Posted on 12/18/2011 4:23:33 PM PST by presidio9
Newt Gingrich on Sunday reiterated his argument that there is something "profoundly wrong" with the United States' judicial system, and argued that the balance of power in American government should come down to "two out of three" branches of the government.
In an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation," Gingrich continued to defend his controversial position that Congress and the president should have the authority to ignore the rulings of federal judges when they disagree with them.
Citing what he describes as "extreme behavior" on the party of the judicial system, Gingrich proposes a system wherein "it's always two out of three."
"If the Congress and the court say the president is wrong, in the end the president would lose. And if the president and the court agreed, the Congress loses," said Gingrich. "The founding fathers designed the Constitution very specifically in a Montesquieu spirit of the laws to have a balance of power - not to have a dictatorship by any one of the three branches."
"How does the president decide what's a good law and 'I'm going to obey the Supreme Court,' or what's a bad law and 'I'm just going to ignore it?'" asked CBS' Bob Schieffer.
"I think it depends on the severity of the case," Gingrich responded. "I'm not suggesting that the Congress and the president review every decision. I'm suggesting that when there are decisions... in which they're literally risking putting civil liberty rules in battlefields, it's utterly irrational for the Supreme Court to take on its shoulders the defense of the United States. It's a violation of
Not that I disagree with newts plan of subordinating the judicial branch. But this will lead to a political war between the republican and democrat factions over control of the same courts just as Ron Paul suggested it will.
This I believe is on net a very good thing over the long run. I very much encourage & support such a political war because its inevitable result will be to devalue and largely defang the Federal Court system. As the Federal courts must convict people of federal crimes the slowing down(defanging) of the same courts will nearly have a similar effect on the rest of the Federal government domestically where that court applies. (Note the military & foreign policy does not need Federal court approval to have effect. Foreign countries are not usually innocent until proven guilty).
________________________________________
Just in case that was not clear enough the Logic behind this is quite simple:
1: There is no way either party(republican or democrat) can replace all the Federal judges now in existence in the time they hold office. Unlike in Thomas Jeffersons or even Lincolns time there are simply too many of em, and our elected officials in the Federal Government structurally are still limited to acting only so many objects with in their period of power.
(It should be noted those objects which they address can either be foreign in nature like trade and border policy or domestic in nature such as was formerly the responsibility of our individual, local, and State domains. (Like health, education, roads, and criminal justice, ect). As the Feds attempt to address more of the domestic they inherently sacrifice in the foreign.)
It should also be noted that our Federal Government is already beyond its maximum capacity. Even with the expanded federal benches, such as exist today, trials still take forever and Congress & the president still dont have enough time to properly find & appoint enough Federal judges.
So there must either be fewer of them judges (Thus slower enforcement of federal edicts) or judicial peace & longevity (as exist to some limited extent now).
2: A smaller federal judiciary will be able to take on fewer cases thereby leaving a larger share of the judicial load to the States from which there will be no timely appeal.
In short our States will have their way until one of the few federal judges can get around to imposing their will. With such a smaller Federal judiciary as would be required by one appointed every 8 years, and a large federation & population. That weight could be justy long enough for the state sentence to be served thus rendering the Federal edict mute.
So by all means bring on & encourage this war, and the days where the Federal Government is largely replaced. The leftist cannot practically wage it successfully within the confines of our system structurally. Their Big Centralized government socialism will hit the wall of their own micromanaging capabilities.
Well, basically, it is two out of three. If the congress and the president decide against the judiciary, they’ll have the hammer. And I believe that a President Gingrich would use that constitutional hammer to give the liberal activist judiciary a run for their money. Believe he’s even suggested the congress moves to shutdown the liberal activist ninth circuit court. No doubt he’d sign it if they pass it and it’d be a done deal.
“”Imagine if the Supreme Court ruled against Obamacare only to have President Obama and Congress ignore the ruling!”
Imagine if Congress passed laws against illegal aliens, and all 3 branches ignore the ruling!
Oh, wait ... you don’t have to imagine.”
The system was designed to prevent abusive act, not to garrente the provision of any service, including but not limited to border control.
