Excellent proposal. If the issue were framed as you have framed it, if it were publicized in the way, for example, opposition to the Reagan film was publicized, we’d have a fighting chance.

What makes you think that most members of congress or state legislatures understand the Constitution or care for it any more than Justices O’Connor Ginsberg and Breyer?
The American people do not know their own political traditions. We know longer understand what liberty sovereignty and tradition mean.
Therefor, why should the people care for what they cannot grasp or appreciate?

What Ron says is of course true. And it’s a MAJOR reason why we can’t fight homosexual marriage, as some have sbortsightedly suggested at another thread, by starting an effort to impeach judges. People including legislators _do_ understand (and are understanding more and more all the time) what is at stake with homosexual marriage, and the necessity of the FMA. But they don’t understand very well the larger judicial-usurpation issues nor have any particular commitment to strong action regarding them. But as the judges’ transgressions get more and more outrageous, openly boasting about how they rely on foreign law for U.S. constitutional jurisprudence for example, there is going to be an increasing desire to do something about it. Obviously a movement to threaten out-of-control judges with impeachment is something that would have to be built from the ground up, since nothing like it has ever existed.

I would note that making recourse to non-U.S. laws and precedents is not a recent development. The problem is that when the courts have taken on issues of a controversial or emotional nature, such as abortion, segregation, miscegenation, contraception, too many Americans have taken an ‘end justifieth the means’ approach — and this is just as true of Conservatives.

I mentioned elseshere the Perez v. Sharp case where the Supreme Court of California overturned that State’s anti-miscegenation law. One of the justices cited the U.N. Charter among several “authoritative pronouncements” on which he based his concurrence — and this was in 1948!!

In the Brown v. Board decision, the Supreme Court abandoned original intent and all controlling precedent and relied instead on “modern authority” — a Swedish socialist named Gunnar Myrdal! (For an excellent constitutionalist critique of this see R. Carter Pittman’s “Which Shall It Be?” essay at http://www.jtl.org/pittman/essays/misc/Which_Shall_It_Be.html ) Thus Dr. Myrdal’s work became “Corpus Juris Tertius in American pseudo-socio jurisprudence” even though it didn’t even pertain to ‘law.’

How one feels about segregation or miscegenation isn’t the point here; it’s the constitutional issues raised that matter. This current practice that Mr. Auster rightly criticizes is already entrenched to the point that much of our jurisprudence depends on its continuance — at least that’s the argument that would be made.

But I would stress that Conservatives have been all too complicit in condeding Federal authority over matters that were not within its constitutional purview. Our Federal drug laws would be a prime example.

Another big danger in this trend is that Supreme Court can just pick and choose _which_ nation’s laws to draw from and cite. But this just throws everything into liberal anarchy.

The Court clearly isn’t going to point to how Mexico controls her southern border as example for how we should control ours. The Court isn’t going to point to a country like Japan — and certainly not to Mohammedan countries — in womens’ rights issues.

On each specific issue, they will look to whatever country has the (liberal) position they desire to impose.

Here, and on the Fleming thread, 4 different sources have been mentioned that could be or are being used by the judiciary to step outside constitutional law: (1) International treaties, (2) The U.N. Charter, (3) laws and precedents of other countries, and (4) “modern authority.”

These are all 4 different, but are all wrong and dangerous, and mutually reinforcing as each weakens our traditional jurisprudence in its own way. Recourse to the laws of other countries is obviously more outrageous than to treaties, but on the other hand isn’t recourse to “modern authority” such as Myrdal even worse? That’s not even ‘law.’ Yet this was done nearly 50 years ago. And Brown v. Board can’t be touched, so it’s not likely that a justice is going to be penalized for doing something slightly less dishonorable.

As to treaties, this becomes more disturbing than I had thought. An excellent book written in 1955 by Roger Lea MacBride on the subject is available in PDF here: http://www.freedomwriter.com/issue24/am3.htm

In summary, controlling cases going back to 1920 have made treaties override the 10th Amendment, domestic law, and, at least in effect, the Constitution itself.

