President Ronald W. Reagan said, “It isn’t that liberals don’t know anything, it’s what they know is wrong.” And that is true of one letter to Voices, 07-16-2008. He says that the views of Bradley Gitz are as predictable as Sean Hannity’s views. Now that is the pot calling the kettle black since a liberals views are as predictable as day following night or visa versa. He was bent out of shape because Gitz whacked liberal thinking on the death penalty when he wrote what liberal judges might be thinking on any given subject.

It is predictable when four to five of the nine justices generally refuse to follow the Constitution by injecting their own personal beliefs into their decisions. In the death penalty case involving rape, they overturned a perfectly valid state law to arrive at their idiotic decision. In so doing, they ignored the Ninth and Tenth Amendments which protect the rights of the states and the people to create laws they deem necessary and acceptable to maintain a stable society. The five twisted the Eighth Amendment into an unrecognizable shape to make the death penalty cruel and unusual, when the death penalty is neither cruel or unusual as applied throughout history by civilized nations. It is quite biblical and proper.

Then he whines that Gitz didn’t complain about the decision on the Second Amendment. Why should he complain when their decision was mostly right? (Mostly right is because Justice Antonin Scalia interjected his ideas on limiting firearms.) He thinks that the decision was made by activist judges. He wouldn’t know an activist judge if he stood in court in front of one.

But then his lack of knowledge of the Constitution shows in glaring light. He believes that the founding fathers established federal law as the supreme law of the land with Article 6. He needs to read the Article. It says in part, This Constitution … shall be the supreme law of the land; Federal law and state laws are to be made pursuant to the Constitution, not pursuant to the Supreme Court or federal law. What he fails to understand is that if federal law is supreme, then the laws of states made under the authority of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments can be rendered worthless. Regrettably, Congress has done so at times by disregarding the limits on government in Article I, Section 8.

He continued his lack of knowledge when he claimed that such activist judicial action is proper because Justice John Marshall established the courts power of judicial review. Marshall did so establish, but what the writer failed to point out is that Marshall made the Court the authority to decide what the Constitution says when the Constitution doesn’t give the court that authority. By so doing, he established the unconstitutional supremacy of federal government over the states. The court is duty bound to know and rule by original intent rather than trying to force modern interpretation into the document. In addition, the court’s duty is to judge the case before it in light of the Constitution. One additional point must be made. The ruling by the Supreme Court is only binding on the parties who brought the issue before the court unless a demonstrable constitutional violation is the issue, either of the U.S. Constitution or a respective state Constitution. However, most state issues are decided by the respective state Supreme Courts.  

Then he gets more ridiculous in his assertions. He said that all that he wrote is the reason we call the states united. Where did he get his notion since it certainly isn’t in the Constitution? The writer of that letter is a good example of those who spout off without knowing what is coming from their mouth. But that isn’t surprising given the poor quality of education provided in our schools about the Constitution and our form of government. Such ideas are to be expected when people don’t take the time to find the truth and sharpen their thinking. They are self appointed geniuses without any knowledge.

© 07-18-2008 DEC