THE THIN BLACK LINE

Photo of Supreme Court at the White House for the swearing in of Justice Sotomayor

During his first state of the union address, President Obama looked straight at the assembled Justices of the Supreme Court and Chastised them for striking down a law barring the right of free speech to corporations and for allegedly allowing foreign corporations to influence U.S. elections. Justice Alito was seen mouthing the words "not True" and shaking his head "No" in response to the President's criticism.

It is not the Supreme Court's job to write legislation. They interpret the constitutionality of the legislation that Congress passes. The President is free to try again in light of the opinion expressed by the Court by initiating new legislation that accomplishes his goals without the constitutional defect.

Consider, however, the wisdom of rebuking a co-equal branch of the government with the power to overrule your every act on TV in the State of the union address. Every lawyer who ever tried a case knows that you don’t tick off the judge by openly criticizing his rulings in public. Yet, this law school professor president decided to embarrass the judges in front of the rest of the assembled government and the entire American voting public watching on TV; and he’s wrong to Boot! There is a separate provision of McCain-Feingold, the act the President was referring to, that was not struck down, which prohibits foreign companies from attempting to influence elections.

The President's comments only served to heighten the appreciation I have for the five people in black sitting there who he was criticizing. They have stood as bulwarks against the efforts of out of control big government progressives, including the other four justices on the Court, that have consistently attempted to strip us of our fundamental rights.

In Citizens United v FEC, the Court upheld the right of free speech in the first amendment against total restriction on the right of organizations to run political announcements prior to elections. Progressives, including the President, who essentially believe that corporate entities are the root of all evil, support this ban and argue that only the individual citizen has the right of free speech. But does the constitution say that? Must businessmen stand moot while the government demagogues them for pursuing the American dream and providing us goods and services in the process? The ability of the people to speak out requires huge amounts of money that can only be raised by banding together in political action groups, associations, clubs, churches and, yes, businesses. corporations are merely collections of people with a common economic interest. Don't they have a right to comment on issues that might affect those interests? Must they pitifully sit on the sidelines while other groups can use the media to full effect against them.

It could be argued that McCain Fiengold is actually a politicians relief package and that the ban on advertising could have had the opposite of the intended effect. Corporate political donations have not slowed since enactment of McCain Fiengold and, if anything, it has increased. In fact the vast bulk of corporate political donations go to the Democratic Party, the chief proponents of McCain Fiengold. It could be that a ban on the right of free speech of corporations has forced them to seek the only other avenue of political influence; direct donations or bundling of donations which has been a forte of the Democratic party. If you can not persuade the public then your only avenue is to buy the politician. Maybe this is really all the politicians who support the act really want.

On another critical bill of rights issue, the fundamental right to bear arms has been under assault. Since grade school we have presumed the right to bear arms is a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution to self defense and ultimately as a check against a tyrannical government. Progressives, on the other hand, despise the second amendment for precisely this reason. They know they must eliminate this right in order to repress the individual and eventfully impose the total government control that is their ultimate goal. Eliminating the right to bear arms is the starting point of every dictatorship.

Surprisingly, not until 2008, in Washington DC v Heller, did the Supreme Court finally address, head on, whether the right to bear arms is a fundamental individual right. Heller contested a total ban on the right to carry or even own a gun that had been in effect in Washington, DC for many years. The right to bear arms was upheld by the Court but only by five to four margin. Simply put, there are four justices on the Supreme Court (all stalwart secular progressives) who do not believe you have a fundamental right to bear arms, and they so voted.

Also, recently, in Kelso v New London , the Supreme Court addressed whether the right of eminent domain includes the right of government to take private property solely for the purpose of giving it to some other private entity. In Kelso, by a five four majority with the progressives in the majority, the Court held that the government, and this includes, local municipal, county, state and federal governmental entities, can take any private property for any reason including to give it to some other private person the government favors more than the ones they took it away from. Anyone who covets the property of others can influence the local politicians by campaign donations or other means to take any private property they want for their purposes and the hapless owners are just out of luck. This decision subjects our basic right to property, which is the foundation of our freedom and our wealth, to the whims of local political hacks everywhere. Unfortunately the originalists lost Kelso and we the people lost a fundamental right as a result.

These three rulings demonstrate how little concern progressives have for our basic freedoms and how truly pervasive they have become in our government. To them, including the four progressives on the Supreme Court, our rights are malleable and even dispensable. Five men on the Supreme Court are all that stands between us and elimination of our most basic rights. When the President of the United States castigated these men before the assembled house and Senate who stood and cheered, I could feel in a very real way, the fears of our founding fathers. The forces of totalitarianism are strong, they are persistent and they have very real power in our country. As our government is now configured, all that stands between us and serfdom is a very very thin black line.

P.S.: I wrote this article a couple of weeks ago, but never published it. John Roberts just issued a statement expressing his concern over the criticism in the President's address, which affirms the relevance of the thoughts I have expressed here. The Supreme Court matters and the President picks the Supreme Court. We need to think about this when we, the people, pick the President.