Know-Nothing Judges

The adverse effects of Obama (and some Clinton) appointees

Know-Nothing Judges

Conservatives and liberty lovers are pretty much take it for granted that liberal judges don’t know anything about the Constitution.  That much seems obvious from the consistently ridiculous decisions made by left-wingers on the bench at all levels.  Yet, it is somewhat jarring to come across a liberal judge who is so un-knowledgeable, so uneducated, so thoroughly ignorant of the foundations upon which this country was built that she literally does not know what the Constitution actually says,http://gopthedailydose.com/2014/02/15/federal-judge-confuses-declaration-independence-constitution-court-ruling/



“A federal judge confused the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution Thursday night in a court ruling which overturned Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriages.

“In yet another example of a judge being totally ignorant to the supreme law of the land, U.S. District Court Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen wrongly attributed the line “all men are created equal” to the Constitution when it in fact appears in the Declaration of Independence.

“‘Our Constitution declares that “all men” are created equal,’ she wrote in the ruling. ‘Surely this means all of us.’”



It will come as no surprise to learn that this judge is an Obama appointee.  The Obama administration and its judicial appointees are an object lesson in trickle-down stupidity.

As anyone with any sense can tell, the mis-attribution of founding documents is simply a symptom of a much deeper rot of constitutional ignorance.  Even supposing that we give Judge Wright Allen a mulligan on this, the fact remains that her arguments are as specious as her footnoting.  Declaring all men to be equal does not in any way, shape, or form guarantee that all people must, or even can, be dealt with by the law in the exact same way based upon the choices that they have made for themselves.  The law does not punish both the thief and the victim of a robbery by putting both in prison.  The one made a choice and pays the penalty, the other does not.  Likewise, gay people – who have made a choice, they’re not born that way – do not merit special treatment in marriage law based on their lifestyle choice, all the while masking it as a call for “equality.”  Simply put, there really and truly is not any legal or moral argument to be made for allowing gays to marry each other just because men and women marry each other – the only argument for this rests solely on selfish personal preference.

Likewise, the judge has rather missed the whole point to the constitutional, 10th amendment stipulation that anything not specifically granted as a delegated power to the federal government nor denied to the states is de facto an area of state, rather than federal, authority.  Nowhere in that document is marriage law delegated to the federal government, nor denied to the states.  Ergo, marriage law belongs to the states.  And if states want to outlaw same-sex marriage, there is not a thing that the federal government can constitutionally do about it (which, of course, has not stopped the lawless and foolish in our society from trying to do so anywise).  This is, in fact, the way that the courts used to rule, up until within the last few years, as the adverse effects of Obama (and some Clinton) appointees began to make themselves felt.

As we all know, forcing same-sex marriage off onto our population is not the only area where liberal judges have completely perverted the plain meaning of our foundational law.  There are judges who rule that it’s “constitutional” for the NSA to strip mine the metadata and phone records of every cell phone user in America without a warrant.  There are judges who rule that it’s acceptable for the government to suppress certain classes of speech that disagree with the government.  There are even a few left-wing judges who continue to buck the one positive trend in the American judiciary by ruling against gun rights plainly laid out in the 2nd amendment.

And don’t even get me started on how liberal judges deal with people hauled before them for the “crime” of espousing jury nullification on open, public grounds.  That one hits a little too close to home for these guys – the idea that some jury might decide to vote against the way the judge and the prosecutor “instruct” them too?  Perish the thought!

One thing that we can consistently see in the American judiciary is its lack of consistency.  Some judges will still rule based on the actual text and meaning of the Constitution.  Others, typically on the Left, will use anything they can find instead of the Constitution – international law, “social justice,” the “needs” of the community, whatever.  As a result, when the government really wants a controversy to be settled the way it wants, it will just go judge-shopping until it gets the left-wing judge who will dutifully give the desired ruling.  Want to overturn a state’s pro-traditional marriage law?  We’ll find the right judge for you.

All of this points to some serious reforms that must be made in our judiciary.  Since most judges, whether on the state or the federal level, are there for life (some states do vote periodically for their justices), it superficially seems that we’re stuck with the bench as it is.  But I don’t believe this to necessarily be the case.  All we really need is for Congress to begin to reassert the preponderant authority that it is supposed to have in our system of divided government and separation of powers (though the current Congress’ record at standing up to Obama administration usurpations and over-reaches doesn’t fill me with much confidence).

Buried in Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution, which lists the specific delegated powers of the federal legislature, is the power of Congress to “constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court.”

Interesting, no?

What that means is that Congress has the power to basically determine the order, types, jurisdictions, and so forth of every federal court below the Supreme Court.  That word “constitute” means that Congress gets to determine their makeup and character.  What does that mean for us?  It means that if Congress found the courage to, it could abolish and reconstitute any inferior judicial bench it chose to.  Every judge that has consistently ignored the Constitution could find his or herself out of a job by having their appellate bench simply evaporated by an act of Congress, signed off on by a willing President.  It really would be that simple – though obviously finding the willing President and a backbone for our Congress-critters to do it is the significant difficulty for this plan.

“That’s horrible!” you might be tempted to say.  “That would be impeaching judges without actually impeaching them!”

So?  The left-wingers have spent decades ignoring, violating, and going around the Constitution; I have no problem whatsoever using the strict language of the Constitution to turn it back around on them and undermine everything they’re hoping to accomplish by packing the courts with blatantly ideological, biased judges.  At least this way adheres to the Constitution and uses the Congress, which is the branch of government that is closest to the people and therefore should protect the liberties of the people most zealously.

Even apart from this idea, however, we need to get serious about doing everything we can to limit the doctrine of stare decisis, which is essentially the judicial doctrine of basing rulings upon previous precedent instead of the actual law.  The problem with this doctrine is that if one or a few biased judges can get the ball rolling on establishing anti-constitutional precedents in judicial decisions, they can de facto codify unconstitutionality into supposedly constitutional proceedings.  When judges slavishly adhere to previous precedent rather than to the specific text and meaning of the Constitution as indicated by the Founders (you know, the people who wrote it), all kinds of evils are introduced into legal system.

In short, precedent, whether from specific ideological bias malice or from simple human laziness, cannot be allowed to negate the Constitution.  And make no mistake – judicial rulings on “constitutionality” can be unconstitutional on their face.  When the 2nd amendment clearly says that we have the right to keep and bear arms, we cannot allow liberal judges to use prior precedent from other liberal judges as a prop to overthrow that amendment.  When the federal government has no delegated power over marriage law, then no liberal ruling that overthrows a state law on marriage ought to be tolerated.  The decision ought to be considered vacated and of no effect on principle.  This should stand regardless of what the gays or the ACLU or whoever else thinks about it.

Ultimately, the problem with left-wing judicial ignorance and arrogance extends far beyond a mere factual unfamiliarity with our founding documents.  It extends to their purposeful overturning of the letter of our founding law (which, really, amounts to nothing less than a revolutionary coup d’etat designed to subvert our founding system).  We must elect legislators with the courage to rein in left-wing judges by any means necessary