The “Litmus Test” vs. Strict Construction: Choose Right or Die

Supreme Court appointments will prove the most significant consequence of the 2004 U.S. presidential election.

Why do many Americans now long for the moral certainty of our childhoods? Why do many Americans today wonder if they will be able to marry and have children, if their children will marry, and if their children will stay married to raise their grandchildren? Will those grandchildren live in a society that still honors the freedom-enabling philosophical and ethical legacy of our Founders, or will our highest courts, instead, enforce today’s radical agenda of elitism, historical revision, political correctness and compulsory hedonism?

Since the 60s, federal judges and the U. S. Supreme Court have been steadily encroaching into the personal convictions of citizens, handing down political dictates that destroy the privacy of religious, family and community relationships. Their decisions have pit schools against parents and nationally-funded activists against local congregations and associations. Public religious expression has been silenced by slews of costly lawsuits brought by left-leaning activists and courts more than willing to limit religious expression in public, while redefining “rights” that promote obscenity, abortion, promiscuity, pornography, homosexuality and pedophiliac literacy.

Activists and courts are using Biblically-based moral precepts taken from the legal overthrow of racial segregation to legally overthrow the Biblical morality which underwrote our Constitution.

To the several U. S. Supreme Court vacancies anticipated to occur during the 44th Presidency, our next President’s Supreme Court appointments will likely decide the preservation — or the end — of the moral and ethical structure on which our nation’s Constitution was founded, with its reliance on a virtuous people. In a letter to his cousin Zabdiel Adams on June 21, 1776, John Adams wrote: "The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People... [t]hey may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty." With the goal of maintaining a unifying civic morality, and in contrast to today’s politics of personal destruction, the American Founders relied on compromise to solve divisive issues.

George W. Bush wants to appoint “strict constructionists” to the high court. Strict constructionists defend our Federal system by deciding whether a law passed by an elected legislature is legal or not according to the written law of the Constitution — not according to their political views, personal agendas or ability to deconstruct the plain language of the Founding Document. Strict constructionist judges must trust the will of the People and the Constitutional process, which defines the legislatures as the proper place for changing society.

Impartial judges must be able to reason on behalf of persons who are not identical to themselves, but are, nevertheless, Americans, comprising many viewpoints. Obviously, no nation can tailor all of its laws to the exact specifications of each of its citizens. Compromise is often necessary to prevent the tyranny of the majority; compromise was the means through which our brilliant Constitution was hammered out. But today’s greatest threat to our civic life is judicial tyranny — social engineering by appointed, elitist judges who bypass the elected representatives of the People to make legal policy from the bench, disordering not just our society, but the very meaning of the Constitution.

Both the Constitution and our tradition confer responsibility for making our laws on our elected representatives. Elected representatives can be voted out of office if their decisions consistently violate the “consent of the governed.” The courts are meant to serve as a counterbalance to keep laws aligned with the stated intentions of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Judges should not search for “penumbras” of meaning that may be twisted to construe, but do not explicitly grant, new rights.

New rights, if they are just enough to stand the test of time, should be instituted by elected legislatures, not by judges.

Bush’s appointment philosophy would accomplish the century’s most vital civil compromise: the preservation of the Constitutional system we have been blessed to inherit — which in itself allows innovation through both the private sector and through legislatures, yet preserves the freedoms of the People to influence their elected representatives. Bush’s desire to appoint strict constructionists is aimed at restoring the proper role of the legislatures.

Americans traditionally hate arbitrary sources of power and authority. Yet our our system of checks and balances, coupled with our historic faith in an Absolute truth and our contemporary faith in the discovery of scientific truths, is so efficient that is has been no barrier to social and economic innovations that stand the test of time. Thus, American pursuit of truth has led to more political freedom and more scientific, medical and technological discoveries than any other political philosophy in recorded history.

Having strict constructionists among the Justices would not rule out innovations in society and technology; in fact, it may ensure that our historic formula survives and continues its generous, inclusive productivity — the American Dream that permits anyone to aspire to own property, patent or trademark inventions or run for public office.

Most importantly, a panel containing strict constructionists would redress the power of radical individualists to achieve the covert political overthrow of Western civilization through an aggregated coup d’etat of smaller, less obvious legal coups. It would force civil revolutionaries to use the front door, not sneak in through the back door by justice-rigging.

John Kerry, in what would be the capstone of his lifelong adult career of treachery and rebellion against the American institutions he has pledged to serve, indicated in the third debate against President Bush that he intends to appoint only judges who will reject any limitations on abortion — a position consistent with his call in the first debate for a global sniff test on the exercise of American military power in our nation’s own defense. President Bush refers to Kerry’s plan as a “litmus test” for judicial appointments.

It is characteristic of the liberal camp Mr. Kerry represents to count not upon the inner conscience of Americans to support the best choices and form compromises to balance our own mistakes; liberals look for a source of man-made secular authority, like the UN or the Supreme Court, that will overrule those laughably earnest conservatives — that is, the productive members of society — provided that liberals can serve as the secular Almighty’s highly-paid consultants.

