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Posted on 01/01/2005 10:31:32 AM PST by Ed Current
The law-breaking branch of the federal government has become more powerful than the law making branch, the President, and even the Constitution.
How did five out of nine judges on the U.S. Supreme Court become so infallible that no one questions anything they say? When the Most High Court speaks, the nation must prostrate fall. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, during his confirmation hearings, said that he would not attempt to overturn Roe v.Wade and that he considered it the "settled law of the land." The abortion edicts from the Supreme Court aren't acts of Congress, nor a constitutional amendment, but a supposedly pro-life politician declares that those edicts are "settled law."
If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to break as many laws as they have, why does the Constitution prohibit them from being involved in the law making process? Why did Marshall have to derive the doctrine of judicial review in Marbury v Madison? Why wasn't it explicitly stated in the Constitution?
If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to amend the Constitution, why does the Constitution prohibit them from being involved in the amendment process? If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to enforce their own opinion, why does the Constitution leave that option with the President?
If the U.S. Supreme Court was intended to be equal to, or above the written Constitution, why does the Constitution state, "This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land…. and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution."
The following will demonstrate that the United States Supreme Court broke numerous state laws regulating abortion.
The Foundation for the National Archives states that, "The Virginia Declaration of Rights strongly influenced Thomas Jefferson in writing the first part of the Declaration of Independence. It later provided the foundation for the Bill of Rights."
The Virginia Declaration of Rights states, " That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life…."
Thomas Jefferson, in the Declaration of Independence, acknowledged the source of Rights and expressed the fundamental purpose of government: "....all Men are created equal...endowed by their Creator with...unalienable Rights, that among these are Life....to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted...."
Robert C. Cannada writing in the The National Lawyers Association Review, Winter 1996, connected the Declaration of Independence to the U.S. Constitution: "The National Lawyers Association takes the position that the practical effect of the legal connection or relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution is that the Constitution is to be interpreted in the light of the principles set forth in the Declaration.[...] The Preamble introduces and explains the purpose of The U.S. Constitution, and links it to The Declaration of Independence." The Preface to the United States Code - Annotated states that "this code is the official restatement in convenient form of the general and permanent laws of the United States in force December 7, 1925...."
The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution states," We the People of the United States, in Order to....secure the Blessings of Liberty to...our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution...."
Amendment V - "No person shall be...deprived of life...without due process of law...."
In First Things, January 2003: Constitutional Persons, Robert H. Bork stated that, "Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception."
Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution provides the means for Congress to overthrow the law-breaking branch of the federal government and allow states to mend their broken laws. In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
We the People Act (HR 3893 IH) was only supported by two members of the U.S. House, and virtually unheard of, or promoted by the pro-life constituency.
It is past time to terminate the rule of broken law contained in the unconscionable and unconstitutional edicts of the U.S. Supreme court.
We the People Act needs to be reintroduced and passed by the 109th Congress and restore the rule of Law.
References.
Robert C. Cannada, Senior Counsel, Butler, Snow, O'Mara, Stevens & Cannada, PLLC, Jackson, Mississippi, "America's Choice: A Limited Government Or A Totalitarian Government," The National Lawyers Association Review, Winter 1996. http://www.nla.org/library/winter96/pg9.html
Constitutional Persons:An Exchange on Abortion http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0301/articles/schlueter_bork.html
Ed Current is working with http://www.cpforlife.org/pro_life.htm to demolish the Blackmum Wall http://www.lifedynamics.com/Pro-life_Group/Pro-choice_Women/ . Reagan brought down the Berlin Wall and CPL will demolish the Blackmum wall by using Article 3 of the U.S. Constitution.
Article III, Section 2 - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Congress used the authority of Article III, Section 2, clause 2 on 12 occasions to limit the jurisdiction of the federal courts.
The Avalon Project : Federalist No 78 The judiciary, on the contrary, has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments. It proves incontestably, that the judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power 1 The celebrated Montesquieu, speaking of them, says: "Of the three powers above mentioned, the judiciary is next to nothing.'' "Montesquieu: The Spirit of Laws.'' vol. i., page 186.
The Origin and Scope of Roe -- Professor Douglas W. Kmiec presents letters and records of correspondence between members of the Roe court that reveal questionable motivations as well as a fundamental disrespect for normal principles of judicial restraint.
Rehnquist, "Roe V. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973):
"To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter." caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113
FT January 2003: Constitutional Persons, Robert H. Bork made the following comments about Roe v. Wade:
"Blackmun invented a right to abortion....Roe had nothing whatever to do with constitutional interpretation. The utter emptiness of the opinion has been demonstrated time and again, but that, too, is irrelevant. The decision and its later reaffirmations simply enforce the cultural prejudices of a particular class in American society, nothing more and nothing less. For that reason, ROE is impervious to logical or historical argument; it is what some people, including a majority of the justices, want, and that is that....Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception....Scalia is quite right that the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion."
