A Burning Issue

Townhall.com ^ | October 28, 2020 | Bradly Mattes

[Kaslin]

One of the burning policy issues raised for public discussion this year is the idea of expanding the U.S. Supreme Court. And with the nation’s highest court so close to impacting Roe v Wade, pro-life Americans have a lot of skin in the game.

Our founding fathers demonstrated a brilliant understanding of government and the people it was designed to serve. They devised three independent but co-equal branches of government to function as a system of checks and balances. The legislative branch makes laws, and the executive branch implements the laws. Finally, when called upon, the federal courts (the judicial branch) weigh in on their constitutionality. The U.S. Supreme Court, should it decide to take a case, has the final authority.

With Justice Amy Barrett’s confirmation comes a renewed threat by pro-abortion activists to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court, and to fill these additional seats with abortion advocates.

If those who support Court expansion get their way, it would politicize and undermine the independence of the judiciary branch and make it a political arm of the legislative branch.

Instead of checks and balances, the Supreme Court would churn out partisan results ad nauseum. The Constitution would be reduced to a “living document” that caters to the whim of prevailing social and political opinion.

We would no longer have three co-equal branches of government to protect the constitutional rights of American citizens, we would be faced with two legislative bodies and one executive branch. The devastating legal fallout would be inflicted on the lives of every living American.

Speaking of living Americans, the decades-long effort of turning back the bloody tide of abortion by eroding or outright reversing Roe v. Wade would be a mere pipe dream for the foreseeable future—just when we’re enticingly close to making a dramatic impact on abortion law which currently accommodates abortion on demand throughout pregnancy.

A court expansion would cost the lives of millions of more babies, while enslaving their mothers by the emotional devastation that often follows abortion.

Life Issues Institute produced video and radio specials featuring the critical importance of the US Supreme Court to ending legal abortion in America. Days after ending production, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.

Since then, they have been at the epicenter of educating our nation’s citizens to the urgent reality that they play a central role in who ultimately sits on the Supreme Court.

Expanding the Court would impose radical repercussions on our Constitution, the balance of powers, the rule of law, and on every American, particularly our unborn citizens.

[the_Watchman]

Finally, when called upon, the federal courts (the judicial branch) weigh in on their constitutionality.

A better way to depict the roll of the courts is to say that the judiciary branch has the roll of interpreting what the law means. Sometimes this is legislative law and sometimes this is Constitutional law. And sometimes their roll is to determine whether legislative law conforms to the requirements of the Constitution.

[Ouchthatonehurt]

‘a burning issue”…Hunter when he pees?

[RedStateRocker]

I would argue that it was only Marbury Vs Madison, well after the ratification of the Constitution, that the SCOTUS grabbed for itself this role of final arbiter of what is and isn’t constitutional. The role as the Founders envisioned was merely as the court of last appeal.

[sergeantdave]

“Finally, when called upon, the federal courts (the judicial branch) weigh in on their constitutionality.”

And the court’s opinion on constitutionality was meant to be advisory, not legally binding.

The court’s usurpation of its official role as an advisory body to become the final arbiter of what is or is not constitutional borders on treason. The Founders understood that, which is why the Congress has the final authority to remove rogue judiciary members via impeachment.

And if that congressional power isn’t used, the president has the power to tell the courts to ESAD.

[libertylover]

A better way to depict the roll of the courts is to say that the judiciary branch has the roll of interpreting what the law means.

I, for one, don't want the judiciary branch to interpret what the law means. That's what we've had for decades and what a mess that has made of things. The law means what it says, no more and no less.

[the_Watchman]

I, for one, don't want the judiciary branch to interpret what the law means.

No matter what you might think, that is exactly what the judiciary is supposed to do. The problem is when judges decide what the law "should" have said. That occurs when judges decide they can prescribe policy.

The law means what it says, no more and no less

This true, but not very helpful. Words are inherently ambiguous. Also, the laws are written using some degree of generality while cases are decided based on particular situations. The questions that judges address are whether a law applies in this particular situation. This is the viewpoint of conservatives.

[libertylover]

I’ll accept your clarification.

[the_Watchman]

I am on a team doing Zoom based training for pastors in Ecuador. Our Church, in Phoenix, champions what is called Expository Preaching. Most pastors engage in Topical Preaching. They choose a topic, build an outline of what they want to say, and, at that point, they cherry pick Scripture to support their ideas. (Topical preaching can be much more faithful to the Bible than this caricature, but that the tendency to preach like this is there.)

Expository preaching is an attempt to preach fairly large passages of the Bible. The final result is the pastor walking up to the pulpit, opening his Bible, and preaching from an extended text. Many times that extended text is an entire book. The actual preaching entails explaining what the original author meant when he wrote the original text some 2,000 to 3,500 years ago. The meaning is what God inspired the human writer to write and is what God intended to tell us.

The difference between the two approaches is stark. Topical, at its worst, employs the Bible to support what the pastor intends to say. Expository preaching attempts to explain the meaning of Scripture in order to expose and explain what God was revealing to us.

The correct role of a judge is to expose the original meaning of the law as intended by those who wrote the law. After that meaning is exposed, then it can be applied to particular situations. Thus, there is a relationship between the correct role of a judge and an expositional preacher. :)