Restoring the Constitution: Our good Supreme Court
By Bruce Walker
web
posted February 26, 2001
The principal villain in the last forty years of the American misgovernment has not been Congress, and it has not been bad Presidents, although Slick came close to utter disaster. The worst and biggest malefactor has not even been the fat, lazy, corrupt establishment media or those grim, nasty totalitarian organs whimsically called "institutions of higher learning." No, all these have worked their harm with much fury and loud screeching, but each would have been reduced to its appropriate status as an intellectual curiosities and a moral cul de sac if not constantly buoyed by a regal, contemptuous Supreme Court.
The numbers of lives wrecked by rapes, murders, mayhem, and other violence flowing directly from the gaping holes in the criminal justice system created by the Supreme Court's ruthless purging of reason and commonsense is incalculable. Lest anyone trust that these many and absurd "rights" never before present in constitutional law serve to protect the innocent from government excess, think about all the many victims of Clinton's spite and all the people crushed by the IRS and other rogue bureaucracies. When government wishes to harm, it harms. The Supreme Court - Our noble defender! - did not stop the abuses of federal snoops and bullies from their chainsaw destruction of homes, businesses, families, and lives.
We can also "thank" the Warren Court for the current obliteration of truth as a value in public discourse. Its decision in Sullivan v The New York Times allowed leftist liars with enough corporate dollars to engage in character assassination with legal impunity. "The Press" whose obvious intentions were debilitation of individual liberty and natural rights, could and did write pieces full of errors so profound that distinguishing lies from negligence became impossible. The other plutocrats of information - CBS, NBC, ABC, Newsweek, Washington Post, et al. - were no better.
Perversely, we may thank Earl Warren and his pals for creating a yearning for solid facts, balanced opinion, and concern for truth that conservatives have flocked to Rush Limbaugh, FOX News, Dr. Laura, Michael Reagan, Steve Martinovich (three cheers for our good publisher!) and others - while abandoning the rich and old press.
Freedom could, however, withstand even these blows. The worst damage of the Supreme Court came from its leading a pack of power hungry judges and lawyers to dismantle the natural governor of balance within American government, Federalism. Most people - most historians - do not consider the true nature of the states within the United States. Excepting a knowing nod at the obvious example of the Republic of Texas, an occasional aside to the Republic of California, and a frown at both the Confederate States and the Articles of Confederation, historians ignore or forget that each "state" was just that: A separate government. Ask someone why North Carolina and Rhode Island did not vote for George Washington in the 1789 Presidential Election, and few can give you the right answer: Both were, at that point in time, independent nations.
So much for the last decades of the Twentieth Century, and so much better for the next decades of the Twenty-First Century. On February 21st our Good Supreme Court, the same court which blocked Mr. Gore's attempted junta, sent its strongest volley yet into the flimsy legal notion that "federalism" means states are infinitely malleable playthings of federal bosses. University of Alabama v. Garrett held that the Americans with Disabilities Act does not allow private citizens to sue state governments. Hallelujah!
The slender thread of five good Justices, those same who withstood the veiled threats of liberal scorns in allowing the winner of Election 2000 to win, have proven their toughness again. Recall the chattering about how this Supreme Court which had proven so troublesome interpreting the rights of state governments, should not be hypocritical by interfering with Florida's Supreme Court decisions? The silly thought that perhaps "state government" might actually include the only part of state government actually mentioned in the Constitution, the state legislature, or that direct representative of the people empowered to certify elections, Katherine Harris, seems to have floated right over the heads of these brainy liberals.
Well, until now we had some reason to tremble. Perhaps in an effort to
"balance" its holdings in the eyes of liberals, those five Justices
might self-consciously water down some of the bold voices of true federalism
so pleasantly present in the past few years. Thankfully, not so. The five
soldiers of honor have stood fast to their posts; no apologies for clear
thinking and commonsense; no glances at glitzy liberals for approval.
Who, then, should tremble now? The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, that's who.
Why have we been so blessed these days? The bitter, contradictory, unapologetic,
and increasingly irrelevant liberals who followed moral monsters into
the highest offices must surely get most of the credit. The Supreme Court
must, at its core, stand for something or it too is as pointless to liberals
as state governments, the Bill of Rights, and all those other impediments
to liberal Utopia. Clinton, during his eight years of wasted opportunities,
increasingly ignored courts (even federal courts!) and so the handwriting
was on the wall: Even judges are "expendable" in the interests
of liberal power. The unfolding disgrace of the sale of Presidential Power
so blatant in Clinton's last days will only steel the five Justices.
The VLWC had better worry. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney know well that
they will be able to appoint three or four solid conservatives to the
Supreme Court, which will create a 6 - 3 split in future decisions. Conservatives
have proven in the last decade that we have learned the game, and without
a Deus ex Machina, the liberals are as endangered as the Spotted Owl,
the Eubola virus, or whatever other species that federal law currently
protects from extinction. The wobbly jello of liberalism is ready to melt,
and the Supreme Court will let nature, and justice, take its course. 
Bruce Walker is a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common Conservative.
Other related articles: (open in a new window)
- Let the nominations begin by John Nowacki (February 19, 2001)
- If judicial activism is the means, the end is not justified by Thomas L. Jipping (June 19, 2000)