It is already clear to me that merely extending the logic in the Loving v. Virginia case on State anti-miscegenation laws combined with the travesty of Lawrence v. Texas, we could see a pro-SSU ruling from the Supreme Court. The Federal Defense of Marriage Act is probably doomed. An amendment is desperately needed as the only way the American people have left to effect their will.

But even then, this treaty issue looms. It is essential that we keep this in mind at each stage of the fight.

I do not believe that any Judge has been impeached for overstepping their bounds, but it is only in the last 50 years that it has really been making absurd decisions. I’m pretty sure that the public would have been more than happy to impeach the 9th Circuit court after their decision to get rid of the pledge of allegiance. Also, congress simply passed a resolution to ignore the ruling.

Also, the idea of impeaching the Judges isn’t new. Remember the Impeach Earl Warren billboards?

Here’s a list of impeachments found on a quick check, including some judges: http://www.miketodd.net/encyc/impeach2.htm

though only John Pickering’s would probably pertain to Mr. Epstein’s criterion.

Not that it really matters. Consider the case of Alcee L. Hastings, a former district judge who was impeached and removed from office for bribery — yes, that’s Alcee L. Hastings who is now a sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The reason that impeachment is not a remedy is that legislators who have the responsibility generally abhor involvement in issues that mobilize as many voters against them (not to mention the media) as for them. For purposes of reelection, legislators prefer to stay “non-controversial,” and to be liked by as many as possible and actively opposed by as few as possible.

I was reflecting on the fact that an emancipated and independent judiciary was a tremendous development by the Anglo-Saxon race, which was earned by sacrifice of life and limb. The present corruption of the judiciary is no less of a danger to liberty than if it were to have regressed back to the servile tribunals it once constituted — the Star Chamber, the High Commission, and the ‘irregular’ tribunals that followed them.

But it all goes back to Ron’s first post above where he wrote, “The American people do not know their own political traditions. We know longer understand what liberty sovereignty and tradition mean. Therefore, why should the people care for what they cannot grasp or appreciate?”

Exactly. Americans in fact are probably more ignorant of our colonial legal traditions than even the English traditions, which doesn’t say much anymore. A high theme of Traditionalist Conservatism should be the principle articulated by George Mason in his Virginia Declaration of Rights, para 15:

“That no free Government, or the Blessing of Liberty, can be preserved to any People but by a firm Adherence to Justice, Moderation, Temperance, Frugality, and Virtue, and by frequent Recurrence to fundamental Principles.”

Especially that last phrase.

It seems that our official oligarchs, aka the US Supreme Court have now endorsed the frontal assault on freedom of speech known as the “Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act”.

I would like to quote two dissenting opinions:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031210/ap_on_go_su_co/campaign_finance_excerpts_4

“This is a sad day for the freedom of speech. Who could have imagined that the same court which, within the past four years, has sternly disapproved of restriction upon such inconsequential forms of expression as virtual child pornography, tobacco advertising, dissemination of illegally intercepted communications, and sexually explicit cable programming, would smile with favor upon a law that cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government…” Justice Antonin Scalia

“The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and, under a Constitution that requires periodic elections, that is best achieved by the suppression of election-time speech. We have witnessed merely the second scene of Act I of what promises to be a lengthy tragedy.”

Dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas
————————————

At what point do freedom loving Americans declare that laws and decisions repugnant to the Constitution are void?
When do we start with civil disobedience?
I am quite willing to put my temporary liberty on the line to protect my long term liberty and that of posterity by ignoring the unConstitutional law.

Molon Labe.

“Liberty of communication is one of the first liberties that despots seek to destroy. Tyranny learns nothing new, but it gives new names to old things.” So wrote Carter Pittman. This decision today represents the most significant step in my lifetime toward the abolition of the liberties for which our forefathers sacrificed life and limb. I cannot recall another case where the right of free speech itself has been so callously tossed aside by this Court — and political speech no less!

Here is another test-case; here is a baseline: If Americans don’t stand up against this decision, what will they stand for? Have we lost the will to be free?

I salute Ron for his commitment to liberty under law in our Constitutional Republic — what’s left of it. May we all show such resolve.

