Posted on 03/29/2005 11:00:33 AM PST by EternalVigilance
Posted: March 29, 2005 11:44 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The Florida state constitution declares unequivocally that in the state of Florida "the supreme executive power shall be vested in a governor … ." The word supreme means highest in authority. There can be no executive authority in the state of Florida higher than the governor. No state law can create an executive authority higher than highest in the Florida constitution. Therefore no court order based upon such a law can constitutionally create such an authority.
If the governor tells the local police in Pinellas County to step aside, they must do so, or else be arrested and tried for an assault on the government of the state, which is to say insurrection.
(If Gov. Jeb Bush fears that for some reason they would question the authority of his representatives, then he should take the necessary law enforcement officials to Tampa in person, thus making the situation crystal clear.)
Since Florida's highest law grants him supreme executive power, the governor's action would be lawful. No one in the Florida judiciary can say otherwise, since the whole basis for the doctrine of judicial review (which they invoked when they refused to apply "Terri's law") is that any law at variance with the constitution is no law at all.
Gov. Bush has said that he recognizes the injustice being done to Terri Schiavo but is powerless to stop it. He is obviously not powerless, and his view of injustice is fully warranted.
The Florida state constitution declares: "All natural persons, female and male alike, are equal before the law and have inalienable rights, among which are the right to enjoy and defend life and liberty … ."
The word "inalienable" means that the rights in question cannot be given away or transferred to another by law. Now, by allowing Michael Schiavo to starve his wife to death, Judge George W. Greer transfers to Schiavo the exercise of her right to life, doing on her behalf what the Florida state constitution declares she herself could not do (since an inalienable right cannot be given away).
Schiavo's decision, and any element of the law it is based on that has the same effect, are therefore unconstitutional on the face of it.
The governor of Florida cannot be obliged to enforce unconstitutional edicts, nor can he be faulted for acting to stop an evident violation of the constitution. In his oath as governor he swore to "support, protect and defend the Constitution and government of the United States and of the state of Florida."
As supreme executive, he is obliged to act in their defense, and no court order can relieve him of this responsibility.
Any order by Judge Greer that seeks to prevent him from doing his sworn duty, as he sees fit, is invalid, and any attempt by the judge to incite armed forces to enforce his order would be an act of judicial insurrection against the constitution and government of Florida.
The judge may have whatever opinion he pleases, but when he attempts to use force to back it up, he breaks the law, going against the constitution of the state, which is to say against the supreme law in Florida.
In Federalist 81, when Alexander Hamilton lists the safeguards against "judiciary encroachments on the legislative authority," he cites in particular "its total incapacity to support its usurpations by force."
Accepting the notion that judicial orders at any level may constitute an executive power superior to the chief executive would give the judiciary just such a forceful capacity.
When every judicial decision carries the implied threat of armed insurrection, a key safeguard of liberty and self-government is removed. If any state governor, or the president of the United States acts so as to encourage the judiciary to assume such executive power, or the people to believe that it may constitutionally do so, he undermines the integrity of all our constitutions, and of American self-government as a whole.
This constitutes a grave dereliction of duty and would in saner times clearly be grounds for his impeachment by a legislature intent on defending the Florida constitution against "judiciary encroachments."
By God's grace, however, Terri Schiavo still lives, and Gov. Bush may yet act to redeem himself and his constitutional authority. Courageous action would be an act of statesmanship, defending the integrity of our constitutional system and the ultimate sovereignty of the people.
We have long been awaiting the statesman who could turn a crisis into such healing. Like Ronald Reagan before him, Jeb Bush could prove himself such a man. For Terri's sake and for the sake of constitutional self-government in America, he should act now. For failure to do so, he has no excuse.
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Be sure to visit Alan Keyes' communications center for founding principles, The Declaration Foundation.
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Former Reagan administration official Alan Keyes, was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Social and Economic Council and 2000 Republican presidential candidate.
| JEB COULDN'T - THERE WAS A COURT ORDER FROM JUDGE GREER STOPPING HIM.
And in case you haven't been paying attention, Jeb did send state agents to do just that. But the force he sent was so small that the "deputies" blew them off. The deputies would have beat feet if DCF had shown up with 60 or 100 national guard troops in tow. There wasn't going to be any cop vs cop shootout. It was a poker game. The judge bluffed, and Jeb folded. And Terri dies. |
Courts should say yes (guilty) or no (not guilty) and impose penalties for the guilty in criminal cases, and yes (the plaintiff is right) or no (the plaintiff is not right) in civil cases and then award or not award fair compensation. Prescribing remedies is beyond their purview.
