A Proposal for a Jeffersonian Supreme Court

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling on Mr. Trump’s executive order on immigration will be going to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has claimed, ever since Chief Justice John Marshall’s Marbury v. Madison ruling of 1803, that it is the final arbiter on the constitutionality of a given law. This was, in effect, an illegal seizure of power by the judicial branch of the government from the legislative branch. Thomas Jefferson feared that such a power-play would happen and thus was skeptical of the very existence of a supreme court. He suggested that the Court should play an advisory role on the constitutionality of laws rather than a coercive role. Yet critics may ask, “How can this practically work?” Below, I offer a suggestion.

Suppose there is a question concerning the constitutionality of a law passed by the U. S. Congress or by a state legislature, and the case reaches the Supreme Court. Suppose the court rules the law constitutional. Then it would remain law without further review. But if the court rules, that in the opinion of the majority, it is unconstitutional, then the law would be sent back to the legislative body that passed it for reconsideration based on possible unconstitutionality. If, after such reconsideration, the legislative body decides to rescind the law then the law is repealed. But if, after further review, the legislative body affirms the constitutionality of the law, then it remains law. In that way, the Supreme Court’s ruling is taken seriously, but remains only advisory. A flowchart is below:

supreme-court-reviews-law-for-constitutionality

The Supreme Court Abuses Power Yet Again

English: The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2009. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Antonin G. Scalia, and Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although I can understand why the Supreme Court would invalidate the Defense of Marriage Act (marriage has been traditionally a state, rather than a federal, matter), I do not understand its voiding of California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage. That act was passed by the majority of the people of the state of California–yet the majority of the Supreme Court (with Justice Kennedy getting up on the left side of bed this time) once again imposed its radical view of morality onto the American people.This ruling is a clear violation of state’s rights (if the term has any meaning left after being gutted by the federal courts). With the 14th Amendment imposing de facto slavery on the states to federal decrees, any other state that tries to ban same sex marriage will probably not be able to do so without its law being overturned by dictatorial decree. Any attempt to defy federal law via nullification will result in a stiff monetary–or worse–penalty by the overarching federal government onto the states. The United States is, in effect, a dictatorship in which the majority of people have been overwhelmed by elitist academics, Hollywood radicals, and their supporters in government. The federal government has the long arm of power enforced by tax policy, by federal law enforcement agencies, and by perhaps one of the greatest threats to American freedom, a large standing army.

The Supreme Court ruling affirmed a lower court ruling that described moral views on marriage as private matters not to be imposed on all people. To call marriage, a fundamental institution of all human societies, a private matter and not a matter of public policy is absurd. The radical individualism ensconced in the Enlightenment has finally come home to roost.

Traditionalists of all religions and ideologies who oppose this ruling may find themselves subject to persecution in the future. In academia, such persecution is already in place in some colleges, universities, and in the public school system. The radicals who, since 1969, have been pushing a homosexual lifestyle down the American people’s throats (pun intended), have won politically. They should focus on changing the culture, and if persecuted, pray and live virtuous lives, as the ancient Christians in the Roman Empire attempted to do. At least Christians know that evil–whether it be the evil of federal abuse of power or of radicals finishing off the destruction of traditional marriage that had already begun with easing divorce laws in the nineteenth century–will not finally triumph over good.

In a fallen world, even the best of intentions for good government go wrong over time. The United States has outspent its time as a republic, and with the virtue of people falling and the family failing, the end of the nation as those of my age has known it is only a matter of time (and a short time, I believe). May God strengthen those who have not bowed their knees to Baal.

Supreme Court Supremely Fails in Upholding the Individual Mandate

English: The United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, in 2010. Top row (left to right): Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Bottom row (left to right): Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

U. S. Courts have increased the power of the federal government vs. the power of the states. Those in favor of expanding federal power have often referred to the Commerce Clause to justify such actions, and that was the Obama Administration‘s tactic in its arguments before the Supreme Court supporting the individual mandate. This mandate requires that all Americans buy health insurance. States, fearful that they would be the ones paying for such insurance, sued, arguing that such a requirement is an unconstitutional expansion of federal power over the states. The individual mandate also marks the first time the federal government will require Americans to buy a particular produce.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in his majority opinion, argued that the power of the federal government to tax its citizens is sufficient to justify the individual mandate. This is a dangerous ruling–if the government has the authority under tax laws to force American citizens to buy health insurance, would it not have the power to require American citizens to buy other products? It would seem so. The states would have no veto power over the national government in this area.

