Scalia Warns of Judicial Aristocracy
Posted on May 4, 2006
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia complained to a St. Louis audience Wednesday that judges are deciding moral issues that ought to be left up to the public through the political process.
Scalia, viewed as one of the most conservative members of the high court, criticized Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that upheld abortion rights, saying it failed to arrive at a decision about when life begins. That issue is central to the case, he said, and is something about which judges “know no more . . . than the rest of us.”
Scalia said unelected judges are taking the power to decide moral questions that ought to be resolved by the people, and warned against the specter of “government by judicial aristocracy.”
Indeed, people should heed this man’s words. It is the same fear that some of our founding fathers had, and that the ACLU uses to its advantage on a consistent basis.
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
One of the most powerful weapons at the ACLU’s disposal is that of judicicial activism. Considering that the ACLU is an elitist organization lacking in respect to the democratic process, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised with the methods it uses to achieve its goals. But few seem to be aware of the power behind the quiet, “behind-the-scenes”, high profile cases filed by the ACLU. “If the ACLU is truly concerned about issues of constitutionality, it would do well to consider the patent unconstitutionality of judicial activism whereby the Court preempts Article I, Section I, granting all legislative powers to Congress-not the Court. Because of this now-common departure from constitutional mandate, the legislative and judicial branches of government have been reversed.”ACLU:The Devil’s Advocate
So, is the ACLU really America’s Defender of Civil Rights? Well, at least the part of the Bill of Rights that it happens to agree with. I won’t deny that new liberties can’t be added by the people through a democratic process; only that it should not be done by the Court through it’s own biased interpretation of cultural values. But that is exactly what happens in today’s time.
The Founding Fathers never meant for federal courts to turn into judicial tyrannies. In fact, in 1788, Alexander Hamilton wrote that “The judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of power.” Most liberals, of course, claim that the courts have judicial supremacy and can overturn laws as well as impose their social agendas at will. This is a myth.
In 1819, Thomas Jefferson, who probably had a fairly good grasp of how our government was to function, said: “If this opinion [of judicial supremacy] be sound, then indeed is our Constitution a complete felo de se [act of suicide].” Yet, today, the federal courts have basically become judicial tyrants, overturning laws passed by state legislatures and Congress and legislating a radical liberal agenda. This is not the proper role of judges. Their role is to interpret laws, not create them. Congress must put an end to this usurpation of power by judges.” Source
Many liberals will argue that the intentions of the founding father’s may not apply in “today’s changing times”. They argue that the founding father’s had slaves, and women were not in equal standing. This argument is flawed…for ignoring the original intent in favor of causes opposite of the majority’s morals, by pointing out moral flaws in our founding fathers only defeats it’s own purpose. Apart from morals, there is nothing wrong with slavery. Apart from morals, nothing would be wrong. If morality is a factor that the liberals want to use, their immoral agenda would quickly be out of business. Liberalism’s political agenda is no more based on morals than the evil of slavery.
I would argue that the founding father’s intentions do matter. I especially like the intention that our nation’s laws would be decided through a representative democracy, and not elitist judges. As a matter of fact, I would argue that most advances in civil liberties took place through either the legislative branch or the executive branch. I won’t deny that the judicial branch didn’t play it’s part such as in Brown vs. the Board of Education, where they successfully desegregated schools, but the major victories for civil rights were enacted by the other two branches.
Let’s start with racial equality. Without denying that many people struggled behind the scenes to influence the important milestones in our moral development, the major acts that made them part of American culture were enacted through the legislative and executive branches.
Abraham Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed the slaves from all of states who seceded. This was enacted by the executive branch.
In 1865, the U.S. Congress ratified the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery. An act of the legislative branch.
In 1868, the U.S. Congress passed the 14th amendment, granting blacks full citizenship. An act of the legislative branch.
1960, President Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
1964, Congress passes Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination in public places, schools, lodging, federal programs, and employment
1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1968 Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination in sale, rental, or lease of housing.
As you can see in the racial equality area of civil rights that the legislative and executive branches were the ones responsible for the major changes. Again, I don’t deny influence from the judicial branch, but it clearly kept within the boundaries of its delegated powers of interpretation.
What of the argument of women’s rights? Again, in was Congress that passed the 19th amendment.
