A crisis in American governance “The Court”

A crisis in American governance

“The Court”


This, like any form of commentary is a matter of personal opinion and as such is the moral equivalent of a rectum. Everybody has one and most all of them stink.  The Bill of Rights is a spectacular effort at defining governance and the protections from government and petty tyrants offered the individual. It is stellar in its impact and brilliant in its conception.

So what’s the problem?

We’re steadily assaulted by the Executive branch in their thinking they have specific powers never clearly enumerated in the specificity of the constitutional verbiage used. It’s left open to interpretation by the party overstepping their bounds. In other words, the lack of firmly defined principles in the past has created a crisis in American governance today.

The final arbiter of these problems between the representative legislature and the Executive is supposed to be the Supreme Court. “The Court” is supposed to decide the Constitutionality of any enacted law against the standards set within the Bill of Rights as written. The law is NOT supposed to be defined by the dogmatic harangue of any political party in obedience to its party leaders. It’s supposed to be balanced against the words written and the ideals understood. It’s my belief the Bill of Rights is a document of extreme clarity in its simplicity. It’s meant to protect the individual as a member of a society. It’s meant to define OUR culture as strictly American as opposed to a version of hyphenated, fragmented and potentially abusive ideologies at odds with the American Dream as envisioned by the “Founding Fathers”.

The Bill of Rights and its companion piece, the Constitution, was developed because the writers were only too familiar with the abuses suffered under the rule of the despotic and insensitive King George III. Despotism wasn’t an abstract notion for them. It was reality and they knew the processing of the avaricious nature of man was to subjugate his fellows purely from a stance of superior military numbers and injudicious legislative actions designed to serve the elite and maintain their posture and alleged superiority in fact and practice.

Look at “your” president, (he ain’t MY president) and the Congress composed of millionaires and privileged characters believing they define YOUR rights and are better suited than you to decide your operative present and your proposed future. If you can’t see and recognize their egotistical, self-centered, self-possessed, self-aggrandizement; simply look at their acceptance of one of the most obvious forms of conflict of interest: they write their own paychecks as defined by laws they authored, passed and enforce without the permission of the people of the United States.

Can you do that?

“The Court” is supposed to take law as written and define its constitutionality as it applies to that one individual law. It must ask: “Does this law protect and serve the individual as a member of society?” NOT : how does this OPEN society to accept new and different concepts of “constitutionality”. “The Court” wasn’t meant to be the de facto rubber stamp approval offered for the duration of a politically dogmatic and thus, prejudiced party affiliation. These political affiliations can last decades because placement on “The Court” is for life. (That’s better than many marriages last.)

“The Court” has become a joke in the way it operates. Specific justices say they are the “best” at defining and “INTERPRETING” the Constitution. It’s my stance there should be NO interpretation of the Constitution but rather the application of interpreting the individual law under contest and controversy as it applies to the Constitution. It’s too easy for people (justices) to be influenced by personal interests and beliefs. They’re human. They’re prejudiced as are all people. Their rulings reflect those prejudices and thought processes.

In many cases the Declaration of Independence is mistaken as a Constitution driven addendum to the Bill of Rights. It states in the second paragraph: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.”

As can be seen, “The Court” (in many cases) decides the constitutionality of any law based on the Declaration of Independence rather than a strict balancing act against the Bill of Rights. Is abortion a constitutional right? Is the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transsexual (LGBT) issue a matter of “constitutionality”? Is marriage defined in the Constitution of the Bill of Rights?

No. Nowhere do you find these issues defined in the Constitution or Bill of Rights. Therefore marriage as a social (secular) and/or religious contract is a matter of contract law; not specifically defined by the Bill of Rights. It IS developed under the Declaration of Independence where it says: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Therefore, I suggest and believe these issues are NOT enforceable by law as constitutional or non–constitutional. They are a matter for the states to decide under the principles of contract law; not Federal law.

“The Court” continually sticks its collective noses in a septic tank and self-righteously proclaims the treatment of some groups stinks. That’s not their job.

“The Courts” job is to weigh enacted law against the Bill of Rights and its amendments. It’s not to produce reasons to be on the cover of Time Magazine.

Thanks for listening

Sarge