Now that Justice Kennedy, the "swing voter" on the court (meaning the Justice who at least SOMETIMES understands and applies original meaning), has opted to retire (no more irresponsible appointments like Sotomayor or Ginsberg, please) perhaps the number of deeply troubling 5-4 decisions by the Supreme Court will, more appropriately, be less narrow. More to the point, with the addition of judges to the bench who are more faithful to the Constitution--a tall order finding such an endangered species these days--perhaps SCOTUS decisions in the future will more appropriately and faithfully reflect the actual meaning of the Constitution--and not the individual Justices' social engineering and big government predilections.
Over the years, and as we are all at least viscerally aware, SCOTUS and the lower federal courts have managed to COMPLETELY mangle and misrepresent our Founders' clear meaning and intent. That is unacceptable and MUST be remedied.
Compounding the damage wrought by faithless federal judges is the flawed doctrine of "stare decisis" which dominates modern legal thinking. This erosive doctrine serves only to exacerbate the courts' impeccable faithlessness to the Constitution by enshrining flawed case law atop previously flawed case law--a dangerous practice, indeed. This practice merely serves to further distance the Justices and the American people from the Constitution. In short, this doctrine and the Justices' subjectivity and faithlessness are antithetical to their sacred Art III duty to accurately and studiously interpret the Constitution. As a result of all this revisionism and faithlessness, the federal courts have, with impunity, brazenly and ruinously usurped both State and Individual authority and rights and have firmly placed our republic on the road to authoritarianism. In truth, and in the face of this judicial recklessness, the only thing holding the country together in this post-constitutional period is the American people's lingering and illusory belief that we are still a constitutional republic of Laws and Justice. Not very reassuring, is it.
Of the three federal branches--and as Thomas Jefferson warned long ago--the Supreme Court, arbitrary and capricious to its core, has evolved into the most faithless and oppressive. Since the 19th century, most Justices have increasingly and incrementally taken on the wholly alien roles of infallible and essentially deified Delphic Oracles, an incongruent role which has blinded us to the reality that Justices are but fallible mortals whose actions are too often dictated by personal whim and ideological bias . And in a constitutional republic, such a threatening level of infidelity is the kiss of death.
When we consider how best to fix the myriad foundational problems facing this republic, we'd best get beyond wasting our efforts clashing with the symptoms which, of course, are plentiful. The biggest root source of tyranny today really is the faithless Supreme Court and our subversive education system, the latter which creates millions of citizens who are dangerously ignorant of our founding principles and deferential to Supreme Court infidelity. Not because we value infidelity, but because most of us have never even read the Constitution or other founding documents. As Thomas Jefferson counseled, "An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people."
Ultimately, therefore, We the People, inarguably the final arbiters in any legitimate constitutional republic, are responsible for ensuring that the Supreme Court and all other branches of the federal government, our servants, uphold their oath of office and consistent faithfulness to the Constitution, failing which I refer you to the Declaration of Independence for your serious consideration.