Kerry’s idea of an appropriate Supreme Court justice is not an impartial judge, but a partisan politician who can be counted upon to rule according to liberal ideology, with its determination to force human “progress” through legal coercion. This idea was tried in the Soviet Union, among other totalitarian systems, and it fails. Human progress consists of personal, spiritual growth by individuals according to their own willingness and abilities, and cannot be dictated by government in a free nation.

George Bush has not acted to outlaw abortion entirely; but like most Americans, he wants a compromise, such as reasonable limits on blatantly heinous practices like partial birth abortion, or the killing of live infants who survive abortion procedures. Americans are already compromised by the legally-approved abortion of an innocent life at the sole convenience of the careless mother and father who failed to arrange in advance for the possibility of a child through abstinence, adoption or contraception. Most Americans believe abortion should not be used as birth control, and resent being taxed for its material and social costs.

Beyond the issue of abortion lies the rest of the leftist agenda. It is only logical that Kerry’s judges, with a political agenda favoring abortion, would extend their philosophy into all other areas of liberal contention that come before the court.

Leftist liberalism by its nature seeks no compromise with the long-term evolution of society. Its aim is shorter-term force to bend society to the will of powerful elites, such as judges or academics. The American Left’s weapon of choice is to use the courts to overthrow the will of the People and fatten its lawyers’ wallets. Judicial tyranny does not encourage social evolution; it re-feudalizes our people. Our present unrest over procreation and personal responsibility has been a Cold War since the 60s, with 40 million lives killed by abortion; high rates of divorce and domestic violence; countless children abused, neglected and dead from broken, violent or unmarried homes; a sharp upturn in treatments for psychological and stress disorders; and a deepening moral confusion that feeds on, and is fed by, the self-destructive, anti-life, anti-Constitutional Left.

The battle for abortion, which arose in the same era as racial Civil Rights, has not similarly achieved a settled consensus that a moral wrong has been righted; fundamentally, abortion is wrong. Fierce opposition to abortion has never ended; but in the absence of a consensus for its overthrow, compromises are justified — yet any compromise is fiercely opposed by the Left, and by Senator Kerry, who has never voted in favor of a single limitation on abortion in 20 years in the Senate.

On that issue and the entire liberal social agenda, compromise will not be possible with a politicized court. This civil war, like the last one, is a moral battle not only for the dignity of human life, but the preservation of the Federal system with its checks and balances and its spirit of compromise to contain strife and preserve the Union. By supporting President Ronald Reagan, who was loathed and reviled by the leftist elites, the American People helped defeat totalitarian communist governments around the world. We must fight to win our own country now, with the weapons now at hand: our voices and our votes.

Please speak and vote for George W. Bush’s defense of the brilliant Federalist intentions that created the strongest, longest-lasting democratic republic in world history. We must defeat John Kerry.

It is critically important that conservatives don't take their eye off the ball.

As serious a matter as the war on terrorism is, as important as you may find other issues, the battle for the courts trumps all.

With looming retirements and the Democrat filibusters, control of the upper levels of the judiciary is at a tipping point.

The result of this election will be felt for decades, if not for centuries.

The Left is losing power in the state legislatures, in the Federal legislature and rarely holds the White House. They're even now feeling pressure in the Academy and in the Press.

Their last refuge is with a radical judiciary. This is why their electoral strategy is to throw as much mud as possible and get close elections in front of sympathetic judges. The Left *must not* get control of the courts now.

This election is a challenge to "Broken Glass" Republicans and anyone who cares about what kind of country they leave to their grandchildren.

Don't let complacency, intimidation, laziness, the weather or anything stop you from going to the polls.

Contribute to conservative candidates (or the SwiftVets) as much as you can. Next summer's vacation is far less important than the future of the country. Put that money to work saving your nation. If our troops can risk their lives for the country we can at least cough up some cash and make a few "get out the vote" phone calls.

To quote John Adams in the musical "1776", "Now VOTE! Damn you, VOTE!"

I think that the main reason people aren't having children isn't because they aren't married or because they don't want to. It's that they fear for their financial security.

That's also the main reason people get divorced.

We Republicans have to get behind the working people of America and stop supporting the big corporations in every thing they do.

Otherwise, people wont be able to afford to have children.

Period.

Its common sense.

You wrote: Contribute to conservative candidates (or the SwiftVets) as much as you can. Next summer's vacation is far less important than the future of the country. Put that money to work saving your nation. If our troops can risk their lives for the country we can at least cough up some cash and make a few "get out the vote" phone calls.

Wow. I love that. It's really true. I hope many read your post and take your advice.

I agree; the entire economy has now been shifted 180 degrees away from the things that support families. Overcentralized businesses forcing long commutes, neighborhoods built with no centers, no stores or churches in walking distance, no public spaces big enough for a community meeting; neighborhoods where no one is at home during the day; even the set-back rules in new communites that keep houses so far back from the sidewalk and street that you have to shout to say hello to passers-by.

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