Rush Limbaugh May Not Understand Liberty

March 15, 2005 | Jack Glennon

[tahiti]

I am listening to the Rush Limbaugh show at this very moment.

I am having quite a bit of difficulty reconciling Rush Limbaugh's remarks about judges imposing their morality and/or personal preferences on the rest of the citizenry as result of their constitutional decisions.

Yes, there are decisions that have been made based on a personal preference of a judge.

Most recently the Supreme Court decision to prohibit convicted death row felons under 18 years of age from being executed.

Original meaning of Amendment VIII, "...nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted," could never be interpreted to prohibit convicted felon under the age of 18 from executed without inserting an arbitrary personal preference gleened from what the "rest of the world" does.

However, Rush Limbaugh is advocating a tyranny of the majority, in a sense, through his advocation of enacting laws passed by a poplulist legislature, which would be nothing less than a consensus of morality and/or personal preferences of a group of people versus the morality or personal preferences of single judge.

The constitutions, either federal or state, are meant to limit government power and protect the individual rights of all citizens.

For example, Mr. Limbaugh, your current legal battle with the state of Florida over your use of pain killing drugs may be analyze from a constitutional perspective of original meaning.

What individual right is more fundamental than an individual, free citizen, deciding how he or she shall treat their pain?

How and where does any government entity, constitutionally exert their power to prohibit an individual from determing how much pain killer they need to consume to satisfy the discomfort of their personal pain?

And in fact, the federal constitution, the federal Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Privileges, guarantees that right to make such a decision.

Amendment IX

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others (rights) retained by the people."

Again, the constitution is meant to "limit" the power of government and the tyranny of the majority from imposing the majorities morality and/or personal preferences on an individual.

Is it not the basis of liberty, the basis of acting like a free citizen, living in a free country, to make the individual decision on what and how much an individual shall consume of a chemical or food for medicinal reasons or just plain pleasure?

Is that not a right "retained by the people?"

Without some type of "judicial" review of tyrannical laws that violate the constitution(s), how do we prevent the trampling of guaranteed rights by the poplulist, personal preference, morality driven majority? (bear arms, search and seizures, speech, religion, etc., for example)

Those citizens who are of the Christian faith, what protection of your religiion will you have if and when Muslims are the majority in the U.S., if their is no judicial review to help protect your right to a Christian religion and Muslism being imposed in your life?

The proper and constitutional way for the majority to have their will enacted is to "amend" the constitution, not to pressure legislators to enact unconstitutional laws.

When laws can deny and disparage rights, the constitutional will be rendered useless and the constitution will mean only what the majority wants, stated through their legislators and enacted laws.

Enacted laws are below the covenants of constitution(s)in the hierchacy of the rule of law, if not then there is no need for a constitution.

[sr4402]

However, Rush Limbaugh is advocating a tyranny of the majority, in a sense, through his advocation of enacting laws passed by a poplulist legislature, which would be nothing less than a consensus of morality and/or personal preferences of a group of people versus the morality or personal preferences of single judge.

I have never seen a better description of our Republican form of Government than your enacting laws passed by a populist legislature, which would be nothing less than a consensus of morality and/or personal preferences of a group of people. For that is exactly what our votes do, they allow "We the People" to speak our piece.

Perhaps you are interest in another form of government. How about a dictatorship where one person has all the say and the people have none. You know, a leader like Idi Amin, or Kim Jong Il? What is the difference between them and a judge now that judges can use international law instead of our constitution?

Or are you desiring some form of Socialism or Communism?

What is your pleasure?

[Mark in the Old South]

Re: "Rush is right and you are wrong. In a republic, the majority does rule. This is not tyranny"

I would recommend reading The Federalist Papers. It was written by the writers of the Constitution, Hamilton, Madison and Jay (Madison was a big influence of our highest law) for New York news papers in order to explain the rational behind the new Constitution. Sadly this valuable reference on understanding the foundation stones of our country and its laws is little read today. You would never say majority rule is not tyranny if you have read it, unless you disagree with them. They (the founding fathers) were very much concerned with the real possibility of majority rule becoming majority tyranny. They give lots of famous examples. The "Golden Age" of Democracy in classical Athens was one. They showed how majority rule became hostile and oppressive to minority opinion and groups very frequently. Ultimately majority rule always ends in tyranny.

