Posted on 11/25/2003 10:07:07 AM PST by presidio9
According to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, making an “all important good impression” in the international community is more essential to the judiciary than upholding Constitutional law. At an October 28 awards dinner in Atlanta, Justice O’Connor was quoted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as citing two recent Supreme Court cases that demonstrate the increased willingness of U.S. courts to take international opinion and law into account in their decisions.
This is nothing new for those who’ve kept up with the antics of our modern day Supreme Court. More and more our courts are stepping away from the Constitution and towards laws that have absolutely no basis in American principles. But where did it all begin?
For the last century the courts have followed this trend: they’ve steadily moved away from a Constitution based on law, toward a Constitution based on relativism. The purpose of this “living Constitution” -- as some have pegged it -- isn’t to improve upon the old one, as some like Justice O’Connor might claim, but to abolish it altogether.
Movement towards the living Constitution isn’t a recent phenomenon. Its roots can be traced back to the late 19th century when certain Supreme Court justices began applying Darwin’s premise of evolution to jurisprudence. This philosophy was pegged as positivism. Its basic tenants declared that since man evolved, his laws must evolve as well. Under positivism, judges were to guide both the evolution of law and the Constitution. Consequently, the views of the Founding Fathers were disregarded as hampering the evolution of society. Every philosophy of law had to be the latest and greatest or else it was junked.
An early subscriber to positivism was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Holmes was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1902. During his three decades on the Court he argued extensively that decisions should be based upon the “felt necessities of the time” and the “prevalent moral and political theories” instead of natural law and its absolute standards. Holmes claimed that, “[T]he justification of a law for us cannot be found in the fact that our fathers always have followed it. It must be found in some help which the law brings toward reaching a social end.”
Positivism quickly spread as the 19th century spilled into the 20th. Social evolution, relativistic thinking, and the new “positivistic” view of law were not only making serious inroads among Supreme Court justices, but in academia as well. John Dewey, signer of the 1933 Humanist Manifesto I, wrote in 1927: “The belief in political fixity, of the sanctity of some form of state consecrated by the efforts of our fathers and hallowed by tradition, is one of the stumbling-blocks in the way of orderly and directed change.”
Before long, a small but influential set of Supreme Court justices were routinely disregarding any concept of absolute rights and wrongs. Benjamin Cardozo, appointed to the Supreme Court in 1932, claimed, “If there is any law which is back of the sovereignty of the state, and superior thereto, it is not law in such a sense as to concern the judge or lawyer, however much it concerns the statesman or the moralist.” Charles Evans Hughes, the Supreme Court’s Chief Justice from 1930 to 1941, held a similar view: “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is.”
Those are incredible statements considering the plethora of judicial activism our nation has witnessed lately. According to Cardozo, judges and justices should believe no law exists higher than that of the state. If such law does exist, it should only concern politicians or religious instructors. That philosophy is frightening to say the least. But it exists.
Positivism had gained considerable ground by the mid 20th century. The change from absolute to relativistic thinking was apparent by 1953, when Earl Warren became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ten years later prayer was removed from public schools. A decade after that abortion on demand was legalized. Positivism has definitely done its intended work.
Thankfully, our nation is capable of moving away from this dangerous philosophy. If we return to a system by which “we the people” conduct social corrections as needed (through elections and amendments to the Constitution), and away from a system by which unelected judges are virtually unaccountable to the people, then we’ll see justice truly return to the judiciary. But this task will not be easy. Positivism has made such inroads into the fabric of our nation that it will take serious action to reverse.
The living Constitution comes down to this: It fails to reflect the so-called evolving values of our nation, but establishes an agenda that is deeply steeped in relativism and social Darwinism. Americans overwhelmingly support the Constitution. Why? Because it protects their rights. The living Constitution does not. Since it’s not based on the foundational principles of America -- principles largely based on Christianity -- it can only lead to usurpation of freedom.
"The few federal courts to consider the question have found that the Constitution does not afford a fundamental right to acquire, possess, or protect property"
WHAT?!!
Respectfully, James Madison was a Calvinist, not a Deist. The other major author of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton, was an Episcopalian.
Your confusion (if not merely indicative of the modern "all the founders were Deists" propaganda) is probably due to the use of the term "Deist" to not only mean those believing in a non-interfering creator (something incompatible with the Creator mentioned in the Declaration of Independence), but also independently used to describe those opposed to the Puritanical fanaticism (a philosophy well described in the 1708 Letter Concerning Enthusiasm) who clearly do not adhere to the more common modern use of the term. As such, many of the founders might indeed be described as "Deists", but such is not incompatible with the Christianity that just about every one of them, with the possible exceptions of Jefferson (who might best be described as a Christian heretic) and Franklin (a hedonistic Unitarian), espoused.
Additionally, the constition protected slavery for 85 years; it did not work well for those humans enslaved with its consent.