"As noted before, the Supreme Court did not invent abortion. There might be plenty of abortion, perhaps authorized or permitted by state laws, even without Roe and Casey. Moreover, the Court is, arguably, not directly responsible for the wrong moral choices of individuals that the Court's decisions permit. Finally, the Court is not responsible - cannot be responsible, consistent with its constitutional role - for correcting all injustices, even grave ones. But the Court is responsible for the injustices that it inflicts on society that are not consistent with, but in fact betray, its constitutional responsibilities. To the extent that the Court has invalidated essentially all legal restriction of abortion, it has authorized private violence on a scale, and of a kind, that unavoidably evokes the memories of American slavery and of the Nazi Holocaust. And by cloaking that authorization in the forms of the law - in the name of the Supreme Law of the Land - the Court has taught the American people that such private violence is a right and, by clear implication, that it is alright. Go ahead. The Constitution is on your side. This is among your most cherished constitutional freedoms. Nobody ought to oppose you in your action. We have said so.
The decision in Casey, reaffirming Roe and itself reaffirmed and extended in Carhart, in my view exposes the Supreme Court, as currently constituted, as a lawless, rogue institution capable of the most monstrous of injustices in the name of law, with a smugness and arrogance worthy of the worst totalitarian dictatorships of all time. The Court, as it stands today, has, with its abortion decisions, forfeited its legal and moral legitimacy as an institution. It has forfeited its claimed authority to speak for the Constitution. It has forfeited its entitlement to have its decisions respected, and followed, by the other branches of government, by the states, and by the People. The enthusiasm of liberal intelligentsia for the Court's abortion decisions, the sycophancy of the law professorate, of the legal profession, and of our elected officials, and the docility of the American people with respect to our lawless, authoritarian Court rivals the pliancy of the most cowardly, servile peoples toward ruinous, brutal, anti-democratic regimes throughout world history. We suffer people to commit despicable acts of private violence and we welcome - some of us revere - a regime that destroys popular government for the sake of perverted, Orwellian notions of "liberty." After a twentieth century that saw some of the worst barbarisms and atrocities ever committed by humankind, at a time when humankind supposedly had progressed to more enlightened states, we still have not learned. The lesson of the Holocaust - "Never Forget" - is lost. We fail to recognize the amazing capacity of human beings to commit unthinkable, barbaric evil, and of others to tolerate it. We remember and are aghast at the atrocities of others, committed in the past, or in distant lands today. But we do not even recognize the similar atrocities that we ourselves commit, and tolerate, today."Michael Stokes Paulsen, The Worst Constitutional Decision of All Time, 78 Notre Dame L. Rev. 995, 1003-1007 (2003).
"If the opinion of the Supreme Court covered the whole ground of this act, it ought not to control the coordinate authorities of this Government. The Congress, the Executive, and the Court must each for itself be guided by its own opinion of the Constitution. Each public officer who takes an oath to support the Constitution swears that he will support it as he understands it, and not as it is understood by others. It is as much the duty of the House of Representatives, of the Senate, and of the President to decide upon the constitutionality of any bill or resolution which may be presented to them for passage or approval as it is of the supreme judges when it may be brought before them for judicial decision. The opinion of the judges has no more authority over Congress than the opinion of Congress has over the judges, and on that point the President is independent of both. The authority of the Supreme Court must not, therefore, be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve." The Avalon Project : President Jackson's Veto Message Regarding ...
THE IRREPRESSIBLE MYTH OF MARBURY
Read later.
Happy New Year, Ed.
WITH THE INTERNET AND INSTANT COMMUNICATION - SOME OF YOU SMART FOLK SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO EFFECIENTLY MUSTER A RECALL.
Well, Congress and the President must at some point take a stand. They must challenge the idea that the Sup Court can arbitrarily write law as they see fit, and that they are the only arbiters of what is and is not constitutional.
Unless Bush gets 2-4 nomination, and then stands firm and pick conservatives, then it is inevitable that gay marriage or civil unions will be imposed by SCOTUS. Even then, it would probably still happen somewhere down the line, but anyway, the most likely case is that the Court will impose one or the other in the next couple of years. When that happens, the President and Congress should bring things to a head and openly defy the Court. They should refuse to enforce the decision.
What could happen? Would there be a constitutional crisis? If so, then good. Its about time. If that's what it take to reign in the Sup Court then so be it. They couldn't enforce their decisions if the President and Congress refused to recognize their authority or the credence of the decision.
What could happen? Would there be a constitutional crisis? If so, then good. Its about time. If that's what it take to reign in the Sup Court then so be it.
Ditto!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.
double ditto!!!!!
And the Congress must clearly understand the penalty the people will impose on them if they fail to defy the SCOTUS when SCOTUS moves beyond their powers.
1. William J. Quirk, The Fourth Choice:Ending the Reign of Activist Judges
2. Gerald Gunther, Congressional Power to Curtail Federal Court Jurisdiction: An Opinionated Guide to the Ongoing Debate, 36 Stan. L. Rev. 895 (1984).
3. James McClellan, Congressional Retraction of Federal Court Jurisdiction, 27 Vill. L. Rev. XX (1982); McClellan, Liberty, Order, and Justice: An Introduction to the Constitutional Principles of American Government 511- 516 (3d ed. 2000).
