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Systematically Gutting the Constitution While Reshaping America in their Image




About this time every year, 300 million-plus Americans drag themselves out of bed, get ready for their day and learn what rights they have been allowed under the latest U.S. Supreme Court decision.

The unelected Supremes, in their hair-splitting wisdom, have ruled this term:

* That elected representatives of the people may make no law to execute child rapists;

* That enemy combatants--captured on the field of battle as they attempted to kill U.S. service personnel--have many of the same rights as law-abiding U.S. citizens;

* That the Second Amendment is not unconstitutional.



Like some Inter-Galactic Council, straight out of a low-budget sci-fi movie, the Court's 5-4 decisions hand down their brand of justice and law to us lowly interplanetary peons.

Americans assess the impact and damage to their lives--and then, scramble to obey.

In the Court's granting of habeus corpus rights to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the 4 liberal judges (plus Anthony Kennedy, in a ruling that's sure to increase his facetime in the Washington Post) overturned 200+ years of law.

The ruling itself was an unconstitutional violation of the separation of powers--never a concern when the Liberal justices are busy reshaping the U.S. into something a little more to their personal tastes and preferences.




As Rob at Say Anything Blog notes:

Article III, Section 2: In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

In the Military Commissions Act of 2006, passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush, is the following passage:

(e)(1) No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

So Congress passed, and President Bush signed, the law specifically limiting the court's authority to challenge it.

The "Five Who Rule 300 Million" ignored it. They had discovered something known by career criminals: it's only a crime if the law can do something about it. For the liberal Supremes, who's going to make them obey the law?

Doesn't matter if it's the law of the Constitution, state legislatures or the other two branches of government.

What part of the Constitution is voided is, many times,
determined by how Anthony Kennedy votes

Three years ago, Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer--again joined by Anthony Kennedy--discarded another Constitutional protection: the Fifth Amendment's private property protections, in Kelo v. New Haven.

5-4 Ruling Backs Forced Sales for Private Development

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that local governments may force property owners to sell out and make way for private economic development when officials decide it would benefit the public, even if the property is not blighted and the new project's success is not guaranteed.

At that time, Stevens wrote that "The court should not "second-guess" local governments". However, Stevens had no qualms in second-guessing the state of Louisiana's elected government in the matter of executing child rapists.

The Supreme Court's creation of rights for non-citizens--while at the same time stripping, or attempting to abolish, clearly-defined protections for the very same citizens the Constitution was written for--is arbitrary.

About this time every year, Americans find that they live not in a country governed by the rule of law, but by judicial decree. To the Court's Liberal Four, like medieval rulers operating under the Divine Right of Kings, the law is determined by their whims, quirks and fancy.

The sooner we 300 million accept this, the sooner we'll all be properly grateful for the rights the Four have allowed us keep--for now.

About this time every year, Americans drag themselves out of bed, get ready to face the day--and try to cope with the Law According to the Five Who Rule 300 Million.

by Mondoreb
Sources:
* Justices Affirm Property Seizures
* Supreme Court Ignores The Constitution In Gitmo Case
* United States Supreme Court Decisions: 2007-2008 Term
* supremecourt
* oyez
* Rigorous Intuition
* corbis

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

--2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution


[Click on images to enlarge them.]

Before the original 13 states would agree to ratify the U.S. Constitution, they wanted assurances that they were not trading in one set of intolerable masters--who had limited their rights and sought to take away their livelihoods via taxation (The British king)--for another (the proposed U.S. federal government).

The representatives of the people in the 13 states WOULD NOT pass the U.S. Constitution as written: they were afraid of the power the new federal government wanted. It was then proposed that a "Bill of Rights" be added to the Constitution.

THEN and ONLY then, was the new United States federal government born.

The Bill of Rights are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution GUARANTEEING U.S. citizens the freedom of speech, press, assembly, right to bear arms and the rest.

17 years ago, Congress tried to take away--infringe upon--one of those freedoms with the passage of the Gun Free Zone Act.

The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 was enacted as section 1702 of the Crime Control Act of 1990 (Pub.L. 101-647, 18 U.S.C. § 922(q)) on November 29, 1990.

The Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional.

Congress tried again.

And succeeded.

In general, it shall be unlawful for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone. This does not include possession of a firearm on private property that is not part of school grounds.

We all know how well the Gun Free Zone Act has worked. The death toll of unarmed victims in Gun Free Zones is in the hundreds.

Those who passed voted for the Gun Free Zone Act, and those who continue to mindlessly support it, have done nothing to ensure anyone's safety.

Except that of the killers.



There is also a law against murder.

Murder is illegal.

Law-abiding citizens don't murder. But criminals do.

Just like erecting "Gun Free Zone" signs hasn't worked, erecting a "Do Not Murder" sign would not work.

Criminals do not pay attention to signs.

That's why we call them criminals.



The law abiding can't protect themselves in Gun Free Zones. The authorities promise to do it for us.

But the only thing the authorities can do, is to make life harder on the law-abiding.

And clean up the bodies.

If erecting a sign solved a problem, why not erect signs reading:

"Do not lie."

"Do not over-eat."

"Do not steal."

Wouldn't those signs make the world a better place, too?



If legislators want to infringe upon a basic right of U.S. Citizens, they need to be held accountable--as do any government agency that joins in.

Gun Free Zone Liability Act


"If you create a gun-free zone, you're liable for any harm it causes."

Read more at gunlaws.

This will not stop the pointlessness of Gun Free Zones.

This will not make anyone safer.

BUT, it will allow the victims' families to collect damages from those foolish and irresponsible enough to trust their safety to a sign.




--Benjamin Franklin

When it counts the most, Gun Free Zones never are.

Except for the victims.

by Mondoreb
images:
* libertyrocks
* worshippingchristian

* gunrights
* a human right
* snubnose
* jeffersonian
* rmgo
Sources:
* Gun Free Zone Death Toll since 1996
* Gun Free Zone Act



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