Catholicism

Anton Scalia’s Legacy: No Social Transformation Without Representation.

todayFebruary 14, 2016 1

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Mandeville, LAJustice Antonin Scalia has died. I join with his son, a Roman Catholic priest, in praying for the repose of his eternal soul. The passing of Justice Scalia, retreating in the middle of the TX hinterland’s, is, according to Alex Jones-ers, right out of the pages of a SEAL Team 6 adventure with bin Laden replaced by an American as the target (yeah, I know, repeating conspiracy theories now Mike!?) but the real conspiracy is that Scalia was the unflappable defender of Original intent. Granted he was reliable in many cases to side with Justice Thomas, the sole Original, ratified intent Justice, but as Chris Ferrara pointed out back last April, Scalia’s methods were based upon error.

“In a famous dictum, Justice Scalia said: Laws of “general applicability” trump religious freedom. As long as they’re “neutral” laws and they apply generally, they trump religious freedom to the extent that one cannot assert against the application of these laws any religious beliefs. So Congress leapt into the fray and said: We’re going to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act at the federal level. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act says basically that a government entity may not burden a person’s religion, even if the burden results from a so-called neutral law of general applicability, unless there is a compelling State interest to justify burdening your religious belief….Here’s the problem with that law, Mike. A judge can always find a compelling State interest in some state law. The compelling State interest isn’t really much of a protection, so it’s rather laughable that Pence is running away even from that limited protection.”

For a followup sobering thought, consider that the campaign for the Presidency, a singular job for a singular person, will now become focused on replacing a singular position on a plural court. That the SCOTUS has becoming such a menacing force to the survival of [r]epiblicanism can now be clearly seen. I will repeat that the course of action is not to obsess over electing someone to replace Scalia as a “conservative” but rather to chart a course away from this tyranny. As Scalia himself pointed out in the Obergfell case.

“This is a naked judicial claim to legislative—indeed, super-legislative—power; a claim fundamentally at odds with our system of government. Except as limited by a constitutional prohibition agreed to by the People, the States are free to adopt whatever laws they like, even those that offend the esteemed Justices’ “reasoned judgment.” A system of government that makes the People subordinate to a committee of nine unelected lawyers does not deserve to be called a democracy.

Judges are selected precisely for their skill as lawyers; whether they reflect the policy views of a particular constituency is not (or should not be) relevant. Not surprisingly then, the Federal Judiciary is hardly a cross-section. Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans), or even a Protestant of any denomination. The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the Justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis; they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.

It is indeed time to rethink the American Union and the specter of Obama replacing one man with an all powerful atheist ought to make us courageous enough to do so.

 

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TheKingDude
Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

Written by: TheKingDude

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