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.
probably....
maybe some think she did.....
I was referring more to this thread in general, the deifying started last Monday.....
I like Alan, but it is as you said.
Did you read the article, or is your keyboard pre-programmed to spew anti-Keyes rantings whenever one of his articles is posted?
Even if that's true, how does that change the problem with Florida's constitution? And, more importantly, the major problem with Keyes's argument--that he totally ignores a provision of the constitution that totally undercuts his position?
Apparently you don't consider your time very valuable since you claim to have wasted it even after seeing the author. I doubt you could pass a quiz on the article.
My point isn't that I wish her dead, but that if she is suffering and no one is going to be able to reinsert the feeding tube, I do not want her suffering to last for weeks. As I said, I didn't agree with the decision to remove the tube in the first place. I can see your point about wanting her to linger if there is still hope, except that hope appears to be that the governor will do something he has clearly said he will not do. I suppose I feel the same way about this as I did when my grandfather was dying--I wanted him to fight as long as he could, but I also didn't want him to linger and suffer for a prolonged time.
Don't put words in my mouth.
Address the substance, if you are capable.
I would imagine your grandfather was not being murdered by being deprived of water and food, though...
Which explains why he's showing signs of extreme hypoxia.
I see you continue to demonstrate that you have nothing to add of substance.
I'm not surprised, in your case.
IIRC the DCF didnt have the authority.
You didn't read carefully. He said Jeb's executive power trumps the power of the cops who said they would stop him or his agents. Cops are part of a lessor executive branch.
I said I didn't bother to read it. I am sure that if I did, I could regurgitate it well enough to pass a quiz. Even a mind-numbed robot could do that.
This is just another rant, whether correct or not, by Dr. Keyes to get some attention. I mean c'mon. All this guy can do is talk and write. Where's the beef? It's time in this situation for Dr. Keyes to either crap or get off the John.
There ya go using logic on these people.
What they want is a dictator and a bloodbath between whatever force Jeb could assemble to carry out his illegal and unconstitutional seizure of raw power and the sheriffs at the hospice.
Fortunately Jeb Bush is not insane like many of the hysterical crackpots that populate this board lately.
Not to mention the loonies at Worldnetdaily...
I read last week that Felos was gloating that the DCF
DID have a 3-hour window of opportunity which they
didn't know about (as soon as they got some injunction
and before Greer found out about it), and he made it
soun as though acting to transfer the patient to health
care would have been quite legal.
You didn't really make this argument well.
The prisoners recieve more due process than Schiavo has.
And, they do not qualify under the other provision concerning being disabled.
It does not follow that therefore the prisoners need to be set free.
Terri Schiavo did not commit a crime, yet her life is being taken by the state.
The order is not from Michael Schiavo but by the judge. If Michael Schiavo decided to change his mind, legally he would have to go to court to request putting the tube back in.
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