What exactly is The Supreme Court?
I looked up the word “Supreme”.
1. above all others: greater than or superior to any other, especially above all others in power, authority, rank, status, or skill. holding supreme authority
2. highest in degree: of the greatest or most admirable kind
3. ultimate: greater than any that have gone before, or the greatest possible
4. in highest degree: in the highest degree or of the most unmitigated kind
Encarta ® World English Dictionary © & (P) 1998-2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Barack Obama likes to refer to The Supreme Court as, an "unelected group of people". He said “if The Supreme Court overturns Obamacare's individual mandate, that the court would be taking an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress."
Well, as usual, when His Royal Imperial Highness, Barack Obama II opens his mouth, most of his rhetoric isn't exactly accurate. First; A "strong" majority did not support Obamacare. (Parliamentary maneuvering in a Democrat controlled Congress was needed to pass it.) Second; It would be neither unprecedented (unless you count the way it was passed) nor extraordinary to overturn parts of a federal law. (The Supreme Court has done it many times.) Third; A court that restrains democracy is not an activist court as Obama implies, but typically one that's just doing its job.
Personally, I do believe there's a case to be made that the Supreme Court should not have the power of judicial review. I say that because there needs to be checks and balances even on the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court can strike down anything at any time in the name of the Constitution, that power elevates it above the other branches and eliminates the checks and balances. The argument against judicial review is an argument in favor of checks and balances, not against them. Regardless of how you feel about judicial, a small unelected group upholding individual liberty is a huge improvement over the opposite.But that's not the argument Obama made. Instead, he argued that the Supreme Court should not strike down Obamacare, because that would be "unprecedented" and "extraordinary." That’s not true, and being a law school graduate, he knows damned well it’s not. That is precisely what the Supreme Court has been doing since 1803? And, that’s fine with Obama except when it rules against Obama.
The same holds true of Congress. Congress is great when it does what Obama wants. When it doesn't, Obama wants the power to simply ignore it. He has repeatedly stated on various issues, "If Congress won't act, I will." He's used his executive branch powers to appoint dozens of czars with Cabinet-level power but without Cabinet positions so that he doesn't have to have them approved by Congress. He's appointed officers in violation of the Constitution, wrongly maintaining that he has the right to do so.
In essence, Obama detests the checks and balances. He doesn't like gridlock. It stops him from implementing his vision.
Alexander Hamilton argued that the court protects (or should protect) the deeper will of the people, because the Constitution represents our overarching values. Newly instituted laws, on the other hand, could often reflect fleeting emotions, lack of knowledge or flawed politicians.
Even if the individual mandate is struck down by the Supreme Court, we all need to remember this: The court is only a single judge away from being a liberal court.
Remember this from Justice Elena Kagan: As solicitor general of the United States, she argued that banning books would be acceptable if those books were considered politicking by a government agency. During the Obamacare arguments, she said that "the federal government is here saying, 'We are giving you a boatload of money.' There's no matching funds requirement; there are no extraneous conditions attached to it. It's just a boatload of federal money for you to take and spend on poor people's health care. It doesn't sound coercive to me, I have to tell you."
Contrary to liberal myths, America is not, and never has been a democracy. The Founding Framers did not want the United States to be subjected to mob rule, or what they called “majority tyranny,” so they settled on the concept of a republic as being the best answer to the main problem that confronted them—how do you form a government strong enough to protect its citizens, yet restrained enough to not become a danger to them in its own right? They were well aware that humans are (individually and as a whole) a combination of “saints and sinners,” and therefore neither to be entirely trusted, nor despised.
Democrats have fought hard to undo safeguards against direct democracy, attaching a morality to a process that can do both good and bad. They have created ballot measures to do away with the Electoral College. They'd like Washington, rather than localities, to dictate nearly everything.
Democracy allows rhetoric, false empathy and emotion to pummel rational thinking -- so it's no wonder so many politicians thrive in it. The Supreme Court, however, should rise above democracy, not give in to it. That's the whole point.
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