Tuesday
(0)The retirement of a Supreme Court justice is always big news in the USA. Coming on the heels of a ruling which made big business developers grasping municipalities across the United States rub their hands together with glee, it is vital that the mindset which produced one of the most monstrous anti-liberty trends in America today not be reinforced with yet another ultra-statist. To her credit, although Sandra Day O'Connor was neither a darling of the right nor consistently supporting of civil liberties, she did dissent quite strongly from the monstrous Kelo verdict.
Perhaps now that more people are seeing past the simplistic left/right divide on the issue of eminent domain abuse, the importance of insisting on a judge who does revolt at the very idea of such a predator's charter should become the main focus not just for George W. Bush but people of any party who think that being secure in your property is one of the very lynchpins of a free society.
It's sad that the nomination of a Supreme Court justice should be such a big deal, because it testifies to how much power the SCOTUS and the "inferior" courts have accumulated. Worse, in enlarging their jurisdiction, they have construed the Constitution in ways that increase the power of the federal government over the rights of the states, and of both the federal government and the states over individuals. Examples include the severe restriction of the people's Fifth Amendment rights, and an expansion of the concept of "public use," in the Kelo case and many of its antecedents. Another favorite of the court is the Commerce Clause (in section 8), which has been stretched over a sick person's backyard marijuana patch, legal under state law and never intended for sale within or outside the state, in Gonzales v. Raich.
The stare decisis principle acts as a ratchet effect, so that no encroachment on the reserved rights under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, or of those specifically enumerated rights in the constitution, can be rolled back. Instead, each becomes a base from which the next invasion can be launched.
I have no idea how to go about it, but the judicial, congressional, and executive branches should all get a good pruning. Maybe it can start with the Supreme Court, which has been an instrument of governmental expansion & could potentially reverse the process.
Posted by Mitch at July 5, 2005 03:28 PM
(Just to be perverse)
And there was I thinking that America, since the arrival of the first settlers from Europe, has been a land run for property developers, by property develpers.
(Ask the original native population what they think.)
Posted by JEM at July 5, 2005 09:49 PM