4. Charles E. Rice, Congress and the Supreme Court's Jurisdiction, 27 Vill. L. Rev. 959 (1982); Rice, Withdrawing Jurisdiction from the Federal Courts, 7 Harv. J. L. & PP. 13 (1984).
5. Ralph A. Rossum, Congress, the Constitution, and the Appellate Jurisdiction of the Supreme Court: The Letter and Spirit of the Exceptions Clause, 24 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 385 (1983).
6. Julian Valasco, Congressional Control Over Federal Court Jurisdiction: A Defense of the Traditional View, 46 Cath. L. Rev. 677 (1997).
7. William Van Alstyne, A Critical Guide to Ex Parte McCardle, 15 Ariz. L. Rev. 229 (1973).
8. Daniel J. Meltzer, The History and Structure of Article III, 138 U. Penn. L. Rev. 569 (1990).
9. Martin Redish, Text, Structure, and Common Sense in the Interpretation of Article III, 138 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1633 (1990); Redish, Constitutional Limitations on Congressional Power to Control Jurisdiction: A Reaction to Professor Sager, 77 Nw. U. L. Rev. 143 (1982).
BUMP
Uh, THE law breaking branch? As if the other two obey the law?
I bet 6 of the 9 on the court would agree.
I read that Rehnquist is worried about the loss of judicial independence. He doesn't seem to realize that the reason this is happening is that the Courts have abused their power. The Courts are not going to lose their independence, except in areas where they had no business acting in the first instance.
None of the other branches of government want the job of the Courts, i.e. the responsibility to decide cases. It is only in those areas where the Courts have usurped the power of the executive and the legislative branches of government in which their powers are subject to curtailment.
I don't really agree that Marbury in itself was irresponsible. I do think that the Courts have abused Marbury well beyond what was orginally intended. The truth is that the judicial officers failed miserably to realize that Marbury was a decision that depended for its force on the acceptance of the executive and legislative branches of government. By using Marbury to dictate policy, and change the Constitution by judicial fiat, the Courts have endangered the very survival of that doctrine, and may soon find that the executive and legislative branches of government will not honor the rulings of the Court.
I read that Rehnquist is worried about the loss of judicial independence. He doesn't seem to realize that the reason this is happening is that the Courts have abused their power. The Courts are not going to lose their independence, except in areas where they had no business acting in the first instance.
Scalia has the same concerns,
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/99-830.ZD1.html
Scalia, J., dissenting
While I am in an I-told-you-so mood, I must recall my bemusement, in Casey, at the joint opinion’s expressed belief that Roe v. Wade had "call[ed] the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution," Casey, 505 U.S., at 867, and that the decision in Casey would ratify that happy truce. It seemed to me, quite to the contrary, that "Roe fanned into life an issue that has inflamed our national politics in general, and has obscured with its smoke the selection of Justices to this Court in particular, ever since"; and that, "by keeping us in the abortion-umpiring business, it is the perpetuation of that disruption, rather than of any Pax Roeana, that the Court’s new majority decrees." Id., at 995—996. Today’s decision, that the Constitution of the United States prevents the prohibition of a horrible mode of abortion, will be greeted by a firestorm of criticism–as well it should. I cannot understand why those who acknowledge that, in the opening words of Justice O’Connor’s concurrence, "[t]he issue of abortion is one of the most contentious and controversial in contemporary American society," ante, at 1, persist in the belief that this Court, armed with neither constitutional text nor accepted tradition, can resolve that contention and controversy rather than be consumed by it. If only for the sake of its own preservation, the Court should return this matter to the people–where the Constitution, by its silence on the subject, left it–and let them decide, State by State, whether this practice should be allowed. Casey must be overruled.
There is a difference between what Rehnquist thinks and Scalia thinks. Scalia says that the Court should undo the damage of Roe, and he fully understands that the reason the Court is losing the confidence of the people is that it has abused its power. I'm not so sure with Rehnquist. I think that Rehnquist is in a "circle the wagons" mode. He's just trying to delay as long as possible the spanking the Court deserves. Scalia wants the Court to repent and bend over.
I don't really agree that Marbury in itself was irresponsible. I do think that the Courts have abused Marbury well beyond what was orginally intended. The truth is that the judicial officers failed miserably to realize that Marbury was a decision that depended for its force on the acceptance of the executive and legislative branches of government. By using Marbury to dictate policy, and change the Constitution by judicial fiat, the Courts have endangered the very survival of that doctrine, and may soon find that the executive and legislative branches of government will not honor the rulings of the Court.
Marshall was right in deriving judicial review.
Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln derived executive review using the same logic as Marshall in Marbury.
Here's the crux of it all.
Marbury only works if the Courts deem themselves bound by the law, and not above it. If they are willing to limit themselves to applying the law to a given case, and to the necessary "interpretation" of the law that goes with that, and are willing to leave the "making" of the law to the Congressional and Executive Branches that were given that responsibility in the Constitution, then Marbury works.
Once the Courts decide to impose their own views on the people, though, and to use Marbury as a vehicle to do that, then Marbury becomes a dangerous decision, which invites the Congressional and Executive Branches to use their Constitutionally-prescribed powers as checks and balances against the Courts' abuse of power.
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