Posted on 07/07/2003 6:09:12 AM PDT by joesnuffy
LAW OF THE LAND Justice: Can Constitution make it in global age? On TV, Breyer wonders whether it will 'fit into governing documents of other nations'
Posted: July 7, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com
In a rare appearance on a television news show, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer questioned whether the U.S. Constitution, the oldest governing document in use in the world today, will continue to be relevant in an age of globalism.
Speaking with ABC News' "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos and his colleague Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Breyer took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia, who, in a dissent in last month's Texas sodomy ruling, contended the views of foreign jurists are irrelevant under the U.S. Constitution.
Breyer had held that a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that homosexuals had a fundamental right to privacy in their sexual behavior showed that the Supreme Court's earlier decision to the contrary was unfounded in the Western tradition.
"We see all the time, Justice O'Connor and I, and the others, how the world really – it's trite but it's true – is growing together," Breyer said. "Through commerce, through globalization, through the spread of democratic institutions, through immigration to America, it's becoming more and more one world of many different kinds of people. And how they're going to live together across the world will be the challenge, and whether our Constitution and how it fits into the governing documents of other nations, I think will be a challenge for the next generations."
In the Lawrence v Texas case decided June 26, Justice Anthony Kennedy gave as a reason for overturning a Supreme Court ruling of 17 years earlier upholding sodomy laws that it was devoid of any reliance on the views of a "wider civilization."
Scalia answered in his dissent: "The court's discussion of these foreign views (ignoring, of course, the many countries that have retained criminal prohibitions on sodomy) is ... meaningless dicta. Dangerous dicta, however, since this court ... should not impose foreign moods, fads, or fashions on Americans," he said quoting the 2002 Foster v. Florida case.
Scalia's scathing critique of the 6-3 sodomy ruling was unusual in its bluntness.
"Today's opinion is the product of a court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct," he wrote. Later he concluded: "This court has taken sides in the culture war."
Both O'Connor and Breyer sought to downplay antipathy between the justices – no matter how contentious matters before the court become. O'Connor said justices don't take harsh criticisms personally.
"When you work in a small group of that size, you have to get along, and so you're not going to let some harsh language, some dissenting opinion, affect a personal relationship," she said. "You can't do that."
Breyer agreed.
"So if I'm really put out by something, I can go to the person who wrote it and say, 'Look, I think you've gone too far here.'"
O'Connor, too, seemed to suggest in the ABC interview that the Constitution was far from the final word in governing America. Asked if there might come a day when it would no longer be the last word on the law, she said: "Well, you always have the power of entering into treaties with other nations which also become part of the law of the land, but I can't see the day when we won't have a constitution in our nation."
Asked to explain what he meant when he said judges who favor a very strict literal interpretation of the Constitution can't justify their practices by claiming that's what the framers wanted, Breyer responded: "I meant that the extent to which the Constitution is flexible is a function of what provisions you're talking about. When you look at the word 'two' for two representatives from every state in the United States Senate, two means two. But when you look like a word – look at a word like 'interstate commerce,' which they didn't have automobiles in mind, or they didn't have airplanes in mind, or telephones, or the Internet, or you look at a word like 'liberty,' and they didn't have in mind at that time the problems of privacy brought about, for example, by the Internet and computers. You realize that the framers intended those words to maintain constant values, but values that would change in their application as society changed."
In an unrelated matter, O'Connor indicated on "This Week" that she would likely serve out the next term on the court, dismssing speculation that she was about to retire.
The current court is split between Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Clarence Thomas and Scalia, who tend to hold the traditional constitutionalist approach to rulings, and the majority of O'Connor, Breyer, Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginzburg, David H. Souter and John Paul Stevens, who tend to believe in the concept of a "living Constitution" subject to changes in public opinion and interpretation.
And as for whether the Constitution can survive into the future, Breyer is doing the best he can to kill it now. If and when the Constitution should be amended, it provides the methods by which the PEOPLE, not the unelected JUDGES, can make those changes.
Breyer has no clue as to what it means for the US to have a written Cosntitution that is the collective voice of the people of the US. Breyer has principles, which happen to be dead wrong. He cannot be removed from the bench. Therefore he needs to be constantly outnumbered by Justices who DO understand what it means to enforce a written Constitution.
And that brings us to Justice O'Connor. She has no principles. She votes for whatever feels good, which is why she flips back and forth from competent decisions to incompetent ones. For health reasons, she will be gone from the Court not long after McConnell v. FEC (campaign finance case) is argued on September 8th, and decided about two months after that.
If O'Connor is replaced with a Justice who actually understands and respects the Constitution, Breyer will be appropriately isolated. To do that, however, the Republicans in the Senate need to "go nuclear" on the Democrats there, to break forever the application of the filibuster rule to judicial nominees.
IMHO.
Congressman Billybob
That's quite a leap. I believe this man could leap over the Grand Canyon. I wonder ... had the Third Reich conquered all of Europe, and had the High Court of the Third Reich decreed that all men are not created qual -- would Breyer agree that the concept of equal rights was (therefore) unfounded in the Western Tradition?
Did they find a stained robe or something?
Asked if there might come a day when it would no longer be the last word on the law, she said: "Well, you always have the power of entering into treaties with other nations which also become part of the law of the land, but I can't see the day when we won't have a constitution in our nation."
According to many (liberal) interpretations treaties, once ratified, become co-equal with the Constitution. It is considerably easier to enter into a treaty that to ammend the Constitution. Thus the liberal plan to destroy the remaining inconvennient parts of the Bill of Rights is to negotiate it away to the UN, World Court or any other body that wants. Once we've signed the "Internataional Accord on the Limitation of Small Arms" the living-breathing types will use the treaty clause to say "this replaces the Second Ammendment".
You can see they are thinking ahead, and setting the stage with the sodomy ruling.
This should be topic #1 on Rush, Hannity etc for weeks.
This is no different to me than if these supremes had admitted they were secretly taking orders from Stalin, Hitler etc.
Traitors. Domestic Enemies. If we don't or can't impeach these traitors, there will be hell to pay.
They think they can dictate our laws by the Rule of FIve.
They have not heard of Rule 308, AKA the 2nd Amd.
John Paul Stevens - 82 years old
Sandra Day O'Connor - 72 years of age
Ginsburg- 69 years old
Scalia - 66 years old
Now where did I leave my TV remote ?
Stay Safe !
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