July 2, 2018
There Are No Conservative Judges
By Tom Trinko
A
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/there_are_no_conservative_judges.html
The role of politics is to convert the will of the people into the laws that govern us. Politicians serve as the intermediaries who represent the people. As such, in politics, we expect there to be a spectrum of ideas ranging from those that are correct, conservative ones, to those that are absurd or evil, leftist ones.
That's why in the political sphere labels like conservative, liberal, leftist, and libertarian make sense: they describe the diversity of ideas presented as possible solutions to the issues that face the country.
When we look at the judiciary in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, we see something different.
The role of the judiciary is not to solve problems or decide what's "best" for the country, but rather see how the words of the laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the president combined with the intent behind those words as defined by the discussions leading up to the passing of each law apply to a given case.
As such, there is no room for an ideological spectrum because the court's purpose is only to decide based on reason and logic what the lawmakers intended. The Court is not empowered by the people through the Constitution to decide what the solutions should be and then impose those solutions on the people.
Essentially, in politics, we have lots of Captain Kirks, and in the judiciary, we should have only Spocks.
Hence, to talk of conservative or liberal judges doesn't make sense. Rather, we should talk about honest or dishonest judges.
Honest judges do what they're supposed to do: apply the law as intended by the people who wrote and passed it. Dishonest judges torture the words of the law to justify the solution that they, the judges, think is best for America.
For example, the Constitution is clear that powers not specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution are reserved to the states. The Constitution nowhere gives the federal government power to regulate marriage, which means that honest judges would, no matter what their personal beliefs, recognize that the Supreme Court cannot impose a radical redefinition of marriage on the states and, in the process, overthrow the votes of 55,000,000 Americans who have voted to not redefine marriage.
Dishonest judges, who view their role as "improving" society, have a very Louis XIV view of their authority. As such, they believe that they have the authority to impose whatever they deem best on America. While they pretend, for political purposes, that their activist rulings are based on the law, the reality is that their methodology, the "living" Constitution, allows them to claim that pretty much anything is based on the Constitution.
It would seem clear to all that if the Constitution was viewed by the courts, the presidents, and Congress for over 100 years saying something is illegal, it's impossible that the intent of the people who ratified the Constitution was that that thing is in fact legal.
For example, abortion was viewed as a horrible crime right up to the time that artificial contraception was developed. Our knowledge of the humanity of the unborn had actually grown, and there had been no change in the moral issues surrounding abortion. Hence, it was absurd to claim, as the dishonest judges on the Supreme Court did, that the intent of the Constitution was that killing an unborn child was not only legal, but a constitutionally protected right.
What had happened was that while the Pill led people to believe they could have sex without children, the reality is that mankind has yet to find a way to undo either God's plan for the purpose of sex or basic biology, which makes the most likely outcome of sex a new human life. For example, the typical woman on the Pill has about a 40% chance of an unexpected pregnancy during her lifetime.
But once some people thought they could have sex without children, they encountered the harsh reality that man hasn't yet figured out a perfect way to have sex without the possibility of children. As a result, they looked to the killing of "unwanted" babies as a surefire way to have sex without the "burden" of children. Hence, while nothing about the nature of sex or the law had changed, the attitudes of some people had changed.
Under the Constitution, when the attitudes of some people change, they can change the law through the Democratic process. Unfortunately for those who want to define some human beings as not being persons and not having rights, as the Nazis did for the Jews and as slave-owners did for blacks, the most they could "achieve" was a very limited right to kill their children in the most liberal states.
Dishonest judges eschewed their constitutional role and declared that some human beings, the most defenseless among us, were not persons and as such lacked any rights. That decision is not based on anything that is said in the Constitution and in fact directly contradicts what the Constitution says.
Note that the Constitution does not limit those rights based on the developmental stage of a human being.
Further, for nearly 200 years, everyone in America, including the judiciary, believed that the Constitution did not contain a right to kill one's children so long as the execution occurred before birth.