Tax law is overly expansive already–anyone who deals with the Internal Revenue Service can witness to the maze of rules, the (often unintentional) violation of which can cost someone money, property, or freedom. Fines are the penalty for violating the individual mandate. How does the government presume to enforce such fines? Would prison become an option, an option that recalls the bad old days of imprisonment for debt. How else could the Supreme Court use the taxing powers of the federal government to increase government power over the states and over individuals? I fear the options are potentially unlimited. Hopefully a new administration will come into power with a willing Congress that will reverse this legislation. However, the harm the Supreme Court has done remains. Once again, the will of the majority of the American people has been thwarted by the Congress, by the President, and now by the Supreme Court. I wonder how long the dying embers of the Republic will glow before the light finally goes out on freedom in America.

The World Turned Upside Down

Image via Wikipedia

Imagine that aliens invade the United States (space aliens, not illegal aliens). Suppose that instead of attacking the American people with weapons, they plant ideas into the minds of the people. Enough ideas take root that the old order of society is uprooted, and the individuals who resisted the alien attack feel as if the world has been turned upside down. Unfortunately, the aliens go through to most educators, journalists, and other cultural elites. Ordinary people who lived prior to the invasion feel ostracized and out-of-place. The fear that the old order on which they have based their lives has been completely destroyed.

Today many Americans find themselves in a world turned upside down. A comparison of the American of 1963 compared with the America of today reveals seismic shifts have occurred which have altered the very fabric that holds society together. Some would say they have ripped the fabric into shreds, and any hope for patching has long passed.

There are many causes for the cultural shift, which had already taken place in Europe by the end of the 1930s and which was accelerated by the end of the Second World War. Supreme Court rulings in 1948 and 1962 limited religion’s public expression and banned required organized prayer in public schools. The Supreme Court claimed to have discovered a “right to privacy” in 1965, a “right” that the Court used to justify legalization of abortion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The last year of the great post-World War II religious revival was 1965; after that year, weekly church attendance began a decline which continues today. The development of effective, cheap contraception with the birth control pill helped to revolutionize sexual mores to the point that only very conservative religious people believe that sexual intercourse should wait until marriage. The problem of juvenile delinquency in the 1950s grew from problems with street thugs and motorcycle ganges to problems with the use and sale of hard drugs and cold-blooded murder. The traditional family structure of a man and woman married with children has been replaced in many circles with the notion of the “family” as a fluid structure that can be modified to suit individual needs. Many young people today reject initiative, thrift, and hard work. College and university professors complain about the poor quality of their students, but supervisors also complain about workers failing to report for work and multiple firings. To their surprise, many workers don’t care if they’re fired–yet they have a sense of entitlement to material things even if they are too lazy to work for the money to buy these things. People have more to do than ever, but are lonlier than ever. The government plays a greater and greater role in individuals’ lives, and mediating institutions between the state and the individual, such as family and church, move more and more to cultural irrelevancy.

I believe this seismic shift to be a disaster that threatens the very structure of American society. When individuals decided to find meaning in their own subjective desires, mainly involving pleasure, and were unrestrained by permissive parents, they became contemporary barbarians–or even worse–at least the barbarians hunted and farmed for their food. With the search for transcendent meaning finding effortless New Age “spirituality” or a vapid Evangelical Christianity that caters to the lowest elements of popular culture, especially in music, it is no surprise that American society has been turned upside down. It is not just the trendy leftist followers of Herbert Marcuse in the 1960s who have fomented a disasterous cultural revolution; it has also been many Americans. When a society aborts its most vulnerable citizens, allows others (in two states) to off themselves legally, is promiscuous in both sex and in mind-altering substances, and which puts vapid “self-help” above all, that society is dying. Those Americans who hold traditional values stemming from orthodox Christianity feel out of place, for the university and the media ridicule their theological and moral positions. A sense of anomie pervades what is left of traditional Americana.

What should traditional Americans do? Some have emigrated to more traditional countries such as Poland. A more realistic option is to begin to develop  an island of normalcy and civilization in one’s own home. Parents in such an environment would try to guide their children toward tradtional cultural and moral values; they will not practice permissive parenting. At the very least, if parents can instill in their children a sense of reponsiblity and a sense of avoiding the urge for entitlement, this will do a great deal toward righting the world. The toughest task, which seems almost impossible, is to change people’s hearts. But despair is the unpardonable sin–those of us who are traditionalists should not despair but fight the good fight and finish the course as people of virtue and honor.