Progressivism's Alamo (Why stare decisis has become so important to the liberal project)

The Weekly Standard ^ | January 18, 2006 | John Hinderaker

[aligncare]

You've just described the attitudes of the typical mindless blue-state liberal.

I have seen young women with 3 and 4 different race children from the many fathers they bedded. This collapse of mores in the minority community will doom our society. Women must begin respecting themselves again, and men must be taught to respect women, in the traditional sense.

[Erik Latranyi]

It is a two step process: First educate the public on the importance of original intent in interpreting the Constitution. Then start blowing away the crappy decisions of the past 60 years which basically destroyed the Constitution as a document that means anything, if they clearly were decided on principles other than original intent.

Exactly! Move the electorate and you can move the judiciary. That is the reality of our representative republic.

Unfortunately, we have too many on our side that do not want to wait for the education and movement of the electorate. They want their way NOW or they will take their marbles home and place a pox on all our houses.

[Erik Latranyi]

That shows the importance of a President to pay close attention to who he nominates.

It's not always a guarantee. If you listen to Mark Levin on the radio, you would know that he was part of Bush 41's team in selecting Souter. Levin relates the story that they were looking for a strict constructionist, and Souter gave them all the right answers. Souter's record was good. Once he was confirmed, however, we all know what happened.

[Tarkin]

Strangely though, other decisions that would seem to be overturned by the 14th amendment are still considered "good law", especially when it comes to applying the immunities protected by the second amendment to state actions.

Courtesy of The Slaughterhouse Cases which very narrowly interpreted the Priviliges and Immunities Clause. Remember that whenever the SCOTUS (of course indirectly) applies the provisions of the BoR to the states it uses substantive due process rather than the Privileges and Immunities Clause. AFAIK currently the only Justice that disagrees with this view is Justice Thomas.

P.S. The same problem applies to the Third, and Seventh Amendment, the right to trial by jury in all cases and the right to unanimous jury verdicts. None of these rights was applied to the states.

[Rakkasan1]

bump

[Defiant]

You are right. If we got another conservative on the court and could overturn Roe v. Wade 5-4, it would cause a lot of turmoil. The court should hold off on accepting some of these liberal icons, and use some new issues to lay the groundwork. When moderates start seeing the way the wind is blowing, they might even start going along--viz., Kennedy. When the Supreme Court has established firmly that original intent governs, and the country understands that a "living constitution" is another term for tyranny, then they will be ready to drop the other shoe--that decisions which did not rely on original intent are now suspect and subject to reexamination. Decisions which were rendered pursuant to a faithful reading of the constitution, even if we think them wrong, should be entitled to respect under stare decisis. Those that are clear efforts by the justices to add to the Constitution without legislation, or which ignore original intent, can be disregarded without negating the general principle of stare decisis.

It is the liberals who destroyed stare decisis, by deciding to ignore the constitution and do whatever the hell they wanted to lo these 70 years. Correcting an anti-constitutional drift does not violate judicial principles, it restores them.