Law or the making of law is supposed to be restricted to the legislative branches of government, the House and the Senate. Judges are supposed to keep their rulings within the bounds of law(the Constitution). They are not supposed to implement their own opinions in the course of trials. Yet they do so consistently in direct violation of their oaths, and the law. They invent words, paragraphs, and meanings that do not even exist in the Constitution. They even envoke foreign laws into making their decisions, without regard to the damage it does to the authority of our founding documents.
The ACLU and liberal, renegade judges have been using the courts for the last 40 years to transform America into a Godless society. Think about the damage they have done to our Christian Heritage by banning prayer and Bible reading in public school, outlawing the Ten Commandments from public places, and telling the Boy Scouts that they can’t mention God in their oath or prohibit openly homosexual Scout Masters.
And all the while, the legislative branch is not innocent. It sits aside, and does nothing to intervene.
So is this judicial tyranny a legitimate thing for America to fear? You bet it is!
Thomas Jefferson had this fear from the beginning. “The great object of my fear is the Federal Judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them.”Quote
“It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression,….that the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary–an irresponsible body (for impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow), working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States and the government be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed.”
“You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy…The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal…knowing that to whatever hands confided, with corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots.”Quote
Sadly the democratic process of making law through elected representatives has been trampled under foot. Instead the “Supremacist” Court has required lower courts to ignore the plain meaning of the words of the First Amendment, and fabricated an irrational understanding of those words that does the exact opposite of what the establishment clause forbids-allow the federal courts to interfere with religious expression in the States.
One thing we can do is to get involved to put a stop to it!
So what can we do to stop this? We could take the advice of a founding father, that was not adhered to in our history.
“Let the future appointments of judges be for four or six years and renewable by the President and Senate. This will bring their conduct at regular periods under revision and probation, and may keep them in equipoise between the general and special governments. We have erred in this point by copying England, where certainly it is a good thing to have the judges independent of the King. But we have omitted to copy their caution also, which makes a judge removable on the address of both legislative houses.”Quote
As great as this suggestion sounds to me, I also think it would be impossible in today’s times. The democrats oppose our President’s Supreme Court nominees for a reason…because they know that a judge that actually stays within the bounds that the Constitution grants them, will be a stumbling block for their agenda. They know that the true focus of power in our government lies within the federal bench.
Mostly the power is in the hands of our elected officials in Congress. “Congress has the constitutional right to tell the federal courts what cases to hear and not hear. Congress can prevent the courts from banning our acknowledgment of God in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, our motto, and our National Anthem. Congress should prevent judges from citing foreign law to change U.S. laws and customs. Congress can stop the abuse of letting a single federal judge overturn the votes of five million Americans in a statewide referendum. Americans should reject the notion that a 5-4 or a 4-3 decision by federal judges can become “the law of the land” and overturn centuries of American law, culture and custom. Congress should make better use of its constitutional power to impeach judges. Congress should stop the nonsense of making states, cities, counties and schools pay the attorney’s fees when they file suit against Ten Commandments monuments or the Pledge of Allegiance. Thousands of school districts and local entities of government are pots of gold for the ACLU, which plans to collect attorney’s fees for all its lawsuits to ban God from every public place and school“.Source
Congress has the power to put a stop to this, so ask them to do so. Elect representatives with traditional morals and values. Go here for a list of questions to ask every candidate for U.S. Congress. Let your voice be heard!
There is current legislation that has been introduced called the Constitution Restoration Act. This legislation would put an end to using foreign law for interpreting and applying the Constitution. There is also legislation that would put an end to the ACLU collecting taxpayer money when they attempt to censor religious expression, called PERA. Help put an end to judicial tyranny, contact your Representatives and Senators and tell them to pass these into law.
Sign Our Petition To Stop Taxpayer Funding Of The ACLU
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9 Responses to “Scalia Warns of Judicial Aristocracy”
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Well said. Indeed the judiciary is supposed to be the weakest branch — but that battle’s been going on for over 100 years now…
Excellent post Jay!
“Scalia, viewed as one of the most conservative members of the high court, criticized Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court opinion that upheld abortion rights, saying it failed to arrive at a decision about when life begins.”
Scalia apparently slept through every biology class he ever attended; even if he didn’t, his rabid Bible-smacking has obliterated any semblance of objectivity on his part when it comes to pseudo-religious issues such as abortion. No scientist on the planet will claim that there’s a precise point at which life begins; sometimes, as with one species evolving into one or more others, a continuum is the best we can do. If modern medicine can’t pin down the exact moment when a mass of viable glop finds itself alive, why should the SCOTUS be expected to do so?
