Former Supreme Court Associate Justice, John Paul Stevens, has written a book. As you might expect from one of the liberal stalwarts on the court, he has some helpful suggestions on how that pesky Constitution can be changed to allow for an easier transition to the Worker’s Paradise, known as European Socialism. He was nominated by the way, by yet another Republican President who was duped into believing the idiotic advice of an adviser who kept his head hidden squarely within the confines of his own buttocks and proclaimed, “here’s a legally conservative fellow who’ll give us an original interpretation of the Constitution.”
What is made clear by Stevens treatise is one immutable fact. For the entirety of his career as a Supreme Court Justice, he has interpreted the Constitution according to what he wanted it to say, and not according to what the document actually does say. In other words, when you hear the fallacious term, “living constitution,” recognize that this is someone who has determined that they disagree with the founding principles of our nation, and wish to see those founding principles done away with completely. The Constitution for them, is an obstacle to be overcome, and used only as a tool to destroy the fabric of our nation as it was founded.
The Progressive Movement in our nation, who’s two most influential leaders were Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, saw our Constitution as an impediment to their desired transformation of a government constrained by its enumerated authority to one that would allow for an elite ruling class to basically rule as they saw fit. Individual freedom and self rule after all has never been the normative state for human beings in our world. Rather than recognizing inalienable rights granted by God as the source of our liberty, the Progressive Movement recognizes those liberties as a grant from government, thereby rendering them subject to removal by those same governments, via whimsy and fiat. In order to achieve this end, our founding documents had to be granted life, thus making an organic change possible.
Both Roosevelt and Wilson sought to increase the authority and scope of the Executive Branch, their own power base, and saw our Constitution specifically as an impediment to that end. They viewed the checks and balances system to be a nuisance which prevented them from edicting their political will, and sought to remedy that problem through direct appeals to transform our nation from being a representative republic to a direct democracy. The most successful of these fundamental changes were the Seventeenth Amendment, the recall ballot initiatives achieved in almost every State and municipal government throughout the nation, and the inroads into the way in which our Constitution has been handled throughout our educational system.
If you ask any high school child in America today whether our Constitution should be handled as a static document or a living document, they’ll give the automatic response of living document, without ever stopping to consider or even ask, what does that question even mean, much less, what does my answer mean. Our Judicial Branch has been given plenary authority to render judgement based not upon what the law actually says, but what they want it to say, which is a dream come true for those who don’t like having their authority checked. The Stevens book admits that fact. Looking back at his record, you’ll see that throughout his entire career, he has ruled as if these changes had already been made to our Constitution.
1. The “Anti-Commandeering Rule” (Amend the Supremacy Clause of Article VI) This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges and other public officials. in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
2. Political Gerrymandering – Districts represented by members of Congress, or by members of any state legislative body, shall be compact and composed of contiguous territory. The state shall have the burden of justifying any departures from this requirement by reference to neutral criteria such as natural, political, or historical boundaries or demographic changes. The interest in enhancing or preserving the political power of the party in control of the state government is not such a neutral criterion.
3. Campaign Finance – Neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the Congress or any state from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.
4. Sovereign Immunity – Neither the Tenth Amendment, the Eleventh Amendment, nor any other provision of this Constitution, shall be construed to provide any state, state agency, or state officer with an immunity from liability for violating any act of Congress, or any provision of this Constitution.
5. Death Penalty- (Amend the 8th Amendment) Excessive Bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments such as the death penalty inflicted.
6. The Second Amendment – (Amend the 2nd Amendment) A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.
His book is a further admission that far from a living document, until such changes are codified in actual Amendment form, his rulings and opinions are only temporary, which brings up another issue for the Living Document crowd. A living Constitution is as worthless as having no founding law to begin with. For years we have watched as the liberal members of the court have traveled about the globe admonishing audiences to embrace not what the Constitution actually says, but what it should, in their opinion, say instead. When the Egyptians were looking to form a new government, Ruth Bader Ginsberg actually went to the lengths to tell the fledgling conventioneers that the U.S. founding law was a bad example of how to form a nation, and that they should look to the Socialist nations of Europe for their inspiration.
This point can not be stressed enough, and it is the reason for the subterfuge employed by the living document crowd. The role of the Judiciary is as impartial referee, interpretation of what the law says and how our Constitution applies to various arguments of the day. It is not to determine what it should have said, or how it can be changed to accommodate the political whimsy of those who wish to introduce new sources of authority to take increasing lordship over the lives of the citizenry. That is how we will cease to be private citizens and will be established as subjects. It is no accident that one of the principle tenets of the Progressive Movement holds that members of any population are individuals second, and societal members first. In their worldview, we citizens of the United States should have our freedoms, which are our birthright, subordinated to the political will of the ruling class. A class by the way that does not exist, at least not according to the original interpretation of our Constitution.
Our founding law, as written enumerates certain pieces of authority to the Federal Government, and any thing that was not specifically enumerated was and should be considered to be beyond its scope and authority. In order to guarantee that this would remain the reality in perpetuity, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were included in the Bill of Rights. The last time I checked, those two very important Amendments were still a part of the Constitution.
Cross Posted from Musings of a Mad Conservative.
