Responsibility #15

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=110 BGCOLOR="#666699" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04900840erlcjm.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>NATIONAL SECURITY--Structural,Moral,Economic,Domestic</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="NATIONAL SECURITYStructural,Moral,Econom"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility Contents"><U>Responsibility Contents</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 1"><U>Responsibility #1</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 2"><U>Responsibility #2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 3"><U>Responsibility #3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 4"><U>Responsibility #4</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" 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16"><U>Responsibility #16</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id50.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 17"><U>Responsibility #17</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id51.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 18"><U>Responsibility #18</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id52.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 19"><U>Responsibility #19</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id53.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 20"><U>Responsibility #20</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 21"><U>Responsibility #21</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id55.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 22"><U>Responsibility #22</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id56.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 23"><U>Responsibility #23</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id57.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 24"><U>Responsibility #24</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id58.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 25"><U>Responsibility #25</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id59.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 26"><U>Responsibility #26</U></A>   |   <A 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to President, et al,"><U>Health Care Letters to President, et al, 8/24/94</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id123.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a He"><U>Arguments for Delay in Enactment of a Health Care Bill</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id124.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Post WORLD WAR IIPost COLD WAR Deja Vu"><U>Post WORLD WAR II--Post COLD WAR Deja Vu</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id125.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 89"><U>Responsibility #89</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id126.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 90"><U>Responsibility #90</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id127.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 91"><U>Responsibility #91</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id128.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 92"><U>Responsibility #92</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id129.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 93"><U>Responsibility #93</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id130.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 94"><U>Responsibility #94</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id131.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 95"><U>Responsibility #95</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 96"><U>Responsibility #96</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id133.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 97"><U>Responsibility #97</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id134.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 98"><U>Responsibility #98</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id135.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Structure of Our Nation is Unsound"><U>The Structure of Our Nation is Unsound</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id136.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Ltr. to Editor, 3/19/96, Property Taxes "><U>Ltr. to Editor, 3/19/96, Property Taxes and Education Funding</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" background="04311c00egdysm.png"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=370 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Responsibility #15</div> <div> (written prior to July 1992)</div> <div> To the People of the United States of America:</div> <div>      In the first fourteen papers, we have primarily concentrated our attention on the legislative and executive branches of our federal government.  We now turn to the Judiciary.</div> <bR> <div>      In the first Responsibility essay, there were cited ten deleterious consequences borne by our citizens, due to abuses and usurpations perpetrated under (but not necessarily within) our Constitution.  The Supreme Court shares or bears responsibility in five of these:</div> <bR> <div> * We have become a very divided nation.</div> <div> * There is a general disdain and lack of respect for our....appointed officials.</div> <div> * The checks and balances among our three federal government branches and the States have been by-passed and neglected.</div> <div> * Our Supreme Court has fostered and condoned immorality by inventing and, in effect, legislating rights and privacies that are at odds with the general welfare.</div> <div> * With the void of leadership, our citizenry has drifted into a malaise of greed and self-gratification, to the neglect of our God, our nation, our families, and our fellow man.</div> <div>      How did these unwanted and unintended consequences come about?  What are some of the most serious instances?  What can we do about it?</div> <div>      In Responsibility #8 it was noted that: the Judiciary is intended to serve only the purposes of justice; to achieve these ends it is designed to be non-political; checks and balances were established to assure these results.  However these best laid plans of our founding fathers have been subverted by our Presidents and our Senates (often under pressure from special interest groups) in their nomination and confirmation responsibilities.  As principal corrective measures it was proposed in that essay that: the nomination function be taken from the President, and placed in the hands of the Judiciary; the Senate confirmation hearings be chaired by a Supreme Court Justice; there be a reemphasis on best qualified, but with latitude for balance. </div> <div>      Prior to the 1960s, the greatest example of our need for a non-political and balanced Supreme Court (which would stick to its mending) was just prior to the Civil War.  Extracts from Leon Friedman's book, "The Supreme Court", presents the situation: </div> <div> " .... the Supreme Court sometimes took on more than it could handle."</div> <div> "In 1857, the Supreme Court decided the Dred Scott case.  In a six to three vote, the justices ruled that a slave remained a slave as long as the original owner wished, because the slave was the owner's PROPERTY.  This decision meant that Congress couldn't pass any laws restricting slave owners' RIGHTS and that slaves had no RIGHTS at all.  It also meant that free states would have to allow slavery because people could bring their slaves--their property--to these areas.  And because of this, the Missouri Compromise, which established some free states, was unconstitutional. </div> <div> Further, the decision .... meant that slavery could exist unchecked--Congress could not admit any new free states into the union or try to restrict the spread of slavery.  The Supreme Court, the final arbiter, had not supported the control of slavery.  In fact, its decision made it impossible to settle the slavery conflict peacefully.  If a compromise had been possible between the free states of the North and West and the slave states of the South, the Civil War could have been avoided.  However, the Supreme Court had taken a firm stand against compromise and war became inevitable.</div> <div> Today everyone agrees that the decision in the Dred Scott case was a terrible mistake."</div> <div> "During the Civil War years, the Supreme Court reached a low point in public esteem, primarily because of the Dred Scott decision and the fact that FOUR OF THE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES CAME FROM THE SOUTH."    </div> <div>      Now, in the twentieth century, the Supreme Court is again low in public esteem.  It is viewed as a political institution, in contravention of the very basis for its separate existence.  It is a pawn of the President and the Senate, the Republican and the Democratic parties, the liberals and the conservatives, one special interest group versus another.  There is little evidence, that judges and justices are nominated and confirmed based on best qualified, and balanced court criteria.  </div> <bR> <div>      "The Brethren" are charged with overreaching their roles as a Supreme Court by activism, de facto legislation, and usurpation of executive functions.  The terrible mistake of the Dred Scott decision pales in comparison to the disastrous consequences of some of the court's findings in the areas of freedoms, rights, privacies, and due process.  </div> <div>      Now that the Supreme Court has become a powerful institution, in view of its demonstrated lack of freedom from politics, and regarding the consequences of its twentieth century mistakes, it is a moot question as to whether it can be left unrestrained to interpret the vague and general clauses of the Constitution, and amendments thereto.  The public gropes for a faith that there is some fundamental basis for our jurisprudence, while they watch and listen to the claims and counterclaims of the politicians and the legal profession of the ethereal concepts of original intent, natural law, natural rights, common law, due process, substantive due process, etc.</div> <bR> <div>      We can appreciate the presence of politics in the makeup of the courts by looking at the record since 1964.  In a newspaper editorial of June 4, 1989 it was reported:</div> <div> "[President Ronald Reagan in his eight years in the White House won confirmation] for 346 of the 728 [federal] judges in active service."</div> <div> "In choosing nominees for the federal bench, Mr. Reagan followed exactly in the footsteps of every president since Washington.  That is, he named judges thought to be in his own political and philosophical mode.  Of the Reagan nominees, 93.4 percent are Republicans.  (Jimmy Carter's judges were 92.6 percent Democrats, Richard Nixon's were 92.7 percent Republican, Lyndon Johnson's were 94.3 percent Democrats.)"  </div> <bR> <div>      In forthcoming Responsibility papers, we will examine the effects of the politicalization of the Supreme Court.  We will discuss particular errors (abuses and usurpations) that have occurred in the twentieth century.  Recommendations will be made as to how we may correct these mistakes and prevent similar episodes in the future. </div> <bR> <div>                     Publius IV</div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id49.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility 16"><U>Responsibility #16</U></A></div> <div> Back to: <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Responsibility Contents"><U>Responsibility Contents</U></A> </div> </td> </tr></table></body>