For the sake of this republic I urge my friends, fellow leaders and
Americans emphatically to repudiate the devastating myth that judges
have the power to make and redefine our laws. We should do so rapidly
and forcefully before our republic is replaced by the irresistible
tyranny of men and women who believe that nihilist elites should make
the rules and pass them to judges for formal announcement when the time
is ripe for the latest step into the post-rule of law, post-moral abyss.
Otherwise our "conservatism" will continue to be merely the rearguard
for subtle left-wing revolution.
The tragedy of how we have reached this point: in our desire for social
acceptance and respectability among the anti-constitutional, anti-rule
of law, anti-Christian, anti-family nihilist left, "conservative" elites
have abandoned the core principles of our Constitution. We have flouted
the warnings of the likes of Thomas Jefferson, who wrote:
To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional
questions [is] 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 the corruptions of time and party, its members would
become despots.
Alexander Hamilton was perhaps the strongest advocate of "judicial
review" - the right of judges to opine on our Constitution. But an
opinion on the meaning of the Constitution is merely an advisory opinion
to the legislative and executive branches of government. Not even
Hamilton imagined that the right to opine is a power to rule. Courts, he
pointed out, intentionally have been given no means of enforcing their
opinions, noting that the executive and legislative branches are not
compelled to obey false or dubious opinions. Therefore, he wrote:
...The judiciary, from the nature of its functions, will always be the
least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. ... [T]he
judiciary...has no influence over either the sword or purse; no
direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society; and
can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have
neither force nor will....
Abraham Lincoln acknowledged that court opinions were binding upon the
specific parties involved and "entitled to very high respect and
consideration...by all other departments of the government." But like
the Founding Fathers, he utterly rejected the myth that judges' opinions
are the law of the land:
...If the policy of the government, upon vital questions, affecting the
whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme
Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between
parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their
own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their
government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.
In the last century cultural elites created an illusion of judicial
power that would be unrecognizable to earlier Americans, lawyers and
laymen. After the American Revolution, the framers of the Constitution
rejected any judicial authority over the other branches of government.
I fear the conservative elites are putting the final nail in our coffin.
I know these men. They mean well. They are not pursuing their view out
of malice. They believe what they are doing is right. Nor do I associate
myself with some of their critics who often are accusatory, judgmental
and angry. I look at results, and it seems to me that proponents of the
status quo are allowing the legal profession and the courts to impose
moral and civil codes which cannot pass federal and state legislatures.
They foolishly are handing absolute power to anti-Judeo-Christian,
anti-family ideologues.
This is where the trajectory of the post-constitutional pragmatism
undergirding the "conservative revolution" has taken us. The story is
not yet complete, but if we continue on this trajectory we may reach the
point of tyranny and persecution. History reveals this to be true.
Many of those with whom I have worked for years unwittingly are aiding
the far left in the destruction of America. It is time for our
presidents, governors, legislatures and prominent citizens to call the
bluff of impotent judges as Jefferson did and to ask them, as President
Andrew Jackson did, how they will enforce their impotent opinions. The
myth of judicial supremacy cannot justify governors violating state and
federal constitutions, their oaths of office and the sovereignty of the
American people. Look at the way so-called gay marriage has been imposed
by judicial fiat, running ruthlessly over elected legislatures and the
will of the people.
The Massachusetts Constitution contains the quintessential statement of
the American form of government: "The power of suspending the laws, or
the execution of the laws, ought never to be exercised but by the
legislature...." (Part the First, Article XX.) "[T]he people...are not
controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional
representative body have given their consent." (Part the First, Article
X.) "The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive
powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and
not of men." (Part the First, Article XXX.) "All the laws which have
heretofore been adopted, used and approved...shall still remain and be
in full force, until altered or repealed by the legislature...." (Part
the Second, Article VI.)
Americans must debunk the Orwellian lie that has obliterated
self-government in the United States and acknowledge Lincoln's words at
Gettysburg in 1863:
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.... It is for
us the living...to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that
cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.
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