Hence, neither the intent of those who wrote and ratified the Constitution nor the actual words of the Constitution – remember that the phrase "right to privacy" appears nowhere in the Constitution – provide any support for the idea that there is a right to kill one's unborn daughter because one wants a boy. In spite of this, the dishonest judges on the Court overthrew the laws of all 50 states and declared that abortion is legal at any time and for any reason.
The practical implication of all of this is that we need to have honest judges on the Supreme Court, and all the lower courts, who will stick to their constitutionally mandated role, not judges who effectively eliminate the Democratic process and ignore the will of the people.
The fear that is overwhelming leftists about Trump appointing a replacement for Anthony Kennedy should teach them that having a dictatorial rather than an interpretive Court is bad. Sadly, instead of learning that lesson, what we're seeing is that they believe that the Court should have absolute power but that it should also be populated only by dishonest judges who impose the left's vision on America.
In the upcoming fight over Kennedy's replacement, remind your friends that the Trump nominee is not a conservative who was picked based on his willingness to impose conservative beliefs on America, but rather an honest judge who believes that his job is to apply the law as intended by the politicians elected by we the people.
For example, if leftists were to eradicate the 2nd Amendment through the process defined in the Constitution, whomever Trump nominates would not rule on a case that the "right to privacy" means that people can own guns anyway.
What this means is that the fight over Kennedy's replacement is not a choice between conservatism and leftism, but rather a choice between democracy and tyranny. It's about whether we will live in a representative republic, where the laws are defined by the people through the Congress, or in a tyranny where the laws are defined by five unelected lawyers.
Ask your friends whom they want running the country: the people or less than a handful of unelected, mostly white, mostly male lawyers?
Trump and the American people have a chance to return power to the people – power that dishonest judges have stolen from us – and we need make sure that everyone knows what the real issue is.
You can read more of Tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious, and feel free to follow him on Twitter.
There Are No Conservative Judges
By Tom Trinko
A
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/there_are_no_conservative_judges.html
The role of politics is to convert the will of the people into the laws that govern us. Politicians serve as the intermediaries who represent the people. As such, in politics, we expect there to be a spectrum of ideas ranging from those that are correct, conservative ones, to those that are absurd or evil, leftist ones.
That's why in the political sphere labels like conservative, liberal, leftist, and libertarian make sense: they describe the diversity of ideas presented as possible solutions to the issues that face the country.
When we look at the judiciary in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, we see something different.
The role of the judiciary is not to solve problems or decide what's "best" for the country, but rather see how the words of the laws passed by Congress and signed into law by the president combined with the intent behind those words as defined by the discussions leading up to the passing of each law apply to a given case.
As such, there is no room for an ideological spectrum because the court's purpose is only to decide based on reason and logic what the lawmakers intended. The Court is not empowered by the people through the Constitution to decide what the solutions should be and then impose those solutions on the people.
Essentially, in politics, we have lots of Captain Kirks, and in the judiciary, we should have only Spocks.
Hence, to talk of conservative or liberal judges doesn't make sense. Rather, we should talk about honest or dishonest judges.
Honest judges do what they're supposed to do: apply the law as intended by the people who wrote and passed it. Dishonest judges torture the words of the law to justify the solution that they, the judges, think is best for America.
For example, the Constitution is clear that powers not specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution are reserved to the states. The Constitution nowhere gives the federal government power to regulate marriage, which means that honest judges would, no matter what their personal beliefs, recognize that the Supreme Court cannot impose a radical redefinition of marriage on the states and, in the process, overthrow the votes of 55,000,000 Americans who have voted to not redefine marriage.
Dishonest judges, who view their role as "improving" society, have a very Louis XIV view of their authority. As such, they believe that they have the authority to impose whatever they deem best on America. While they pretend, for political purposes, that their activist rulings are based on the law, the reality is that their methodology, the "living" Constitution, allows them to claim that pretty much anything is based on the Constitution.