Perhaps Madison's response (in Federalist #42, clarifying that the intent of the Constitution was to ultimately abolish slavery, not "protect" it) to similar misunderstandings about the new Constitution might eliminate your confustion as well:
It were doubtless to be wished, that the power of prohibiting the importation of slaves had not been postponed until the year 1808, or rather that it had been suffered to have immediate operation. But it is not difficult to account, either for this restriction on the general government, or for the manner in which the whole clause is expressed. It ought to be considered as a great point gained in favor of humanity, that a period of twenty years may terminate forever, within these States, a traffic which has so long and so loudly upbraided the barbarism of modern policy; that within that period, it will receive a considerable discouragement from the federal government, and may be totally abolished, by a concurrence of the few States which continue the unnatural traffic, in the prohibitory example which has been given by so great a majority of the Union. Happy would it be for the unfortunate Africans, if an equal prospect lay before them of being redeemed from the oppressions of their European brethren!
Matthew 28:18-20. This was the verse that brought the pilgirms and puritans here. Read the Mayflower Compact (first govt. document in this land) which states that they came here "for ye glorie of God and advancement of ye Christian faith..." What do you think "disciple" means? Does it mean that we should just let the secular humanists run the country? NOT!
Yep- there's a clock running...
Unfortunately, you are ignorant of history. Of the 250 founding fathers, all but 12 were Christians. Madison went to New Jersey College where he got a SEMINARY degree and his meantor was none other than the Rev.Dr. John Witherspoon - another founding father. If you say the Founding fathers were deists, I'm sure you are prepared to back that up with some facts from history and some quotes. Let's have them. I warn you - I am well-read on this - so be sure of what you say before you say it.
but four out of the first five presidents were deists and not christians.
Oh really? Well, we know that Jefferson was no Christian, and James Monroe was not a founding father. Who are those 4 presidents? While you are at it, why don't you list the names of those 250 founders you claim were deists. I don't accept wild assertions - provide evidence.
Additionally, the constition protected slavery for 85 years; it did not work well for those humans enslaved with its consent.
So? Washington freed his slaves, and the vast majority of founders came out against slavery. Oh, by the way, abolitionist movement was a Christian movement that began with Wilberforce in England. I didn't say the founding fathers were perfect -they should have dealt with slavery in 1787, however, if they had, there would not have been a Constitution since some southern members were pro-slavery (most founders were against slavery).
If you need proof, read the Northwest Ordinance (1789) which came out the same year as the 1st amendment was ratified. It is a Christian document that bans slavery in the northwest territories.
Toqueville's Democracy in America is excellent! Did you happen to see the C-SPAN programs which followed his route a few years back? Toqueville noted that the *voluntarism* (read the near-absence of the state)in America was its greatest strength. I agree that today we have poor leaders, but even Jefferson supported unconstitutional acts such as the Louisanna Purchase (he wrote privately that the constitution should be amended to give Congress that authority).
Unfortunately, you have a poor understanding of America's Christian heritage. Typical of public-school educated people of today. No offense intended.
Thank you. I have long argued that Deism as defined by the people to whom we often ascribe it can not mean what we are taught it means, particularly in school today.
Can you provide me with more on this (will look more on own later, of course)? Thank you.
Thank you for the citation.
Spot on, as our UK "allies" would say.
I like your tag line. Unfortunately, it's true.
How do you think we became a Nation? Without that "mental glitch", Tony Blair would be our leader and you wouldn't even own a BB gun. Not that you'd care anyways.
I wouldn't know. I'm not the one who spends an inordinate amount of time thinking and posting about drugs. I don't attempt to inject drugs into unrelated threads. I have made a conscious decision to make sure drugs are just not that relevant to my own lifestyle. You decide.
...As part of that plan, the Framers took care to ensure that judges were accountable to the people at all times. Although federal judges were appointed and did not face election, the Founders made certain that federal judges would be easily removable from office through impeachment, a procedure that today is widely misunderstood and rarely used. While the current belief is that a judge may be removed only for the commission of a criminal offense or the violation of a statutory law, [3] it was not this way at the beginning. As Alexander Hamilton explained, "the practice of impeachments was a bridle" [4] — a way to keep judges accountable to the people. And what did the Framers believe were impeachable offenses?
According to Justice Joseph Story, a "Father of American Jurisprudence" [author of "COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES"]:
The offences to which the power of impeachment has been and is ordinarily applied. . . . are what are aptly termed political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests. [5]
Under the Framers, impeachment occurred whenever a judge attempted to carry a personal agenda through the court; but today impeachment has become what Justice Story warned that it should never be: a power "so weak and torpid as to be capable of lulling offenders into a general security and indifference." [6] The federal judiciary, because it now enjoys a level of insulation from the people that the Framers never intended and to which they today would vehemently object, is unafraid to reshape American culture and policy to mirror its own political whims and personal values...
Okay, but I'll need a little more information. Judging by this thread, I'm going to assume you support an "enduring document" view of the Constitution. Do you believe that the substantial effects doctrine is consistent with that view? Does the fact that the WoD is dependent on the substantial effects doctrine influence your view of that doctrine? Would you think differently if there was a constitutional amendment specifically authorizing the WoD, and there was no substantial effects dependency?
A more apt phrase would be speeding recklessly.
I know. The Senate has a chance to fix all this, but if it doesn't..........a future President will.
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