In this way the Federal courts can stop the enforcement of a federal law, just as the president can stop the enforcement, and congress can refuses to pass the law in the first place, or defend its enforcement.
This is a concept shockingly many conservatives don’t understand. They think the machine must be successful in its objectives no matter the cost. But in fact the whole structure of the machine was to prevent injury in operation not garrente effective or effecent service.
There are a thousand ways to make a goverment more efcent & effective at providing the Federal Goverment responsibility then the system layed out in the 1787 Federal Constitution.
It’s the left who uses the courts to legislate by judicial fiat. Then they say, well things like abortion are protected by the constitution, and we can’t do anything about it! They get what they want and they don’t have to take responsibility for it. It’s a laughable proposition to say conservatives are at risk of losing their agenda if they don’t have courts out there to overrule the other two branches.
Let’s not use the health care mandate as a counterexample either. It’s such a narrow, unusual case. And as Romney stated today on FOX, it’s extremely easy to simply rewrite the mandate as a tax increase, and then give everyone who buys health insurance a tax credit. If the Democrats had been smart enough to write it that way in the bill, we wouldn’t have a chance of overturning it in the courts, since that kind of gaming of the tax system goes on all the time.
I think Newt’s idea is fantastic. It’s a totally separate question as to whether it requires a constitutional amendment to enact or not vs. whether it’s a good idea. Conservatives have nothing to fear from letting WE THE PEOPLE make the law in this country as opposed to an unelected monarchy of judges. Certainly many of our amendments have a tradition of moving us closer and closer to a more direct democracy, which of course does have some risks associated with it. This is a debate well worth having.
If nothing else, a bold and fresh idea like this is going to push the Freddie Mac stuff off of the headlines.
Yes, because that’s a big IF. The Democrats already lost control of Congress and wouldn’t be able to overturn the courts in this case. Newt’s proposal puts the power in the hands of the people. If they hate a Supreme Court ruling, they can then elect people to both of the other branches who will overturn it.
I don’t see how you can make an argument against democracy and for dictatorial rule just because you hope it will work out in your favor maybe this year and maybe once in a while. We already have a history of it working out in liberals’ favor far more often. Liberal policy is much harder to get the majority of the country to go along with, hence the courts have become a cynical tool of the left.
Frankly, I’ve heard enough whining about the Supreme Court from the right for my entire life and very few proposals to actually do something about it. This is a much-needed and very belated start to a serious and substantive discussion aimed at solving the problem.
As for Obamacare, conservatives are DREAMING if they think the courts are the poison pill that will stop socialized medicine in its tracks. There’s no court remedy for a single-payer welfare system. And replacing the mandate with a tax and corresponding tax credit if you buy insurance produced virtually the same result. In fact, I can see the courts upholding Obamacare by arguing that it, for all intents and purposes, already functions as a tax and tax credit. No, the remedy for Obamacare has to come through legislation, not through the courts.
And, frankly, it would help to hear what the GOP’s proposal is for making health care more affordable for the middle class. Government intervention? A switch to a completely unfettered, free market system? Dealing with malpractice insurance? It’s been a real shame that the debates have focused solely on the individual mandate. Health care is a far bigger issue than just that and even the concept of socialized medicine doesn’t live or die by the idea of a mandate.
Party ownership of the print media
made it easy to manipulate public opinion,
and the film and radio carried the process further.