It would seem clear to all that if the Constitution was viewed by the courts, the presidents, and Congress for over 100 years saying something is illegal, it's impossible that the intent of the people who ratified the Constitution was that that thing is in fact legal.
For example, abortion was viewed as a horrible crime right up to the time that artificial contraception was developed. Our knowledge of the humanity of the unborn had actually grown, and there had been no change in the moral issues surrounding abortion. Hence, it was absurd to claim, as the dishonest judges on the Supreme Court did, that the intent of the Constitution was that killing an unborn child was not only legal, but a constitutionally protected right.
What had happened was that while the Pill led people to believe they could have sex without children, the reality is that mankind has yet to find a way to undo either God's plan for the purpose of sex or basic biology, which makes the most likely outcome of sex a new human life. For example, the typical woman on the Pill has about a 40% chance of an unexpected pregnancy during her lifetime.
But once some people thought they could have sex without children, they encountered the harsh reality that man hasn't yet figured out a perfect way to have sex without the possibility of children. As a result, they looked to the killing of "unwanted" babies as a surefire way to have sex without the "burden" of children. Hence, while nothing about the nature of sex or the law had changed, the attitudes of some people had changed.
Under the Constitution, when the attitudes of some people change, they can change the law through the Democratic process. Unfortunately for those who want to define some human beings as not being persons and not having rights, as the Nazis did for the Jews and as slave-owners did for blacks, the most they could "achieve" was a very limited right to kill their children in the most liberal states.
Dishonest judges eschewed their constitutional role and declared that some human beings, the most defenseless among us, were not persons and as such lacked any rights. That decision is not based on anything that is said in the Constitution and in fact directly contradicts what the Constitution says.
Note that the Constitution does not limit those rights based on the developmental stage of a human being.
Further, for nearly 200 years, everyone in America, including the judiciary, believed that the Constitution did not contain a right to kill one's children so long as the execution occurred before birth.
Hence, neither the intent of those who wrote and ratified the Constitution nor the actual words of the Constitution – remember that the phrase "right to privacy" appears nowhere in the Constitution – provide any support for the idea that there is a right to kill one's unborn daughter because one wants a boy. In spite of this, the dishonest judges on the Court overthrew the laws of all 50 states and declared that abortion is legal at any time and for any reason.
The practical implication of all of this is that we need to have honest judges on the Supreme Court, and all the lower courts, who will stick to their constitutionally mandated role, not judges who effectively eliminate the Democratic process and ignore the will of the people.
The fear that is overwhelming leftists about Trump appointing a replacement for Anthony Kennedy should teach them that having a dictatorial rather than an interpretive Court is bad. Sadly, instead of learning that lesson, what we're seeing is that they believe that the Court should have absolute power but that it should also be populated only by dishonest judges who impose the left's vision on America.
In the upcoming fight over Kennedy's replacement, remind your friends that the Trump nominee is not a conservative who was picked based on his willingness to impose conservative beliefs on America, but rather an honest judge who believes that his job is to apply the law as intended by the politicians elected by we the people.
For example, if leftists were to eradicate the 2nd Amendment through the process defined in the Constitution, whomever Trump nominates would not rule on a case that the "right to privacy" means that people can own guns anyway.
What this means is that the fight over Kennedy's replacement is not a choice between conservatism and leftism, but rather a choice between democracy and tyranny. It's about whether we will live in a representative republic, where the laws are defined by the people through the Congress, or in a tyranny where the laws are defined by five unelected lawyers.
Ask your friends whom they want running the country: the people or less than a handful of unelected, mostly white, mostly male lawyers?
Trump and the American people have a chance to return power to the people – power that dishonest judges have stolen from us – and we need make sure that everyone knows what the real issue is.
You can read more of Tom's rants at his blog, Conversations about the obvious, and feel free to follow him on Twitter.