* * * * *
In 1824, in retirement 37 years after serving as the
Constitutional Convention’s prime mover, James Madison, 73, noted that the 1787
“language of our Constitution is already undergoing interpretations unknown to
its founders.”
* YEAH...
He knew that the purport of the text would evolve “with
the changeable meaning of the words composing it.”
* CUTE! WITH THAT LINE MR. WILL CREATES THE INFERENCE -
WHICH READERS ARE SUPPOSED TO ABSORB - THAT THIS WAS ALL "FINE AND
DANDY" WITH MADISON - AND BY EXTENSION THE OTHER FOUNDERS... AND MORE
INSIDIOUS, THE INFERENCE CLEARLY IS THAT TO OPPOSE THE "NATURAL EXERCISE" OF
HUMAN NATURE IN THE PURSUIT OF POWER IS TO SIMPLY BE ACCEPTED AS
"NORMAL."
* WELL, FOLKS... IT IS NORMAL... BUT... BAD NORMAL - NOT
GOOD NORMAL!
(*SNORT*)
* MADISON IS NOT CHEER LEADING HIS LIFE'S WORK BEING UNDER
ASSAULT; NO, HE'S SIMPLY RECOGNIZING THAT THERE ARE THOSE WHO WILL KNOWINGLY
AND WILLING ABUSE THEIR OFFICES AND VIOLATE THEIR OATHS IN ORDER TO "GET
WHAT THEY WANT" AT ANY COST.
(*SMIRK*)
Now, 147 years since ratification of the 14th Amendment,
its guarantees of “equal protection of the laws” and “due process of law” mean
that states, which hitherto controlled marriage law, must recognize same-sex
marriages.
* NO. A FIVE TO FOUR DECISION CREATES THIS NEW REALITY.
Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the court said: “The
generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth
Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its
dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting
the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”
* Er... FOLKS...
(*SMIRK*)
* THE FOUNDERS GAVE US THE AMENDMENT PROCESS WITH WHICH
TO... er... A*M*E*N*D THE CONSTITUTION. (GET IT? "AMEND."
"AMENDMENT.")
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD AT WILL'S GALL AND DUPLICITY*)
Many conservatives detect in those five words a dismaying
intimation of a “living Constitution” too malleable to limit government because
it conforms to whatever shape serves transitory political and cultural
impulses. Conservative wariness is wise. So too, however, is recognition that
Chief Justice Warren was not wrong when, in a 1958 case concerning the Eighth
Amendment’s proscriptions of “cruel and unusual punishments,” he said: “The
amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that
mark the progress of a maturing society.”
* NOPE! AGAIN... THERE'S AN AMENDMENT PROCESS! (FOLKS...
CONSIDER... IF "EVOLVING STANDARDS" WERE ALL IT TOOK... WHY THE 13TH
AMENDMENT? I MEAN... HADN'T "EVOLVING STANDARDS" IN THE SENSE OF THE
CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR, THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION DURING THE CIVIL WAR,
AND THE SURRENDER OF THE SOUTH, CLEARLY PUNCTUATED THAT SLAVERY WAS A THING OF
THE PAST - NO LONGER A "STANDARD?")
* SERIOUSLY... FOLKS... THIS AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE - IT'S
SIMPLY LOGIC; LOGIC AND A DOSE OF INTELLECTUAL HONESTY!
* AND, YES... THAT LAST WAS A "DIG" AT GEORGE
WILL.
(*SMILE*)
Such evolution is real and relevant.
* BACK TO THE AMENDMENT PROCESS...
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
No one today thinks that branding and ear cropping, which
were punishments practiced when the Eighth Amendment was ratified, are today
compatible with this amendment.
* ACTUALLY... I DO. BUT THIS IS A STRAW MAN ARGUMENT -
AND WILL KNOWS IT. AGAIN... IF MERE STATE/FEDERAL LAW ITSELF HADN'T BEEN
RE-WRITTEN TO END THESE PRACTICES IN ACCORD WITH "SOCIETAL EVOLUTION"
THEN THE PEOPLE THEMSELVES COULD AVAIL THEMSELVES OF...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
...THE AMENDMENT PROCESS!
This is a perilous moment for Republican candidates...
* OH, GEEZ... HERE IT COMES... THE ASSAULT UPON TEA PARTY
REPUBLICANS... (aka: LIBERTARIAN-LEANING CONSTITUTIONISTS)
...who might compete to propose constitutional amendments
that dramatize their dismay about the same-sex marriage decision.
* AND IF THEY DO - THEY DO! (JUST AS THE PRO-GAY MARRIAGE
SIDE SHOULD HAVE GOTTEN THEIR WAY EITHER VIA THE BALLOT BOX... THEIR
REPRESENTATIVES... REFERENDUM... OR VIA A SUCCESSFUL PUSH FOR...
(*DRUM ROLL*)
...YES, A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT!