....... The Ministry of Truth, Winston's place of work, contained, it was said, three thousand rooms above ground level, and corresponding ramifications below. The Ministry of Truth concerned itself with Lies. Party ownership of the print media made it easy to manipulate public opinion, and the film and radio carried the process further. The primary job of the Ministry of Truth was to supply the citizens of Oceania with newspapers, films, textbooks, telescreen programmes, plays, novels - with every conceivable kind of information, instruction, or entertainment, from a statue to a slogan, from a lyric poem to a biological treatise, and from a child's spelling-book to a Newspeak dictionary. Winston worked in the RECORDS DEPARTMENT (a single branch of the Ministry of Truth) editing and writing for The Times. He dictated into a machine called a speakwrite. Winston would receive articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to alter, or, in Newspeak, rectify. If, for example, the Ministry of Plenty forecast a surplus, and in reality the result was grossly less, Winston's job was to change previous versions so the old version would agree with the new one. This process of continuous alteration was applied not only to newspapers, but to books, periodicals, pamphlets, posters, leaflets, films, sound-tracks, cartoons, photographs - to every kind of literature or documentation which might conceivably hold any political or ideological significance. When his day's work started, Winston pulled the speakwrite towards him, blew the dust from its mouthpiece, and put on his spectacles. He dialed 'back numbers' on the telescreen and called for the appropriate issues of The Times, which slid out of the pneumatic tube after only a few minutes' delay. The messages he had received referred to articles or news-items which for one reason or another it was thought necessary to rectify. In the walls of the cubicle there were three orifices. To the right of the speakwrite, a small pneumatic tube for written messages; to the left, a larger one for newspapers; and on the side wall, within easy reach of Winston's arm, a large oblong slit protected by a wire grating. This last was for the disposal of waste paper. Similar slits existed in thousands or tens of thousands throughout the building, not only in every room but at short intervals in every corridor. For some reason they were nicknamed memory holes. When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying about, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the nearest memory hole and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the recesses of the building. As soon as Winston had dealt with each of the messages, he clipped his speakwritten corrections to the appropriate copy of The Times and pushed them into the pneumatic tube. Then, with a movement which was as nearly as possible unconscious, he crumpled up the original message and any notes that he himself had made, and dropped them into the memory hole to be devoured by the flames. What happened in the unseen labyrinth to which the tubes led, he did not know in detail, but he did know in general terms. As soon as all the corrections which happened to be necessary in any particular number of The Times had been assembled and collated, that number would be reprinted, the original copy destroyed, and the corrected copy placed on the files in its stead. In the cubicle next to him the little woman with sandy hair toiled day in day out, simply at tracking down and deleting from the Press the names of people who had been vaporized and were therefore considered never to have existed. And this hall, with its fifty workers or thereabouts, was only one-sub-section, a single cell, as it were, in the huge complexity of the Records Department. Beyond, above, below, were other swarms of workers engaged in an unimaginable multitude of jobs. There were huge printing-shops and their sub editors, their typography experts, and their elaborately equipped studios for the faking of photographs. There was the tele-programmes section with its engineers, its producers and its teams of actors specially chosen for their skill in imitating voices; clerks whose job was simply to draw up lists of books and periodicals which were due for recall; vast repositories where the corrected documents were stored; and the hidden furnaces where the original copies were destroyed. And somewhere or other, quite anonymous, there were the directing brains who co-ordinated the whole effort and laid down the lines of policy which made it necessary that this fragment of the past should be preserved, that one falsified, and the other rubbed out of existence. |
The process of continuous alteration ...
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I agree that the Founders designed a two out of three balance. Terri Schiavo would still be alive if that balance had prevailed in Florida.
The illegal use of executive orders didn’t start in 1994.
So Mr. Most Knowledgeable FReeper of All Time, and Obviously Brilliant Constitutional Scholar:
Tell me, do you think the Framers intended that the President and the Congress could together abrogate any provision in the Constitution that they would agree to eliminate?
ML/NJ
Maybe that part was spin but I frequently hear him talking about smarter government solutions. The Conservatives talk about giving power back to the states.
We need a .gov that will stop spending, stop suing states and investigating our Sheriffs.
Of course not, except through the means of passing, with the concurrence of 3/4 of the states, an amendment to the Consitution. To what provision are you referring? Where has any such suggestion been made?
You just nailed it. That is exactly what the SCOTUS is; An Oligarchy. They are appointed in a partisan manner, by one individual and their rule can last a lifetime.
Why on Earth, are they not elected and have term limits? They certainly should be.
Appoint the correct kind of judges. Overturn their outrageous rulings by passing revised laws, or even constitutional amendments. Elect better representatives (in the Senate) to get better judges confirmed.
Nobody is arguing that judges can’t be impeached. Just that they can’t be peached because Newt or some others disagree with the Judges’ rulings.
It was made by your boy, Newt. Isn't that what this thread is (or was) about?
(FTR, I have been and might again be a Newt supporter depending upon what choices I am given. Newt is certainly preferable to Obama and to Romney IMHO.)
ML/NJ
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