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Supreme usurpations
Washington Times ^ | 11/30/04 | Bruce Fein

Posted on 11/30/2004 12:11:36 AM PST by Former Military Chick

President George W. Bush has acclaimed Associate Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas as models for Supreme Court appointments. Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, the flip side of Justices Scalia and Thomas, underscores President Bush's judicial wisdom.

In a series of lectures at Harvard University on Nov. 17-19 styled "Our Democratic Constitution," Justice Breyer celebrates an extraconstitutional and pliable standard of interpretation indistinguishable from rule by Platonic Guardians. His teaching that "active liberty" as conceived by a French political philosopher in 1819 should inform Supreme Court edicts makes the case for Mr. Bush's likely appointees better than the president himself.

Like legislative and executive authority, legitimate judicial power must be anchored in the Constitution. Article III and companion provisions empower the Supreme Court to interpret the nation's Founding charter and federal statutes in litigation. To interpret means to apply the text in accord with customary linguistic usage and the discernable purposes of its authors. That coherent standard, despite occasional difficulties in application, confines disagreements to the molar or molecular.

In contrast, Justice Breyer's interpretive North Star, plucked from the scribblings of Frenchman Benjamin Constant, is an "active liberty, consisting of a sharing of a Nation's sovereign authority among that Nation's citizens." The liberal appointee of President William Jefferson Clinton rhapsodizes over Constant's utopian visions: "active and constant participation in collective power [by every citizen]"; "sub[mission] to all the citizens without exception the care and assessment of their most sacred interests;" [and] ennoble[ment] [of the people's] thoughts and establish[ment] among them [of] a kind of intellectual equality which forms the glory and power of a people."

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: scotus; supremecourt
A great deal of food for thought.
1 posted on 11/30/2004 12:11:36 AM PST by Former Military Chick
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To: Former Military Chick
Constant's utopian visions: "active and constant participation in collective power [by every citizen]"; "sub[mission] to all the citizens without exception the care and assessment of their most sacred interests;" [and] ennoble[ment] [of the people's] thoughts and establish[ment] among them [of] a kind of intellectual equality which forms the glory and power of a people."

This is exactly the kind of statist crap that our nation abjures with all its heart and soul. Breyer has no business on the Supreme Court if this is his philosophy. Impeachment and removal is in order.

2 posted on 11/30/2004 12:19:54 AM PST by John Valentine
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To: Former Military Chick
"The associate justice discovers a new constitutional right that had eluded his predecessors for more than two centuries — the people's right to an active and sleepless participation in the exercise of sovereign power, and elaborates that, "The people must have room to decide and leeway to make mistakes."

Why, I had no idea that the Supreme Court of the United States had such intellect.

Breyer's "room" should be an 8' X 8' cell and the "leeway" should be the amount of space the rope swings back and forth after the trap is sprung.

It is articles like this that drive home the point that the 4 million vote plurality was but a whisker.

3 posted on 11/30/2004 3:42:39 AM PST by G.Mason (A war mongering, UN hating, military industrial complex loving, Al Qaeda incinerating American.)
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To: Thud

Here is something else for your Federal judiciary hubris list.


4 posted on 11/30/2004 4:32:22 AM PST by Dark Wing
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To: John Valentine; G.Mason; Chieftain; Ragtime Cowgirl; gatorbait; GreyFriar; americanmother; ...

This is a must read about our Supreme Court **ping**..

To increase your curisoity, perhaps we need to think long and hard about impeachment for Breyer.

Actually Valentine had that suggestion, but, if folks were to have serious considerations for the future of Breyer count me in!


5 posted on 11/30/2004 8:08:36 PM PST by Former Military Chick (Lets keep the MSM to the grind stone, stories like this should not be ignored.)
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To: Former Military Chick

I think

it's far easier and probably more and sooner effective to

PRAY

that GOD will change her inside, out; remove her off the court; some other God wrought option that effectively removes her from any work anywhere near the court.

Have earnestly prayed so in a number of cases over the last 40 years and seen God work dramatically in many of them.

Unity in Prayer also helps.

Certainly I'd love for anything honorable and legal that removed the . . . person . . . from the bench.


6 posted on 11/30/2004 10:37:13 PM PST by Quix (5having a form of godliness but denying its power. I TIM 3:5)
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