(*GUFFAW*)
During April’s oral arguments, Chief Justice John Roberts
said that people seeking same-sex marriage are “not seeking to join the
institution” but are “seeking to change what the institution is.” But this
institution has been changed by American attitudes and behavior.
* NO. ONCE AGAIN... IT'S BEEN CHANGED BY FIVE OUT OF NINE
JUSTICES TO THE SUPREME COURT.
(*SHRUG*)
* TO PARAPHRASE CARVILLE, "IT'S THE DISHONESTY,
STUPID!"
* NO... NOT SAYING WILL IS STUPID - SIMPLY DISHONEST.
Marriage in America will be, over time, what Americans
say it is...
* THEN WHAT DID WE NEED A SUPREME COURT DECISION/DICTATE
FOR...? Hmm...???
* AGAIN... FOLKS... THE SHEER INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY...
THE NAKED ATTEMPT AT MANIPULATION...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
...and last week’s decision came with almost three in
four Americans already living in states where same-sex marriage is legal.
* LET ME GUESS: WILL ISN'T GONNA DELVE INTO HOW SAME-SEX
MARRIAGE "BECAME LEGAL" IN MANY OF THOSE STATES - NAMELY VIA JUDGES OVERRIDING
THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS... OVERRIDING STATE LEGISLATURES... OVERRIDING REFERENDUMS...
(*SIGH*)
(*SNORT*)
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
The decision came after Roberts showed conservatives the
reality of judicial deference that they have often, and often thoughtlessly,
advocated.
* I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT WILL IS BABBLING ABOUT...
Deferring to “what Congress meant to do,” Roberts rescued
the Affordable Care Act from what he called Congress’s “inartful” means of
doing it.
* YES. ROBERTS VIOLATED HIS OATH AND ENGINEERED WHAT
AMOUNTS TO A COUP AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION.
The marriage and ACA decisions should cause the 2016
contest for the Republican presidential nomination to force candidates to
clarify their thinking about the judiciary’s appropriate role in our
constitutional system.
* ON THAT WILL AND I ARE IN AGREEMENT!
Although there is no interesting debate about this (or
anything else) among Democrats, among Republicans there is a lively debate
about whether the judiciary’s primary duty is to facilitate majorities’ powers
or to protect individuals’ rights.
* NEITHER. THEIR JOB IS TO ENFORCE THE CONSTITUTION. AS
WRITTEN. AS INTENDED BY THOSE WHO WROTE/ENACTED THE CONSTITUTION... THE BILL OF
RIGHTS... AND EVERY AMENDMENT SINCE.
...Which makes this a perilous moment for Republican
candidates, who might compete to propose constitutional amendments that
dramatize their dismay about the same-sex marriage decision.
* THEY SHOULDN'T. NOT AS SUCH. WHAT THEY SHOULD DO IS
DISCUSS WAYS OF RESTORING THE CONSTITUTION.
Scott Walker’s minimalist amendment, concerning process
rather than policy, would restore the traditional state control over marriage
law. Others endorse an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a
woman. Ted Cruz also endorses “judicial retention elections”: Every justice,
beginning with the second national election after his or her appointment, will
answer to the American people and the states in a retention election every
eight years. Those justices deemed unfit for retention by both a majority of
the American people as a whole and by majorities of the electorates in at least
half of the 50 states will be removed from office and disqualified from future
service on the court.
* NOT A HUGE FAN... HOWEVER... I APPLAUD CRUZ FOR OPENING
THE CONVERSATION. FOLKS... WE NEED TO DISCUSS "DEEP" ISSUES SUCH AS
THIS.
Cruz’s idea is congruent with the 1912 proposal of
another rambunctious Ted, former president Theodore Roosevelt. Running as a
full-throated Progressive (against another progressive, Democrat Woodrow
Wilson, and the conservative Republican president and future chief justice
William Howard Taft), TR advocated not just the recall of judges but also “the
review by the people” of “certain” judicial decisions. TR embraced the core
progressive belief that the ideal of limited government, and hence the reality
of the separation of powers, are anachronisms.
It is, therefore, especially disheartening that Cruz, who
clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist and who is better equipped by
education and experience to think clearly about courts, proposes curing what he
considers this court’s political behavior...
* REALLY, GEORGE WILL? REALLY...??? WHAT HE
"CONSIDERS" THE COURT'S POLITICAL BEHAVIOR...?!?!
(*GUFFAW*)
...by turning the court into a third political branch.
* THAT'S CERTAINLY NOT CRUZ'S INTENT - AND WILL KNOWS
THIS.
(*AGAIN SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
Imagine campaigns conducted by justices. What would
remain of the court’s prestige and hence its power to stand athwart rampant
executives and overbearing congressional majorities? Sixteen months before the
election, some candidates are becoming too unhinged to be plausible as
conservative presidents.
* AND THERE YOU HAVE IT, FOLKS... WILL'S TRUE "END
GAME" - TO BASH CRUZ.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
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