Posts Tagged ‘Supreme Court’
What happened to our “Hallmark” values?
Each Christmas season my wife and I look forward to days we spend watching one Hallmark movie after another; hopefully a snowy day with a fire in the fireplace.
Unlimited power – Part IV
“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull.” – W. C. Fields
Though I hope this quote refers to the following Supreme Court rulings, some might suggest it better refers to my assessment of the rulings.
Unlimited power – Part III
Since ratification of the Bill of Rights in 1791, the Supreme Court has found a constitutional answer to every case brought before it. Doesn’t it seem unlikely that a document prepared in the 1700s could address all issues for more than two hundred years? We currently have nine justices, none elected by the people, all appointed to their office for life, who claim absolute control over the United States Constitution. Is this what the founding fathers and the states intended? With their fear of government, why would they give unchecked power to any branch of the federal government?
The beginning of the end – Part II
Three Supreme Court rulings changed our lives, making our Constitution near irrelevant. One gave the Supreme Court unlimited, unchecked power; the other two gave Congress unlimited power.
The path to socialism – Part I
“We do not have socialism. We have regulated capitalism.” – ISJ reader comment
Is that true? Is it all or none? Or is the path to socialism a process so slow that each individual step is logical, masking the eventual outcome and encouraging inattention and indifference until it’s too late? More important, if we are not yet socialist, is our federal government still the limited government the founding fathers created with the United States Constitution?
Constitutional coup
” . . . the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny.”
- Edward Gibbon, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
Football and government
The federal government could learn a lot from professional football – teams competing with each other, each team doing all it can to win, referees ensuring they follow the rules, together part of a league whose owners have the final say on the rules and how the league works.
Are they asking the right questions?
The constitution . . . is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist, and shape into any form they please.”
Thomas Jefferson
The ‘ism’ elixir?
“Bad officials are elected by
good citizens who do not vote.”
George Jean Nathan
American drama critic and newspaper editor
I watched a 1948 cartoon produced by Harding College, “Make Mine Freedom,” which tells the story of Ism elixir. If you have already viewed this, my apologies. If not, let me share the tale of Ism.
The Supreme Court – omnipotent and divine?
The Supreme Court is hearing arguments to decide if the Second Amendment right of the individual to “keep and bear Arms” applies to the states in addition to federal enclaves such as Washington, D.C.
It’s our Constitution
Contrary to the wishes of Congress, the Supreme Court and the lower courts, “we the people” in our capacity as jurors and state legislators have the power to nullify laws we find unconstitutional.
Supreme Court – Constitutional guardian or Guardian Council?
Does the Supreme Court submit to the authority of the United States Constitution, as it should? Or, is it complicit with Congress, functioning beyond its constitutional powers?
The Consitution v. the federal government
The Declaration of Independence states, “. . . these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” This sentiment was reaffirmed in 1781 in the Articles of Confederation which states, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States . . . .”
The Bill of Prvileges
The Bill of Rights, the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution, was ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1791. The Constitution was ratified four years earlier in 1787.
Guns, the Constitution and Switzerland
A fact regularly ignored in much of the gun debate – the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court revisited the constitutional meaning of the right of the individual to “keep and bear arms,” and unequivocally affirmed our constitutional right of individual gun ownership.
Robert Gibbs is a verb
The most entertaining moments of this presidency are watching Robert Gibbs explain the ramblings of Vice President Biden. With a straight face, a feigned sincerity and accompanied by the laughter of the press corps Gibbs says, “I understand what he said and I’m telling you what he meant to say.” He invented a new verb — “gibbsing,” a verb that well describes earlier rulings of the United States Supreme Court.
Who really has the power?
“The United States Constitution has proved itself
the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules
of government ever written.”
–President Franklin Roosevelt
Spending the people’s money
“Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal
with a big appetite at one end and no sense of
responsibility at the other.”
− Ronald Reagan
Abortion – call it what it is
Killing a fellow human being is not new to us. We already accept killing in war, capital punishment and self-defense. Society has made a distinction between murder and killing.
Is it too late?
Is it too late for the United States of America? Are we doomed to follow the timetable Sir John Glubb outlined in “The Fate of Empires,” surviving about 250 years? Or, are we different from the failed empires he studied? The outcome is our choice.
