Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Do the right thing

EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW — these words, written above the main entrance to the Supreme Court Building, express the ultimate responsibility of the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court is the highest tribunal in the Nation for all cases and controversies arising under the Constitution or the laws of the United States. As the final arbiter of the law, the Court is charged with ensuring the American people the promise of equal justice under law and, thereby, also functions as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.


Last week, the Supreme Court issued its decision in a case regarding a gun law in Washington DC. Given that Washington is a district created by the Federal government, it is appropriate that the highest Federal court in the land should ultimately decide the case.
And yet, any decision rendered by the Supreme Court must be interpreted through its chief function “as guardian and interpreter of the Constitution.” So the justices in the DC gun law case (a 5-4 decision that the law was indeed un-Constitutional) ultimately knew that their decision had ramifications well beyond the District of Columbia and its gun law.

Which leads me to my point.

Some are more equal than others

There were four justices who actually decided that the DC gun law WAS Constitutional.

If those four justices made their decision about DC (and ONLY about DC), then they were abrogating their Constitutional responsibility. They KNEW that their decision had to be viewed in their role as “guardian and interpreter of the Constitution,” no matter if they were only deciding a case in a federal district.

On the other hand, if those four justices made their decision about DC with full understanding of their role as “guardian and interpreter of the Constitution”, then they were deciding that the second amendment itself was un-Constitutional – a preposterous argument if ever there were one!

So which is it? Did those four justices abrogate their responsibility as “guardian and interpreter of the Constitution?” Or, did they decide that an Article of the Constitution itself was un-Constitutional?

Either way, they are either so incompetent as to be unfit for the job, or so devious as to be likewise unfit. They don’t deserve to sit on the bench any longer. And yet, we all have to suffer under their decision-making for the rest of their lives, or term on the bench.

A sad day for America and our Liberty.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amen Vance, I think our founding fathers Washington, Adams, and Jefferson (just to name a few) would be very much upset by this. I think that our justices should spend some time in the understanding of our history and why America was created to be the land of the free in the first place. Further more to gain an understanding of what lengths our ancestors have gone to too insure that it remains that way.

SalineVance said...

Mela,

Those who complain about how hard we have it today would have withered and perished under the conditions our founding fathers endured, and achieved. I sincerely doubt that the four "justices" cited in my article have ever read any of the history of the founding of this great country. No - they're more interested in some "popularity" contest - rather than doing the right thing. For once.