[Bigh4u2]

ROTFLMAO!

[Prolifeconservative]

I think YOUR problem is Rush Limbaugh!

[Libertarianize the GOP]

The question is how to best protect our rights; trust a handful of unelected self-anoited interpreters of the Constitution or an overwhelming majority of Citizens slowed by the difficulty of amending the Constitution.

[caisson71]

So, does this mean that the people can't decide by majority vote but an activist judge, unelected, can?

[Aetius]

He said it yesterday on his show; he basically supports judicial rule.

[aviator]

Why don't you call in to the WABC Mark Levin show at 6pm EST and try to make your point there?

[Pompah]

Looks like you forgot one of the first Rules of Posting here on Freerepublic. IE : "Don't Start Crap,There won't Be No Crap."

Better get you're Flame Proof Jammies on Dude.

[Exton1]

Tyranny of the majority? This is Marxist Speech. It used to be called rule of the majority. What you are advocating is anarchy. You are a pervert that does not like the majority imposing any morality and/or personal preferences on an individual. The people of California voted that “Marriage” is between a man and a woman. How is that prejudice against homosexuals? The vote did not say marriage is between a heterosexual man and woman. Any homosexual can get married by finding someone of the opposite sex who will have them and the two will crate children.

What you and the other perverts want is recognition of a coupling between members of the same sex that HAS NEVER BEEN RECOGNIZED IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. NOT ONE RELIGION RECOGNIES SAME SEX COUPLING. The truth is that society cannot survive if it does not have a stable family (man + women = children), it can get along just fine with out gays.

The children produced by a MAN-WOMAN relationship have a biological connection to both parents. In a so called GAY family the children will at most have a biological connection to only one parent, and in some case neither parent. Also studies have shown that children need both a father and a mother in order to grow up healthy and mentally stable. After thousand of years of proof that the normal family work, why should be experiment now with different family structures in order to appease less than 2% of the population?

Majority rule, is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if the Majority has a base in religious fundamentals.

[ArGee]

In sum, the system doesn't work. There is no safeguard against a judiciary that uses the Constitution as a fig leaf to do what they want.

I still propose a constitutional amendment which would allow a combination of the other two branches to vacate any judicial decision. Simply put, an executive order concident with a vote by both houses of congress within a statute of limitations vacates the decision. It's up to the parties who brought suit to decide whether to bring it again. There would be details, such as whether it should be a simple majority of each house or super-majority or what-not. We'd also need to determine what that statute of limitations would be. But those are trivial compared to the overarching notion of providing a check-and-balance for the courts.

Shalom.

[arasina]

The problem is that typically FR folk think that when their values conflict with other peoples rights the values rule and when their rights conflict with other peoples values rights rule.

Not very different than the Democratic underground I imagine.

HUH? What language are you speaking? Circumlocutionese?

[FlipWilson]

Right, and hence the Bill of Rights, to act as a floor underneath which the majority could not go to deprive the citizenry of rights. To be sure, the judiciary is well within its rights in finding certain legislation to violate those rights.

The trick is, what are those basic rights? I argue, the Constitution has clearly provided them. But that is not enough for some who have lifetime appointments and sit on the bench. What Rush was railing against was that now the judiciary has taken it upon themselves to de facto amend the Constitution to give the judiciary powers never envisioned in the Constitution. In short, the judiciary has become unchained from the Constitution and is substituting its own judgement for that of the people. To hell with the floor provided by the bill of rights. It wasn't enough to empower the judiciary, thus they had to create more rights than were provided.

Amending the Constitution is provided for in the document itself. I don't recall reading the part where the judiciary gets to amend the Constitution by fiat.

