Well, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor made history on friday by becoming the first woman in history to resign from the supreme court.
Now the battle over her replacement can begin. I can hardly wait.
The pundits that I have heard have all been talking about how moderate she was, and now (if the president is smart) he will try to replace her with another moderate, so as to not upset the delicate balance of the court.
The die-hard conservatives want him to appoint a die-hard conservative. The Libs want him to appoint a revolutionary liberal.
I don't want him to appoint any of these. I would be happy if he would just appoint someone who can READ. It would even be okay with me if his appointee had never even been to law school, Just as long as they can pass a reading comprehension test.
The job of the supreme court is to look over the cases which are presented to them, read the constitution, and then decide how the constitution applies to that case. Their job is not to right the wrongs of society, not to over-rule unjust laws enacted by the legislature, or to FIX ANYTHING. It is simply to read what is already written in our constitution (Nowhere else), and decide how it applies on a case by case basis.
This requires complete objectivity, which is extremely difficult for human beings to achieve. This is why news is biased one way or the other, no matter what source you get it from. Any time anyone relates a story to you, whether it is about world events, or what they had for lunch, that person relates the details which are important to THEM. You, in turn, will retain the details which are important to YOU, and pass those details on to the next person you talk with about it. It's almost unavoidable.
When supreme court justices hear cases, they must try really hard not to inject their particular political leanings into the debate, but when they fail to resist that urge, they cross the line between judge and legislator. They cease being judges and become rulers, a situation which the founding fathers tried very hard to protect us from. When this happens, the power in America is taken out of the hands of the people, and placed into the hands of a very few lawyers, who then rule by, for lack of a better term, Emperial Decree.
Our current supreme court seems to me lately to have lost the ability to understand exactly what the constitution says.
For example, how did the phrase "Nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" come to mean that private property can be transfered from one private citizen to another private citizen, whether they want to sell it or not? How is "just compensation" to be calculated in this situation? Are we going to figure out how long the current owner would have kept the property, and then pay him the value of the property at that point in time? Are we going to determine what improvements or development the current owner would eventually have made, had he been allowed to keep his property, and then pay him according to the value of it then?
No. What we are going to do is confiscate whatever piece of property seems juiciest to what ever local politician sees it, and transfer it to whoever will promise to pay the most property tax on it. This is wrong, and as long as this recent ruling is allowed to stand, no one's home or investment property is safe from seizure, not even if you happen to be a supreme court justice.
(See
http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html )
Another example..." Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof." Does that say anything about a seperation of church and state?
To me, that says that the congress cannot make a law which forces me to become a Bhudist, or a Muslim,Or to force YOU to become a Christian, but it also means that no one can make me pretend to be an Athiest either. ( and now, here come the wise and enlightened Athiests, to equate my belief in God with a belief in Santa Clause, or the Easter Bunny...Whatever. The truth about this is that personally, I have just as much evidence in the existence of God as I have in the existence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I've never seen either one, however, I know they both exist.) This phrase also says to me that no one can make a law which restricts me from posting the Ten Commandments anywhere I think they should be.( as long as I don't violate any anti-littering laws or anything like that.)
Does that mean that if the local City Council in the town where I live decided to post a plaque displaying the Ten Pillars of Islam on the courthouse lawn, that I would have to like it? No, but if I opposed it, I would be on the wrong side of the issue, constitutionally.
The Freedom of Religion clause of the First Ammendment does not give anyone the right to be insulated from any mention of God. It just gives you the right to accept, or reject whatever beliefs make sense to you personally. And before you start up about taxpayer money being used for monuments on public land, remember that Christians pay taxes too, and about 77 percent of Americans believe in God, in one form or another. The Ten Commandments issue is one that would go in favor of Christians every time if it was put to a public vote. Like it or not.
Enough on that.
What I am getting at is, I don't want a Conservative to take Justice O'Connor's place. I don't want a Liberal either, nor do I want a moderate. What I would like to see is for her to be replaced with 192 justices from all stripes, so that no longer will the nation be subject to the rule of a body so small, that a single justice's opinion can sway the laws of the entire government. I would also like for there to be an even number of justices, so that we have the occasional tie.
The way I see it, The supreme court justices individually have way too much power, and as long as this is the case, We The People are going to always come out on the short end of the stick.
Meet Caleb.
