OPEN LETTER TO HUGH HEWITT RE: TERRI SCHIAVO and the JUDICIAL OLIGARCHY

I don't care if you do teach Con Law. Irwin [Chemerinsky] teaches Con Law. Nuff said.

The threat of Executive Nullification of Judicial Edicts is an Essential part of the separation and balance of powers. If Executive enforcement is a mere arm of Judiciary legal fiat, you have the Executive, Legislative and Judicial power invested in one Judicial Oligarchy. That is anathema to anything American.

The Court was envisioned to have the power of persuasion only. But if their pronouncements bind the Congress and President automatically, the need for persuasion is gone. PLEASE read Federalist #78. It that says the judiciary is "dependent on the executive even for the efficacy of its judgements". But if the President has no choice in the matter, then the Judiciary is in place of and superior to the President and not dependent on anything. Its power as keeper of the Constitution means that Congress too is irrelevant unless it can mount a 2/3 vote, which is historically rare.

We cannot live for decades on end without a President or Congress. Hundreds of bad Court decisions tearing out America's social fabric prove that. The naked abuse of Congress as well as Terri Shiavo make it glaringly visible.

"...all the parties who refuse to accept the judical outcome risk doing serious damage to the pro-life cause. Worse still, they risk doing damage to the Constitutional system... The problem with judges needs to be solved with judges...[sic]"

You seem to be suggesting that we "bite our lip", bow down to unjust laws and rulings and then try to convince the judicary to find their own rulings unjust.

Not only is that ridiculous, it not what our founding father suggested and/or intended.

Civil Disobedience and our Duty as Americans

You're right in principle. I wouldn't want to defy a judge, period. I don't like it. Plenty of times where judges made bad decisions that were cried out against yet we have stood by and accepted them.. Why? Because of the presuption of rule of law. This is not rule of law, Judge Greer is making up the rules AS HE GOES ALONG. The idea of having an honest broker be thumbed nose at and told to fly a kite is morally repugnant to me in normal proper circumstances. But these are not normal circumstances, and he is not an honest broker. He has showed himself to be a hack for Michael Schiavo, and not only that has many a conflict of interest. Even if MS was pure as the driven snow the cozy relationship Greer and Felos has would be enough to want this totally vacated and have a de novo hearing, but there is nothing culpa settig about MS. But this guy is making himself king and declaring this that and the other thing, including stuff defined as outside his purview, illegal, to the paralysis of other political insitutions from intervening. That tilts the balance. We're talking about checks and balances being UPSET in favor of judges. Action by Bush or mob action would be merely to RESTORE THE BALANCE, if nothing else in this particular matter.

For all those who think "action" is needed, which was a worse "travesty of justice" and caused more harm: the Terri Schaivo case or Roe v. Wade? Which has resulted in more death of innocents? How many of you have been calling for governors to send in the National Guard to storm the the abortion clinics and save the unborn? Would you "damn-the-torpedoes" and defend that as well? Bloggodocio

Sounds like a plan to me. You just have to consider the likelihood of federal executive (military) intervention on a broad issue like abortion (or segregation) versus the likelihood of intervention in the case of saving one woman's life when the President is the governor's brother and agrees that the woman should be saved. If I were governor and if it were certain that the President would not send troops and that mine would not mutiny, yes, I would shut down abortion clinics in a nanosecond. No other moral decision is possible.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.