back in his face. The time for setting off the BS alarm was years before, when these cases were making it through the lower courts. It wasn't possible to get an anti-gay-marriage amendment through the MA legislature then, it won't be possible now.

[Jack Black]

If he has all the answers, why is it that he has never been elected to any public office?

1. He is a much better writer and commentator than political candidate.

2. US Citizens do not see the Presidency as an appropriate first elected office. Thus no president Buchanan, Nader, Forbes, Perot or anyone else in this century who was not either a legislator, governor or war hero.

3. Being a good theorist and a good politician probably don't have a lot in common. I respect William Kristols columns in the Weekly Standard without wanting to vote for him.

4. Pat's biggest mistake was running. William Safire never ran for anything, and because of it he has not been target for as many arrows as PJB has. Perhaps it was his sincere passion that led him to his runs. To much passion is probably not a great characteristic for a modern political pundit.

[Brian Allen]

<< I find myself disagreeing with Buchanan on several occasions because of his protectionist and isolationist stances. But here, Mr. Buchanan illustrates the dire state of affairs that exists because of judicial activism.

Regardless of where one stands on the 'gay' issue, what this state supreme court chief justice has ruled has to set off the 'bulls--t' alarm. >>

I was gunna have at this post but then I read:

<< Even a blind squirrel finds a nut, occasionally. Such is the case for Mr. Buchanan with this article. >>

The fact that Mr Buchanan said it doesn't make it other than absolutely right to the letter.

It just guarantees that nobody will pay what he said any attention and even that some will go so far as to place their judgement of Mr Buchanan -- and their hatred -- ahead of the Truth contained in this found nut.

Thank you, jimkress.

Bump/Ping

[Brian Allen]

<< Pat's biggest mistake was running. >>

Only one of Mr Buchanan's biggest mistakes was that he joined with our political foes -- and America's -- and tore Republican President George Herbert Walker Bush to shreds, in the process becoming the "Republican" single-handedly responsible for the ensuring eight years.

Only one or two more of Mr Buchanan's many many other biggest mistakes is that since then he has has become a tarrif/tax trade Luddite -- has descended into populist totalitarianism -- and has looted the United States Treasury of Millions of Dollars of several layers of other people's confiscated wealth which, like a one-armed wall-paper-hanger -- and whilst reducing the Perot party's 8% presidential-election vote to 0.02% -- he squandered on nothing visibly more signifigant than the appeasing of his own self-will and ego-driven and alcoholic-like grandiosity.

And stuff like that.

[neverdem]

PJB is on the money. There needs to be a mechanism to remove judges and justices who legislate from the bench.

Lifetime appointments is an anachronism in a time of absurd left wing activism that defies common sense and the U.S. Constitution when we are in a war against terrorism by islamofascists who want take the world back 1300 years. The former and the latter have nothing in common except their hatred of traditional Americn values, which they have made a common cause in the same way as Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin.

The judicial branch of government at both the state and federal level needs reform badly. The criteria for impeachment or re-appointment to limited terms must be addressed, by constitutional amendment if necessary.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

If [Pat] has all the answers, why is it that he has never been elected to any public office?

Has he run for any public office besides president? If not, then his failure to win isn't nearly as remarkable as the many votes he did receive.

Let's focus on the sustance of the arguments in his column and not attack his person in order to subvert his claims; that's the genetic fallacy in logic so popular with the left.

[Stop Legal Plunder]

PJB is on the money. There needs to be a mechanism to remove judges and justices who legislate from the bench.

99% of Pat's column was right on the money. The only part that was incorrect was his calling for the resistance to judicial tyranny to begin in Massasachusetts as a second Boston Tea Party. That's because the resistance has already begun, with Judge Moore in Alabama.

[MeekOneGOP]

One more reason the Liberals want to obstruct President Bush's judicial nominations.
What they can't win at the polls, they will take in the courts ...

They care about power, and that's all !

[LowCountryJoe]

I wonder what would happen if someone ran - for president, house, or senate - their campaign on the platform of not just reforms but outright repeals of various law. If a presidential candidate just came right out and said something like: "If elected, the congress should focus on bringing me bills that seek to limit the federal government's involvement in our lives or they better make sure that they have two-thirds support, because I'll use the veto power early and often to ensure that this 'goat rodeo' doesn't get further out of hand!"

[neverdem]

The sad thing is that Massachusetts allows the removal of judges by "bill of address" - a simple majority vote. And nobody has even proposed it in this case.

In the state that recently elected Republican governors in the persons of Mitt Romney and William Weld, what happened to freedom of speech?

Why is there no honest discussion of all the concomitant pathology observed with same sex obsession such as depression, suicide, domestic violence, promiscuity and HIV/AIDS?

Are we so afraid of not being politically correct that we must commit cultural suicide?

[neverdem]

The sad thing is that Massachusetts allows the removal of judges by "bill of address" - a simple majority vote. And nobody has even proposed it in this case.

Seamole, are you a resident of this particular state that has been accused of spending taxes to fund such abominations as sex education classes which include vivid descriptions of "fisting"?

[neverdem]

"I'm seriously starting to think about leaving."

Tough decision, I have the same dilemma. Consider New Hampshire. Small "l" libertarians have chosen said state as their destiny for residence, including a number of Freepers.

[cloud8]

"PJB is a bitter old man that is incapable of doing anything other than complain."

I agree with you 100%, though he is a wordsmith, if a vitriolic one. The New Boston Tea Party has a good ring to it.