The Supreme Branch
By David N. Bass (08/03/03)
In several of its June rulings, the United States Supreme Court again demonstrated why it no longer deserves its exalted title. By putting its approval on the blatantly unconstitutional practice of affirmative action and by striking down an anti-sodomy law that was the law of the land in two dozen states, this Court has not only spit in the face of history but trumped the Constitution as well.
The Founding Fathers thankfully saw what many today are blind to–the inherent depravity of man–and accordingly divided the rule of our country between three distinct branches of government and established a system of checks and balances between those branches. But in recent decades it seems that our balanced system has been relegated from three branches to one. A new power has arisen that generously passes all the legislation such liberal powerhouses as the American Civil Liberties Union can muster. That power is the Supreme Court.
Our nation has encountered a quandary: how can we still call the nine justices, and more specifically the current six who tend towards queer interpretations of the Constitution, the Supreme Court? In my view, they are now the Supreme Branch. The very branch Alexander Hamilton considered “The weakest of the three departments of power” has become the iron-fisted monarchy of American government.
Hamilton and the Framers understood the dangers of an unbridled Court. During the Constitutional Convention in 1787 the delegates soundly defeated a proposal to expand the power of the judiciary into the legislative policy-making branch. The Maryland delegate Luther Martin went so far as to say that if the Supreme Court ever entered into the legislative sphere, or passed judgments on legislative issues, the people would loose all confidence in their government.
The image of a Supreme Court set free must have sent shivers down the delegates’ collective spines. The members of the Constitutional Congress understood the dire consequences that would result from giving too much power to an un-elected body.
Daniel Webster perhaps put it best when he entreated our nation to, “Hold on to the Constitution of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands. What has happened once in six thousand years may never happen again. Hold on to your Constitution, for if the American Constitution shall fall there will be anarchy throughout the world.” John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, similarly stated that, “Every member of the state ought diligently to read and to study the Constitution of his country.”
Today, such basic understanding has been swept away in a tide of politically correct dogma. Little remains of the Supreme Court John Jay once presided over. We need look no further for proof than the words of Sandra Day O’Connor and Stephen G. Breyer when they appeared on the July 6 edition of “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos. Justice Breyer called into question the relevancy of the Constitution in a growing global world, and his colleague Justice O’Connor indicated the Constitution was far from the final word in American government.
My, how times have changed.
Our current Court more closely resembles a wild bull let loose in a crowd of kindergartners than a governmental body formed to uphold Constitutional Law. And what Americans fail to realize is that the bull has been loose for decades–and we’re the kindergartners.
How can we square the fact that the very branch prescribed to keep tabs on the other two branches no longer keeps tabs on itself? Instead of being a bastion of Constitutional reason and law, the Supreme Court is now a playground for liberal legislation. More than Congress or the Presidency, the Court is the clear and present danger to American freedom, conscience, and morality.
And yet too many in our nation appear blind to this fact. We fail to realize that abridgement of freedom in America–unlike Germany in 1933 and Russia in 1917–will come not through violent and sudden usurpations, but by silent encroachment. Our government is the most stable in the world. If those who would oppose American ideals cannot win a war from outside our way of life, they will endeavor to do so from within.
If we continue to allow such blatant judicial activism as was displayed last month, the future of our way of life may be in serious jeopardy. The June rulings were a wake up call–the silent encroachment has arrived, and its time America opened its eyes to the fact.
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