Friday, June 27, 2008

Why it's important who you vote for

I'm sure you've heard by now the U.S. Supreme Court has defended, for the first time ever, the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I'm sure you don't need me to provide you with the details as they have been plastered all over the newspapers these past few days. So we'll skip the details.

Sometimes I agree with Rush Limbaugh, and sometimes I do not. However, one thing I love about the man regardless is his philosophy. I love the way he always looks at things from the inside out and analyzes them. That's something I love to do.

That in mind, this is what he asked the other day: "What will the court tell us we can do today, and what will the court tell us we can't do?"

What I wanted to discuss today is this: Why is it that we sit around waiting for the Supreme Court to tell us what we have a right to do and what we do not have a right to do? Why is it we allow this court to decide our political issues? True, this is an idea Rush lead me to.

Today we are happy, but the next time the Supreme Court makes a ruling, they could just as easily usurp our individual rights.

Yesterday the Court defended the 2nd Amendment, it defended the individual right of the people of Washington D.C. to defend themselves in their homes, to bear arms if you will. Conservatives are leaping for joy, and liberals are wailing.

Not to get too excited, because a few days ago it was the other way around, as that same court ruled that the people of Louisiana are not smart enough to decide for themselves the proper punishment for those creeps who rape our children.

The people of louisiana wanted this law, they decided this, yet the same Supreme Court that defended individual rights yesterday ruled that the people of Louisiana are too stupid to decide that child rapers should be given the death penalty.

So, those five members of the Court overruled the will of the people.

Look at California as another recent example. You have the courts over there overruling the will of the people when it comes to gay marriage.

Those individuals voted overwhelmingly in support of traditional marriage, and this resulted in a law making marriage between a man and a woman, and a handful of men sitting behind a bench decided those people are too stupid to know any better about marriage, so they overruled the people.

Now, I couldn't care less about gun control, because it doesn't effect me one bit. I live in a small town, and we don't have bad things happen here (fingers crossed). Heck, we don't even lock our cars or houses. And I don't even care about gay marriage. If two guys or two gals want to get together, it doesn't bother me one bit.

The point is we, as a nation, get all excited, anxious, about how the court is going to rule, when it shouldn't be that way. How many people live in California? So, it's five or nine judges versus all 30 million or so people. I don't know how many people live there, but you get my point.

When it comes to gun control, you have nine justices versus 300 million people. Those 300 million people live under the Constitution, and those nine justices can take away any of those Constitutional rights with the flick of their pens.

Case in point is this: four justices voted against the 2nd amendment yesterday. Four liberal justices voted against the individual rights of 300 million people. That to me is scary.

As I was growing up, I learned that the Bill of Rights does not give us individual rights, the Bill of Rights does't give us individual rights, it protects the freedoms that we were born with. It makes sure that Washington cannot make a law taking away what is rightfully ours.

Of course there is a limit here. You cannot infringe on the rights of others. And this is why we have laws. And this is why we have courts to protect one person from others. What's the old saying: "Your right to throw your fist through the air ends where the other person's face begins."

That's why we have courts. We do not have courts to decide our political issues. Yet, considering liberal issues are not popular with the people, and since they cannot get legislatures to make liberal issues into law, they resort to petitioning liberal activist judges.

Since no legislature in the United States has ever made a law making gay marriage legal, and since the majority in most states oppose gay marriage, liberals petition the courts. And, those liberals got their way in California.

They got their way NOT because a law was written by a legislature, but because a court said so. However, the COURTS are made to rule based on the Constitution, not on their opinions. But, when it comes to liberals getting their way, who cares about the Constitution.

We learn that the Bill of Rights defends our "Inailienable" rights. That is, those are rights that are God given, and cannot be taken away. Yet, if we vote for a liberal president, and that president nominates activist judges to the benches, we could have our "inailienable" rights taken away.

This is a perfect example of why we need to pay close attention to who we vote for. We know that Obama places the Constitution as secondary to the opinions of the world. We've even had justices who have made rulings not based on the U.S. Constitution, but on what courts of other nations have decided.

Europeans are adamantly against the death penalty. Therefore, it only makes sense that the U.S. should be against it too. The "World" is pro gay marriage, so the U.S. should be pro-gay marriage too.

The U.S. Constitution does not grant the members of the Supreme Court rights to decide this, but they have granted this right to themselves. Actually, it started way back when John Adams was president.

I love this kind of deep stuff. I'll write more on this in the days to come.

5 comments:

Righty64 said...

Great post. However, the European PEOPLE are for the death penalty. There are many polls out there that prove this point. And, I think that the European PEOPLE want to be more like the United States. It is the elites in Europe and the United States that think the same way.

Rick Frea said...

Thanks for correcting me. And I agree that most Europeans want to be more like us, as recent leadership changes from liberal to conservative in many European countries proves.

Now if we could just make sure our elected officials are aware of this so they don't make the same mistakes.

Anthony Palmer, Ph.D. said...

Consider the case of Loving vs. Virginia:

This Supreme Court decision struck down the ban on interracial marriage and allowed people to marry anyone of any race. Keep in mind that this decision took place in 1967. The ban was overturned because it "violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment."

Surely the majority of Americans in almost every state was opposed to interracial marriage in 1967 just like they are opposed to gay marriage today. So had this issue been left to the voters and the states to resolve on their own, this ban would have endured much longer and could possibly still exist in some states today. I'm sure you would agree that this ban was both stupid and unconstitutional, so I think you would agree that this "activist court" made the right decision.

By the way, I think the term "judicial activism" is an empty term that simply means the judges made a decision that you (rhetorically) disagree with.

Rick Frea said...

Here is how I would define activist judge: a judge who makes rulings not based on the current law. Thus, we need judges who rule by the law, not their opinions or random opinion of other nations.

A ban on interacial marriage would be unconstitutional, and thus the court made the right decision there. I see no problem with that ruling.

Nikki said...

Freadom great post. I agree that we should pay close attention to the election as we obviously need to pay close attention to our Supreme Court. Funny how the judges were political when it was regarding an election in 2000, but when a person agree's with the outcome it is just good old plain juris prudence. it cuts both ways. There are no empty terms when it comes to the law, only empty arguments. An activist judge is one who misuses his power, its an official term in the Black's Law Dictionary which is used by the Supreme Court and most lawyers as case authority. No emptiness there. Its only been called a smokescreen since conservatives have started using it as of late, and correctly I might add. Just an FYI. :)N