Jay - you missed one legislative accompishment on your list, and it’s particularly relevant to women’s rights. The Right to Vote.
It took the suffragettes almost 40 years, but they slowly convinced the American public that they should have the right to vote, and once it had been legislated - by males! - it was never questioned again.
Just like the judical shortcut of Roe v. Wade has never CEASED to be questioned.
Don’t forget, I’m from Massachusetts, home of the only gay marriage in the nation - decided by our Supreme Court after our Democrat Legislature DELIBERATELY shortcircuited a vote on the issue.
Guess how I feel about judicial activism?
I am only worried that its apparent success in Mass. will spread this poison elsewhere.
And what liberals don’t get is what will they do, after validating judicaial superiority, when CONSERVATIVE judges are on the bench?
ACLU Against The Grain
Crossposted from Stop The ACLU The ACLU thinks that parents have no right to know if their pregnant underage daughter is seeking an abortion. vs. America 80% of Americans think that parents have the right to know if their minor…
[...] The reaction from ACLU-types will predictably be something like: “What is right and Constitutional is not always popular.” Easy answer: What the ACLU does is invent rights and distort the Constitution, which is why the ACLU is so UNpopular. The ACLU has used dubious interpretations of law NEVER imagined by our Founders with compliance from radical judges to push an agenda abhorrent to most Americans and indeed to the intent of the Constitution. Look no further than the ACLU’s pro bono defense of a website that advocates pedophilia and instructs its visitors in how to rape children and evade prosecution. So…the ACLU considers encouraging instruction on how to commit and get away with child rape a First Amendment right…does anyone believe that the Founders would agree? Therefore, can’t we conclude that if the ACLU is so wrong on this, that it may be wrong on many other things? Judge the evidence for yourself. [...]
[...] The reaction from ACLU-types will predictably be something like: “What is right and Constitutional is not always popular.” Easy answer: What the ACLU does is invent rights and distort the Constitution, which is why the ACLU is so UNpopular. The ACLU has used dubious interpretations of law NEVER imagined by our Founders with compliance from radical judges to push an agenda abhorrent to most Americans and indeed to the intent of the Constitution. Look no further than the ACLU’s pro bono defense of a website that advocates pedophilia and instructs its visitors in how to rape children and evade prosecution. So…the ACLU considers encouraging instruction on how to commit and get away with child rape a First Amendment right…does anyone believe that the Founders would agree? Therefore, can’t we conclude that if the ACLU is so wrong on this, that it may be wrong on many other things? Judge the evidence for yourself. [...]
[...] The reaction from ACLU-types will predictably be something like: “What is right and Constitutional is not always popular.” Easy answer: What the ACLU does is invent rights and distort the Constitution, which is why the ACLU is so UNpopular. The ACLU has used dubious interpretations of law NEVER imagined by our Founders with compliance from radical judges to push an agenda abhorrent to most Americans and indeed to the intent of the Constitution. Look no further than the ACLU’s pro bono defense of a website that advocates pedophilia and instructs its visitors in how to rape children and evade prosecution. So…the ACLU considers encouraging instruction on how to commit and get away with child rape a First Amendment right…does anyone believe that the Founders would agree? Therefore, can’t we conclude that if the ACLU is so wrong on this, that it may be wrong on many other things? Judge the evidence for yourself. [...]
[...] The reaction from ACLU-types will predictably be something like: “What is right and Constitutional is not always popular.” Easy answer: What the ACLU does is invent rights and distort the Constitution, which is why the ACLU is so UNpopular. The ACLU has used dubious interpretations of law NEVER imagined by our Founders with compliance from radical judges to push an agenda abhorrent to most Americans and indeed to the intent of the Constitution. Look no further than the ACLU’s pro bono defense of a website that advocates pedophilia and instructs its visitors in how to rape children and evade prosecution. So…the ACLU considers encouraging instruction on how to commit and get away with child rape a First Amendment right…does anyone believe that the Founders would agree? Therefore, can’t we conclude that if the ACLU is so wrong on this, that it may be wrong on many other things? Judge the evidence for yourself. This has been a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join us, please email Jay or Gribbit. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.   [...]