The greatest power the justices have is carved into the marble of the Supreme Court Building and gilded in gold: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.”
These are the words of John Marshall, the fourth U.S. chief justice, written in 1803. His decision established forever that the Supreme Court had the right to uphold or strike down laws passed by Congress.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the Supreme Court given this power. The Supreme Court took it in a 4-0 decision.
This is honesty from Roger Simon, a hardcore Leftist slug.
His piece is a beautiful bit of whining about the Court. But he will not whine when the Court takes a decision of which he approves.
The hypocrisy of the Left (and by extension, the Establishment) is fully on display in this article. As long as the Court does what he wants, it is relevant and noble. When it does not do what he wants, it is a rogue entity that artificially created the power it wields.
Mr. Simon and I agree on the fundamental point: The Court does not have the Authority under the Constitution to impose it's decision upon either the Executive or Legislative.
"Checks and Balances" is not what you learned in Civics class. "Checks & Balances" is not the power to force the other branches to yield.
Checks and Balances is the power of each branch to decide for itself what is and is not Constitutional, and to act according to its own decision within that sphere of influence. If the People disagree, we can vote out the politicians with whom we disagree. If We the People disagree with the Judiciary, we have the Right to nullify and we have the Right to demand Impeachment.
But never in a million years in a billion parallel universes did our Framers ever intend that the few Members of the Court would have final power to decide what the rest of us must do...hence the Ninth & Tenth Amendments. Hence, Impeachment. Hence, Treason.
Judicial Review is a stolen power, a facade that benefits our Masters, with minor inconveniences from time to time. They permit the fallacy to exist, so that the illusion of legitimacy is accepted by most of your Countrymen.
And, it works.
Think about it.
Here is the entire Roger Simon piece.
UPDATE: I think some people grasp concepts best when analogies are used. So, try this one: Our Governance under the Constitution, in the spirit of the DoI and with the expressly forbidden acts articulated in the BoR, was never meant to be an absolutely rigid construct.
Think of a racetrack. There are hard barriers and all racers must stay in-bounds. In our governance these bounds are drawn by the express powers granted in the Constitution and the express acts that are forbidden in the Bill of Rights.
But within these boundaries, the individual cars (or boats if you prefer) have room to move, to even skid across the water or roadway from time to time, to bump into one another. In governance this "skidding" and movement is the mechanics of governing, where rubber meets the road, if you will. It is not precise. It was known by our Framers that precision was unattainable, since the Nature of Man was involved.
Get it?
Kerodin
III
