in a 31 october 1823 letter to monsieur a. coray, a greek doctor and translator of ancient greek texts, thomas jefferson had the following to say about the federal judiciary:
"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies
were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account."
our judges of today - even at the state level - are generally speaking "secured against all liability to account." it is a very rare thing, indeed, that even an elected judge is ever taken out of office until he (or she) decides to retire. in point of fact, as jefferson noted in an 1821 letter to charles hammond "...impeachment is scarcely a scarecrow..." for the irresponsible body of the judiciary.
not much has changed in the past 190 years; well, it HAS gotten immeasurably worse over the course of those years.
in iowa, voters are gearing up to toss out three state supreme court justiceswho suddenly found a right to gay marriage in the iowa constitution. in predictable fashion leftists intent on using judicial activism to further their progressive agenda, are hand-wringing over the notion that this could "have a chilling effect on judges nationwide." and this is a bad thing why?
in establishing our independence as a free and sovereign nation, our founding fathers established a set of moral principals that laid the foundation for what would become the greatest nation on the face of the earth. the moral principals began with the belief that all people are created equal and are further endowed by our creator with certain INALIENABLE rights.
i believe that it was not whim or folly that led to the order in which they those inalienable rights: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. laws from our creator; or as jefferson called them "laws of nature and nature's god." nowadays we call them natural laws. there are two systems of law that mankind uses: natural law and man-made (so called "positive") law.
my uncle david describes man-made laws as such:
"Man-made laws are those canons, charges, charters, codes, commands, constitutions, directives, imperatives, mandates, maxims, orders, ordinances, precepts, procedures, proclamations, regulations, rules, statutes, etc. that governments the world over create and enforced in an effort to control human behavior."
in the late 1500's through the early 1600's there was an enlightenment of sorts; men began to rebel against the totalitarian "positive" law of the emperors, kings, sovereigns, and tyrants. using their god-given faculty of reason, they asserted claims of individual freedom of action. this enlightenment, which somewhat morphed into british common law (or judge law) was the basis for many of the ideas from which the declaration of independence and the u.s. constitution were crafted.
but even in the colonies and the early united states, some people longed for a king; they longed for someone to "be in charge". thankfully george washington was a genuine hero and leader and refused the title of "king of the usa", but that didn't stop people looking for that white knight, that hero, that strong powerful leader who will exert just the right amount of force to "set things right." and therein lies the crux of our problem in modern day usa; the problem with all three branches of our federal government.
it is human desire to gain the most with the least amount of personal expenditure - whether that expenditure be money, industry, initiative, energy or responsibility - and it has been nurtured by the "progressives" in order to further their agendas. as this desire has been turned into the norm for many, many, many of our fellow countrymen, those progressive "leaders" have been emboldened to gradually impose more and more positive law into our legal system, displacing the natural law that our country was founded on, over the past two centuries. and it has been largely facilitated by an activist judiciary.
today's justice system, with the aid of an insidious indoctrination program cleverly disguised as the public school system and the mainstream media, falsely states that we are ONLY a nation of [positive] law rather than a nation founded on a set of moral principals that all laws MUST comply with. justice is not defined as the interpretation of man's laws, but rather the delivery of a just resolution, the determination of what is right based not only on our code of law, but also our standards of moral righteousness.
in recent years, the judiciary branch of our federal AND state governments has been largely guided by the liberal (or progressive) ideology - you need only to look at the writings and speeches of the majority of lawyers and judges to see that this is true. using the progressive ideology it has anointed itself the ruler of all men by establishing a rule of law that separates moral codes and standards of righteousness from those laws. based on that distinction, in direct opposition to the intent of our founders, they assert their RIGHT to dominion over men.
using their power from the bench, not fearing impeachment or (at the state level) being voted out, they have advanced their agenda gaining a little here and a little there and have turned the constitution into "..a mere thing of wax..." the judiciary has been so busy twisting and shaping the constitution into what the political ideology of the judges mandates that is hardly recognizable as the document ratified by our ancestors little more than two centuries ago.
but finally the country is waking up. finally, people are forcing a movement back to our creator's natural law which was the basis for our country's governance. finally there is a growing recognition among the electorate that has been too long asleep and i get the sense that perhaps we will NOT go quietly as the judges and progressives (is that redundant) destroy our country.
it is well past time that we should be de-funding judiciaries and impeaching the judges who are creating law to advance their social agenda rather than interpreting whether a law comports with the plain language of the constitution. these men (and women) who want to change the legally binding words of the constitution to suit their beliefs and further their agenda are not judges, but politicians - and despots at that. they think themselves answerable to no one.
i'm glad iowa is taking a stand. think of the message that will be sent to california, arizona, and the courts across the land - "we the people are fed up with you judges who have taken on too much power and seek to silence our will."
join in the fight people - not just on the blogs or facebook or twitter - but get out and get active. yes, we need to change congress, but until and unless we take back the reigns of activism from the judiciary we will not be able to effect real, lasting change.
