Steve Schear wrote:

Justice Brennan and the slippery slope by Joseph Sobran

The legacy of William Brennan, who died last week at 91, is summed up in the phrase "judicial activism."

When your "activism" is backed with guns, it's called tyranny.

Or, as he put it, the "genius" of the Constitution lay in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with current problems and needs."

e.g. - The "Right to Bare Arms" means that we can charge Capital Hill with machete's and and cut those fuckers' arms off to keep their fucking hands out of the public till. The "Right to Free Speech" means that we can cut their fucking throats and free those "honest" words that have been trapped down there ever since they got to D.C. God, I love an Constitution with "adaptable principles."

In plain language, Brennan imposed his own liberal agenda and said it was the Constitution speaking. But even when his goals were worthy, his methods were despotic. Under jurists like Brennan, we are back where we started: subject to the arbitrary will of men rather than ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ the impersonal rule of law. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Exactly. The right wing kills us with weapons and the left wing kills us with kindness. The Constitution has always suffered as much or more under the judicial influence of Democrats than it has under the influence of Republicans. The citizen's pocketbook, likewise--the Republicans want to spend others' money on weapons and the Democrats want to give it to "worthy" causes of "their" choosing. If one of their relatives needs a kidney, then the Republicans want to force drug-dealers and child-pornographers to give them one of theirs. The Democrats want to hold a lottery so that all of us are subject to giving them a kidney. Constitution!??!?? How _dare_ you suggest tht drug-dealers have rights? How _dare_ you suggest that someone with no kidneys doesn't have a right to receive your "spare" one from the government?

The test of an honest jurist is whether he is willing to rule against his own preferences, deferring, however reluctantly, to what the law requires in the case at hand.

Like it or not, when two cops blatantly lie on the witness stand (i.e. - telling you that the husband of a murdered woman was not considered a "suspect" when they climbed over his fence) then their evidence should be thrown out. The majority of the nation (and an elected judge) just coughed and looked at their feet when that happened at the "guilty black man's trial," but the "honest" jurists who held a human life in their hands did not. Halfway through the O.J. trial, someone asked me what I thought the verdict should be. I glanced at the courtroom circus and said, "I think we should find them _all_ guilty!" I have come to the same conclusion regarding our legislators. If I were on the Supreme Court, I might take into consideration my need for fertilizer for my garden when deciding their fate. (Of course, being a strong Constitutionalist, I would only have their "Bare Arms," which the Constitution gives me the right to, cut off to feed my plants.) Timothy May points out that things have reached a point where we no longer need to decide on the "kind" of solution to our problem, but the "calibre" of the solution (or "megatonnage"). Robert Hettinga made a good point that, while we may be having a lot of fun with our discussions about the law and the Constitution, technology and the economy will likely influence most of the future direction of eCa$h (as well as privacy and freedom, etc.). Sadly, they are both more right than most of us would like to admit. I would like to think that Republicans and Democrats, the EFF and Freeh, the Government and the people, Rodney King and the L.A. cops, could "all just get along." The reason we can't? We have no longer have a Constitution to hold on to--to balance the stronger against the weaker, the larger against the smaller, the "little" rights and wrongs against the "big" rights and wrongs.

But Brennan's rulings were the triumph of preference over deference. For him, as for many of his generation, the office of Supreme Court justice was an irresistible opportunity to wield power in the guise of interpreting the law.

So we end up with legisltors who now have the power to give our money to the rich _or_ to the poor depending on who holds power, and they have the power to kill us with weapons _or_ with kindness when they hold the majority. We are governed by those who think that "The answer to blatantly unconstitutional laws, is _more_ unconstitutional laws." and "The Legislature interprets the Constitution as damage, and routes around it." "A Vote for TruthMonger is a Vote for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt." Perhaps we need to start a FUD Party. Run a multi-user persona candidate, such as TruthMonger. (MayMonger, TreiMonger, SchearMonger, snowMonger, CrispinMonger). We can each gather our own brand of faithful under a common flag, telling each faction whatever kind of FUD they want to hear before they will vote for us, and become the next majority. Once we are in power...we restore the Constitution, throw out all other laws, and starch the flag (so that nobody can wrap themself in it). Then we quit. {Disclaimer: The fault in the idea espoused above lies in the fact that I (and proably many others) cannot hold it in my mind for more than a few seconds before I invariably start thinking about a few, small "improvements" I could make before resigning.} ("I have met the enemy, and he is _me_.") TruthMangler p.s. - Or, how about, "If elected, we promise to kill ourselves."?