[FlipWilson]

Uhhh, this is provided for in the Constitution already. . in a way. The Judiciary has no power to enforce a ruling absent the Executive branch. Thus, if the Executive branch refuses to enforce an order and the Legislature backs it up, what can the Judiciary do. . nadda.

[E.G.C.]

Here are my thoughts on the subject.

A lot of people shed their blood and lost their lives on the battlelines so that we could a majority rule country. So that we could have our own set of laws different from foriegn goverments. So that people like myself would have the chance to enjoy the freedoms we enjoy today.

The Founding Fathers made it ver clear that they wanted the US Constitution to be the Supreme law of the land, not the laws of some other third world dicto. they made it very clear that the Constitution means what it says, NOT what some liberal, progressive or moderate want to think it says.

Our nation is a constitutional Republic. That means the majority rules whether anyone likes it or not. To call it a tyranny of the majority is stupid, idiotic and foolish and ignores the main basis for why our nation exists today as it is.

What is being addressed here are judges who are contuining to missuse and abuse their powers to impose their own ideas of public policy on the rest of us.The latest example was the law in California which was passed by voters on same-sex marriage which was sturck down by a judge and yes, I know this was a judge appointed by Pete Wilson but this clearly has nothing to do with party or political affiliation. This has to do with out of control judicial activists imposing their will on the rest of us instead of going by the Constitution like they're supposed to.

And that is why Jim Robinson was making a suggestion for all of us to March on the Supreme Court in Washington. I think it's a great idea. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it but I'd be glad to bump and promote it.

Bottom line, it's time to reing in these judicial activists and return to having the US Constitution be the source of law here in America instead of foriegn dicta being imposed on us.

Rush is right on this one. Regards.....

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Values in islamic societies include pesky things like not allowing christianity.

Amoral Libertarians invoke Islam like Democrat socialists invoke Hitler (both wrongly applied). First, you are comparing apples and oranges because you are comparing a theocracy to a republican democracy. And as I said above, denying religious rights would be tyranny.

Second, you assume that it is even possible to be completely devoid of values and that that is freedom. Many would not call that freedom but slavery to the lowest urges of the least of us. So many who preach individual rights absent any moral standards do so with a "right of privacy" argument, yet their issues are almost never private. They involve the consciences, choices, values, and property (tax dollars) of others as well.

There is no mandated separation of morality (or values) and state. The gov't cannot keep anyone from competing in the marketplace of ideas -- from trying to persuade their fellow citizens of the rightness of their cause.

You advocate a reverse freedom where some are allowed to force the public to approve of their ideas and others are banned from participating in the persuasion process. This is freedom only for those with no moral standard. It is a tyranny of the minority.

[Bigh4u2]

I've always thought that Judicial rulings on Constitutional matters was always considered 'opinion' and not 'directive' to the Legislative branch.

Even if a Judge does rule some law as 'unconstitutional', his ruling does NOT negate the law.

The changes must be made by the Legislative branch, and until that time, the law is still enforceable.

A Judge cannot enforce his opinion on Constitutionality because he/she has no way of enforcing it.

It's only the people (legislators) who allow the Judges to intimidate them into not upholding their own laws, that a judge 'enforces' their edict.

[SE Mom]

Yawn...

[An Old Marine]

The proper and constitutional way for the majority to have their will enacted is to "amend" the constitution, not to pressure legislators to enact unconstitutional laws.

Exactly. Therefore I'm interested that you defend those very judges who discover rights and laws in the Constitution. No where in the Constitution is there any indication that the framers intended for judges to require legislation or to actually define the details of their own legislation.

Therefore if the death penalty is inhumane, or marriage is acceptable between homosexuals then it is up to the groups with such an interest to amend the Constitution to allow those things.

This is precisely the issue. The failure to justify positions through the Constitution by desperate activist judges has forced them to seek foreign sources to make their case. And they admit it.

[Richard Kimball]

I'll bet he's figured out more women than 99% of Freepers.