Posted on 07/26/2007 5:16:26 AM PDT by RWR8189
WHEN a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics. If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the “political thicket,” it may require a political solution to set it straight.
The framers of the Constitution did not envisage the Supreme Court as arbiter of all national issues. As Chief Justice John Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, the court’s authority extends only to legal issues.
When the court overreaches, the Constitution provides checks and balances. In 1805, after persistent political activity by Justice Samuel Chase, Congress responded with its power of impeachment. Chase was acquitted, but never again did he step across the line to mingle law and politics. After the Civil War, when a Republican Congress feared the court might tamper with Reconstruction in the South, it removed those questions from the court’s appellate jurisdiction.
But the method most frequently employed to bring the court to heel has been increasing or decreasing its membership. The size of the Supreme Court is not fixed by the Constitution. It is determined by Congress.
The original Judiciary Act of 1789 set the number of justices at six. When the Federalists were defeated in 1800, the lame-duck Congress reduced the size of the court to five — hoping to deprive President Jefferson of an appointment. The incoming Democratic Congress repealed the Federalist measure (leaving the number at six), and then in 1807 increased the size of the court to seven, giving Jefferson an additional appointment.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Popular values? Typical leftist scholarship.
If the democrats truly attempt such a monstrosity, it will be time for open rebellion and revolution.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
They have no shame.
That should be printed in braille so they can read it back to themselves.
Where does the NY Times find these idiots? Jean Edwards Smith ought to read Jim Powell's great book, FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression. He just might learn something.
This is why we cannot let Iraq be a live issue in the next election. The Rats could very well wind up with sixty Senators, twenty-two Republican seats are up for re-election next year. Some of them will either be defended by RINOs, or people we’ve replaced RINOs with.
What did they care about “popular values” when they were imposing liberal agendas through the courts that they could not get enacted into law by the legislature?
Not one damn thing.
Then the justices were lionized as “courageous” for going against the popular and legislative will. It all depends on whose ox is being gored.
They almost got away with that in Florida.
They don’t need to run the show all the time. Social security and progressive taxation along with inflation do their work whether they are in power or not. If they raise teacher or public worker salaries in timbucktwo, everybody else is compelled to go along in time. That is the beauty (to them) of the global warming scam. If they sell it, they can drive the issues even when they are not in power and they get to blame the strawman.
The framers of the Constitution did not envisage the Supreme Court as arbiter of all national issues. As Chief Justice John Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, the court’s authority extends only to legal issues.
The Founders did not envision a lot of things that have come to pass. Their idea was to form a national government of limited and enumerated powers. That government has metastasized beyond recognition. The Court has become the arbiter of all national issues.
The author believes that the conservatives on the present Court have "adopt[ed] a manifestly ideological agenda," thereby "plung[ing] the court into the vortex of American politics." He is at least seven decades late in that assessment.
I can't remember the thread, but back when I was a lurker, I remember a FREEPer urging people to continue to vote Republican---he or she was asserting that IF the 'rats ever got full control of the government (Congress & White House), they would quickly try to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
I think it was a mid-term election...maybe 2002? Or perhaps it was the '04 election...not sure.
But someone out there in FREEPer land had a premonition the 'rats would do this.
What is the most partisan claim you can make? The claim that whatever you say is the public interest. And that is precisely what is planted in the claim that "journalism is objective."The First Amendment codifies "freedom of speech [and] of the press. That is a codification of authority - anyone has the authority to run a printing press (provided it is their press). And precisely because of that freedom, there is no guarantee that anything you read will be objective. It is often said that journalists have a "responsibility" to be objective; that is absurd. What they in fact have is the authority to express their own perspective. Including the authority to claim that their own perspective is "objective."
That is why the editorial page of a newspaper interests me more than the "straight news" part does. The "straight news" part of the paper purports to be "objective," but the editorial page and the op ed is frank opinion. And the reality is that the whole paper actually is opinion - opinion as to substance, and - emphatically - opinion as to subject. Because if the journalist doesn't like the facts of a particular case he can - and will - simply change the subject.
And what does a journalist like, and not like? Journalists like what makes journalism seem important, and dislike what does not. What makes journalism seem important is reports of malfeasance or nonfeasance by anyone who doesn't go out of their way to promote journalism. That is, journalism promotes itself (calling itself objective, for instance) and journalism promotes those also criticize nonjournalists (calling them "progressive" or "liberal"). And journalism attacks those who do not think that criticism is the important thing, when there are things which actually have to be done. Journalism calls them "conservatives" or "right wingers."
Let them try, it will be political suicide.
Does anybody know of a good book about FDR from a conservative point of view? I’ve read all of the books about what a wonderful thing the New Deal was, although even his strongest supporters admit that the depression carried through until World War II.
I’d be particularly interested in contemporary Republican views of the persecution of the Jews in Germany before the war (I understand that both Al Smith and Herbert Hoover spoke out about it at a time when FDR was silent), and a dispassionate analysis of the constitutional issues raised by the New Deal itself.
Democrats, rules, precedence, who needs that, we just win and do what we want ... what we say Bush is doing... err, never mind, you will see.
Democrats, raise taxes, fund socialism and gun control, no one knows why, it’s just what they do. It’s an exercise for the reader to figure out why gun control figures so prominently in the Democrats plans.
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