Yet, that is what got us where we are, courts deciding how a problem should be solved. In Texas, in the wake of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Judge William Wayne Justice basically ran the prison system for thirty years or so. Judge Barefoot (yep that's his name) Sanders ran the states school sytems.
IMVHO, Mr. Keyes has eating a big bowl of stupid-o's for breakfast every morning for at least two years, now. :P
"Their is a reason why Keyes never has, nor will, hold elective office."
I don't understand your statement. What is the antecedent to the pronoun?
THANK YOU, and amen!
Is this why Jeb Bush called off DCF? If so, it was not, therefore, because it was illegal for Bush to do so but to avoid potential violence between different governmental agencies. Is this correct?
Chief executives cannot defy courts any more than we can. If we want them to do that, and I am not sure we do, we have to change the law.
| If Jeb was a poker player, he folded with 4 kings in his hand.
|
Excuse me .. then I'm sure you haven't read your Bible lately .. because GOD said, "Be subject to those in authority over you". GOD does not advocate disobeying the laws.
It's like they want him to declare martial law and send in the cops and national guard. I mean, that is basically what's being called for.
Can't you see some Clinton-alike in the future using an act by W or Jeb to justify sending in the JBT's against some innocent poor sod because "it might save lives."
What if those laws are in conflict with His laws?
Well .. this law would work - if there were no previous court actions which work against this law.
I cannot understand why people think they can just pick a law out of the middle of a case and say it proves the whole rest of the case is no longer valid. That's just nuts.
The combination of a potential for violence between government agencies coupled with the fact that he did not have the courts on his side would have prevented any Governor from acting.
Well, considering the police there were ordered by the court to not allow anyone without a judge to take Terri, then how do you figure to save her with Jeb?
Not only did state courts rule against him, but above him, the Federal courts ruled against him.
The President can't even do anything with this mess.
If either the President of Florida Gov. go King George on this by decree, then they get impeached out of office.
Where's the remedy supposed to be for Terri in all that mess?
Ridiculous assertion. That's not what Keyes says, and if you have fifth grade reading comprehension skills, you know it.
If Keyes' argument was worth the effort, I'd explain why his legal analysis of the governor's authority is bogus.
In other words, you don't have a counter to his clear and concise argument.
Can you explicitly explain to me why Article One, Section Two, does not apply to Terri Schiavo?
Because if she is a PERSON, it must.
"you have bought into the completely destructive myth of judicial supremecy"
And you are incorrect .. I have not "bought into" anything. Judge Greer issued a court order - which people now want to say either didn't exist or didn't matter - and somehow the Governor had the "supreme authority" to disregard it. That's just nuts.
As far as I am concern this is no longer a Conservative, Liberal, Democrat, or Republican Issue. This is now either you are right with God or you are not. My eyes have been opened in part to the numerous postings and comments made regarding this issue. When we have to argue over the rights of a handicap individual to live; when we have to put a price tag to life; when we see nothing wrong with starving a human being to death; when we can take parents and make them watch helplessly while their child withers away in pain and not allow them to comfort, help or aid her; then it becomes clear what this fight is all about. God said he would take those that were lukewarm and spat them out of his mouth. Whether President Bush is a good man is not in my place to pass judgment but it is now with a grain of salt that I take anything President Bush has to say. I can not hear him speak words of Good when all I can see is a woman being starved to death and told we could not do anything legally to save her. I just can't see God accepting that excuse.....
That doesn't answer the question.
Was the reason DCF did not take her was because they did not have the legal right to or was it due to the extenuating circumstances you describe?
That wasn't what I meant to imply with my statement at all--sorry if I did.
All my original statement said was that if Keyes wanted to be consistent, he would also have to argue that the state of Florida doesn't have the power to imprison or to execute.
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Judge Greer does not have the authority to order an Executive Branch official not to enforce the law. There is a long-extant law in Florida giving the DCF the right to intervene in these cases on an emergency basis, with court review coming after the fact. The way the law reads, the DCF could have taken Terri to the hospital on Thursday, and the earliest any "court review" could have come was Tuesday.