How Liberal Philosophy Politicizes the Supreme Court

Townhall.com ^ | February 16, 2016 | Lawrence Meyers

[Kaslin]

When it comes to the nomination and confirmation of Supreme Court justices, there is only one type of judge that should ever be considered: an originalist. The late Justice Scalia said it best in March of 2014, now revived in a meme making its way around Facebook: "The Constitution is not a living organism. It's a legal document, and it says what it says and doesn't say what it doesn't say."

Scalia went on to say that if someone is unhappy with the way things are, then they should use the legislative branch to make a change - by persuading one's fellow citizens. As a democratic republic, we can also change our minds based on the results. Prohibition and its repeal come to mind as one example.

Scalia also said, "You think there ought to be a right to abortion? No problem. The Constitution says nothing about it. Create it the way most rights are created in a democratic society. Pass a law. And that law, unlike a Constitutional right to abortion created by a court can compromise."

This was the genius of our Founding Fathers - to create three separate branches of government, each with its checks and balances.

Liberal philosophy, however, undermines all of this to our country's detriment. The Liberal philosophy, repeatedly on display for all to see, is that words don't mean what they say. Everything, Liberals assert, is "open to interpretation".

Liberals believe that a man or a woman is not necessarily a man or woman even if one's chromosomes and genitalia dictate what they are. Liberals believe that a man or woman can "identify" as literally anything, including a chicken, if they so choose.

Liberals believe that things depend on what the definition of "is" is.

Liberals do not believe in objective truth, as writer/comedian Evan Sayet writes in the opening paragraph of his book, "The Kindergarden of Eden". If there is no objective truth, and words don't mean what they say, and can be interpreted to mean something other than what they say, then the Constitution suddenly becomes a "living document".

And suddenly, everything our nation was founded on goes out the window. It's not like the Founding Fathers just spit-balled around a table and threw everything into the Constitution. It was written by the greatest minds in a tortured and highly political process.

Yes, the Constitution is open to some degree of interpretation because of the deliberate ambiguity in some portions of the text. Yet the point of originalism is to avoid drawing inferences from a statute and rely on the text itself. Scalia said, "the Constitution, or any text, should be interpreted [n]either strictly [n]or sloppily; it should be interpreted reasonably".

There are far greater intellects that have examined and explained originalism. The point here is that Liberal philosophy throws away the entire approach, and relies on whatever a judge fancies at the time, whatever is in the zeitgeist, and even whose feelings might be hurt if a certain decision is handed down.

One thing we can be certain of: the Founders did not intend the Constitution to be interpreted according to a jurist's feelings. Consider the dangers of such an approach. The Second Amendment becomes as equally vulnerable as the Thirteenth. The former could be interpreted in such a manner as to prevent individual ownership of firearms, while the latter could be interpreted as being outdated and irrelevant, and return African-Americans to slavery.

The late Justice William Rehnquist, in "The Notion of A Living Constitution", wrote, "A mere change in public opinion since the adoption of the Constitution, unaccompanied by a constitutional amendment, should not change the meaning of the Constitution. A merely temporary majoritarian groundswell should not abrogate some individual liberty truly protected by the Constitution."

Rehnquist warned of judges overstepping the role that the Constitution set out for them, writing, "[What if] Judges then are no longer the keepers of the covenant; [but] instead they are a small group of fortunately situated people with a roving commission to second-guess Congress, state legislatures, and state and federal administrative officers concerning what is best for the country?"

Indeed, this is where the courts have gone off the rails. If We The People desire a certain social goal, then let it be done via the legislative branch, not by an unelected judiciary deciding what is best for society. If nobody can get that law passed, then that's just too bad. It isn't a court's place to pass it for us.

Perhaps students of the Dred Scott decision will recall that the Court essentially said the decisions regarding what territories were to be free, and which were to recognize slavery, were never for Congress to have decided in the first place. Is that what we really want?

Thus, there should be no need to politicize any Court appointment. Only originalists should be considered to be qualified candidates.

[marron]

It seems basic that Supreme Court Justices should simply do the job they are hired to do, which is to read the Constitution and rule on it as it is written.

If they would do that, it wouldn’t matter if the president who chose them was Democrat or Republican, it wouldn’t matter at all. It would only matter if they were demonstrably an honest jurist, faithful to the law.

So where are the honest jurists out there?

[spintreebob]

A lot of the problem is in control of the language. The Textualist says the authors of Constitution and Amendments chose specific words carefully. Someplaces the Constitution says RIGHTS. Some places it says PRIVILEGES. Some places it says POWERS.

Now both left and right use those terms interchangably. Voting is clearly a privilege, not a right. But we constantly hear about voter rights. Many times people cry that their rights have been violated when it is their privilege that was impacted.

Conservatives talk about STATES RIGHTS. But governments have no rights. Only persons have rights. Rights come from God/natural law.

Governments have POWERS. Government gets those powers from men, not from God. Men allow some power of the individual person be relinquished to Government. Power is really what the Constitution is all about...what Power does the Legislative branch have? What Power does the Executive Branch have? What Power does the Judicial Branch have?

What Powers does the Central Government have? What powers do the States have? What Powers are prohibited to both the Central Government and the States?

Every Government Power is, in effect, a relinquish by the Persons of a measure of their Power and Freedom.

Language Control exists in other areas also... in academia, in business, in religion, etc.

Take religion. The mass killers and serial killers are clearly EVIL and SINFUL. But what clergy, what religious person can say that? They say the killer is mentally ill and needs a psychiatrist. It is not allowed to say the person needs to repent of his sin and turn from his evil ways.

[Jacquerie]

<> Only originalists should be considered to be qualified candidates.<>

Repeal the 17A and watch the return of originalism.

[NormsRevenge]

What should be fairly administered interpretations of rights afforded all of us.. Has become a conglomeration of liebrally driven agenda items that stretch from here to Poughkeepsie.

Nice try, Founding Fathers.

You were right, Benjamin.

A Free Republic awaits you if yur up to keeping it.

[DoughtyOne]

[Secret Agent Man]

None of the honest jurists out there, are lawyers or judges.

[Luke21]

Liberals have terrorized us on the SC since Earl Warren and before. In the eighties, liberals and the media accused the GOP of having “litmus tests” for justices, something that was suddenly okay when liberals did it in the nineties, up to the moment. The hypocrisy of the media and Democrats knows no bounds.