“Judicial activism occurs when judges write subjective policy preferences into the law rather than applying it impartially, consistent with its original meaning.”
– Heritage Foundation
This is no surprise to sturdy opponents of judicial activism. The U.S. Supreme Court suffered a major credibility blow following its politically motivated 5-4 Obergefell v. Hodges opinion on “gay marriage.” They dared to do the impossible – both to redefine the eternal institution of natural marriage and to give this fictitious definition priority over freedoms. Actually listed in the Bill of Rights. According to Rasmussenonly “36 percent of likely U.S. voters still think the high court is doing a good or excellent job.”
Incredibly, even the Chicago Tribune was so scathing about the Supreme Court:
“We must confess that we are shocked by the violence and servility of the judicial revolution caused by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States. We hardly know how to express our distaste for its inhumane dictates or to comprehend the wicked consequences that may arise from it. … This decision undermined the constitution [sic] of its praiseworthy and characteristic features, and seeks to pervert it in a barbaric and unchristian tone…Jefferson feared the Supreme Court and predicted its usurpation of the legislative power of the federal government. His prophecy has now become a reality. The terrible evil he feared is coming upon us.”
As many of us have warned, this is the opinion already used crush Americans’ constitutionally guaranteed freedoms. This did not go unnoticed by the Tribune, which added: “To say or suppose that the Free People could respect or implement a decision so disastrous to the Nation and its freedoms is to dream of impossibilities. No authority can deprive them of their rights. They will not allow any power to shorten them.”
The New York Tribune was equally dismissive: “Needless to say, this decision carries as much moral weight as most people gathered in any Washington bar.”
Okay, let me explain. The above quotes do not refer to Obergefell. But they might as well have been. These quotes were in reference to the Supreme Court’s equally unlawful 1857 Dred Scott decision. While the justices in Dred Scott defied natural law and assumed that whites had a “right” to own blacks, the court’s 2015 Obergefell decision also defied natural law and presumed it deconstructed and redefined the institution of marriage .
Both decisions are unlawful and here’s why. For the United States Supreme Court to legitimately invalidate certain laws duly passed by the United States Congress, its opinion must be deeply rooted in at least one of the following:
- A clear reading of the United States Constitution;
- Some prior judicial precedent;
- History and customary law;
- Our cultural customs and traditions;
- Other law passed by Congress.
As the four judges of the Supreme Court in Obergefell rightly pointed out, the “five lawyers” who came up with this newfangled “gay marriage” “right” woefully failed to meet any of the requirements.
The same was true for Dred Scott.
So both opinions should be ignored in miniature.
When President Andrew Jackson famously joked about a Supreme Court opinion that he viewed as usurping executive power: “[Chief Justice] John Marshall made his decision; now let him enforce it!”
After the Dred Scott decision was announced, Senator William Pitt Fessenden of Maine, who later served as Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, said the following:[It is charged] that I am undermining the country’s institutions by attacking the United States Supreme Court! I’m not attacking their decisions because they haven’t made any; that is their opinion.”
Over the past few decades, the other two branches of government, the legislative and executive, have for some inexplicable reason come to terms with the concept of judicial supremacy – a dangerously dominant concept that mistakenly views the United States Supreme Court as the final arbiter of all matters of public policy. If this is the case, then these nine unelected lawyers are ultimately answerable to no one or anything, and the other two branches of government are merely toothless figureheads who merely spin their wheels with our dollars.
This is contrary to the creators’ intentions. This is also a very unfortunate reality in which we live. Stopping judicial madness lies entirely within the constitutional competence of the other two organs of power.
Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution grants Congress the power to “control” judicial activity, including situations in which judges unlawfully legislate while sitting: “[T]The Supreme Court will have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with exceptions and under such provisions as Congress may provide.
Our Republican-led Congress, from a regulatory standpoint, has the absolute constitutional power to blow up this rogue Supreme Court. Unfortunately, so far she either didn’t want or couldn’t do it.
But it’s not just Republicans who need to stop this judicial imperialism. Freedom-loving Democrats must also join the fight, if such an animal still exists. Based on Dred Scott’s opinion, yes.
“[F]and immediately we were told that the Supreme Court of the United States had become the designated exponent of Democratic principles. Since when?” asked Senator George Pugh of Ohio. “Who constituted the justices of the Supreme Court as the founders and exponents of the principles of Democracy? Certainly not Thomas Jefferson, who declared them sappers and miners of the Constitution; certainly not Andrew Jackson, who told them he would interpret his oath, as well as his own principles, in accordance with his views on the Constitution.[…]When we get to the judicial issues, I think we have moved away from the entire spirit and principles of the Democratic Party.”
My, how the Democratic Party has changed.
In the immense majority of their writings, the Founding Fathers made it clear that the judiciary was effective. the weakest of the three. Unfortunately, this is not the case with today’s current misapplication. Americans currently live under the rule of what is, broadly speaking, an unconstitutional judiciary headed by nine unelected, unaccountable, black-clad autocrats.
No, five extremist lawyers cannot decide “the law of the land.” Only the legislator can do this. The Supreme Court only issues opinions.
And then the other two branches decide what, if anything, to do with them.
The Declaration of Independence recognizes that true rights are God-given and inalienable.
Free from religious practices is holiness.
“Gay marriage” is counterfeit.
And the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being.
(Note: Dred Scott quotes from Kutler, Stanley I., ed., The Dred Scott Decision: Law or Politics (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1967), 59.)