Abd just to add some icing to the already poisonous cake of out-of-control Federal judges, we now have a ruling legalizing the teaching of Islam in the public school system of California (perhaps should I now use Kalifornistan):

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=36118

Where’s the ACLU? Where’s Barry Lynn? Where’s old Abe Foxman and the ADL? Why shucks - I thought keeping all religion out of the public square was supreme goal of these folks. The truth starts to surface - they are only interested in keeping one particular religion out of the public square.

Carl—-

The truth STARTS to surface???

Welcome back, Mr. Van Winkle…

Carl writes (02:17 PM),

“I thought keeping all religion out of the public square was supreme goal of these folks. The truth starts to surface - they are only interested in keeping one particular religion out of the public square.”

This is of course true. But Jim Kalb suspects yet an additional mechanism driving some of this sort of imbalance. In a “Turnabout” blog entry today, he interprets some of what’s going on as the vigorous promotion by our élites of the “self-assertion” of various non-dominant groups:

http://jkalb.freeshell.org/tab/archives/001698.php

While you’re at it, you might try to explain why Karl Rove is in such a lather to pick up the TINY TINY Arab vote.

Wait—I know!!

Even though your daughter will be wearing a Burkha and be praying to Allah five times a day, there will be a Republican president in office to protect us.

Can you spell m-i-n-d-l-e-s-s t-r-i-b-a-l-i-s-m??

That’s just what this country needs! Muslim hegemony.

If you like France, you’ll love our outreach to that mob.

Silly me! I thought this was all worked out after the Battle of Lepanto.

Dear me, have you any idea how this sounds to a non-american? Try as I might to keep an open mind, the phrases ‘American extremists’, ‘isolationists’, ‘willful blindness’, ‘what the?’ keep popping into my head. Whats more distressing is that you will probably think of most of those as accolades. They’re not.

I don’t care what it sounds like to non-Americans. In fact, one of my hopes is that non-Americans of the liberal/left persuasion, along with Muslims, get so turned off by American rhetoric on these issues that they decide not to come here. Then we have a chance to preserve an Anglo-American civilization that is worth preserving.

Mr. Shaw speaks of Lepanto. Lepanto was a Christian triumph in a long and intermittent war, one Christians thought had ended with the defeat of the Turks before Vienna in 1683. Now we know the war goes on, even if our principal Moslem antagonists are no longer the Turks. Right now I am reading Jack Beeching’s excellent history of the Holy League and Lepanto (The Galleys at Lepanto), which I cannot recommend too highly. In it, Beeching says, as he works up to the climax of the battle itself, that “the Sultan [Selim II the Sot] was evidently toying with the dream of of fulfilling another old prophecy - that true believers would one day say their prayers to Allah beneath the dome of St Peter’s.” In 1982, when Mr. Beeching wrote, the thought that the prophecy might come true would have seemed preposterous. Less so, now… For a thousand years there were Crosses on Sancta Sophia; since 1453 there have been minarets. Should it come true, how many post-Christian Westerners will truly understand what has happened to them?

GK Chesterton’s poem (a quicker read than Beeching) also conveys the gravity of the crisis that gripped Christendom in 1571, until the Venetians, Spaniards, Genoese and Papal sailors and soldiers of the Holy League’s galley fleet destroyed the Ottoman galley fleet that October 7th, a date on which all Christians should celebrate (as the Catholic Church does with the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary).

I heartily second Mr. Coleman, and would ask Melle (who I am guessing is a Western European) to take a hard look at his own country and ask himself honestly if accommodation to Islam and all things alien to its culture and traditions has not gone too far. HRS

We need a webpage that DOCUMENTS impeachable offenses by lawless judges. A discussion forum is also in order.

www.earstohear.net/supreme_court.html

We need a webpage that DOCUMENTS impeachable offenses by lawless judges. A discussion forum is also in order.

www.earstohear.net/supreme_court.html

There are several, but here is one I know of: http://www.eagleforum.org/. (There could be many more.) It has links also. It is headed by a brave, smart, and famous lady, Phyllis Schafly.