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Tuesday, April 10, 2012

The Good of the ONE ...

For those who remember the movie: "Star Trek 2",  there was a scene in which Spock says he does not understand why Captain Kirk would risk the entire crew to come in and save HIM.   Captain Kirk replies:  "Sometimes the good of the one outweighs the good of the many".    So to it is with our Supreme Court.   The ONE out weighs the MAJORITY.  

I bring this up because a few days ago, the President made some non-scripted remarks about the Supreme Court possibly throwing out the entire Healthcare law and saying that such a move would be "unprecedented".   The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (one level below the Supreme Court), requested the DOJ to answer some questions.   They gave the AG a two-day homework assignment to write a 3-page-single-space paper detailing what the President was indicating by the word, "unprecedented".

The word, unrepresented, in the dictionary says "unique, extraordinary, exceptional, novel".  This would seem to indicate the the President was meaning that such a move by the Supreme Court would be unique or exceptional, or even never been done before.   To those whose job is to watch and report what the Supreme Court does, must have been difficult for them to keep their eyes from popping out of the sockets.   It may be one thing for the President to lie about his past (he was the only one there to actually see it), but its entirely a whole different matter to LIE about history of the Supreme Court!   
Here is the actual track record for the Supreme Court:

Unconstitutional and Preempted Laws 1789-2002
According to the GPO (Government Printing Office Database):

1789-2002 Acts of Congress Held as Unconstitutional................................158

1789-2002 State Statutes held unconstitutional............................................935

1789-2002 City Ordinances held unconstitutional.......................................222

1789-2002 State and City laws preempted by Federal laws.........................224

Total State, Local and Federal Laws Declared Unconstitutional..............1,315

Total State and Local Law Preempted by Federal Laws..............................224

Total Laws Overturned, all governments..................................................1,539  

So just looking at the first line (Acts of Congress Held as Unconstitutional), the Healthcare bill will have good company with the other 158 other acts of congress where our government attempted to overstep their powers provided to them and limiting them in the Constitution.  In fact all of these "laws" were passed by "democratically elected members of congress" as was the Healthcare bill.    But they, like Obamacare, did not meet the standard enshrined in our Constitution.   

So just what is the purpose of the Supreme Court?   Reading the Federalist Papers you will find that the Supreme Court has one fundamental purpose:  to stand up for the minority.   The framers of our Constitution were afraid of 2 things:

   1) An overly powerful Federal Government 
   2) Mob Rule

Their concern was not these happening separately, but in tandem.   They knew and understood that a controlling central government could use mob-rule in their favor, as was the case in the French Revolution, to take power of the country and abuse the minority.  To balance this power, the framers provided the Supreme Court with the power to repeal laws passed by "a democratically elected MAJORITY" (as the President put it) if such laws hurt the individual citizen either directly or indirectly. This is why the writers of the Healthcare bill put the "tax/penalty" after 2014 so that the bill could not "harm the citizen" until 4 years into the bills implementation, so by that time, there would be too difficult to repeal the law.  Thankfully the Supreme Court saw through this and decided that it was not going to wait until 2014 to hear the case.

To illustrate this the use of this power one does not have look to back far in history.   Recently the Supreme Court weighed in on an issue with a family in Idaho that was being prevented from building a house because the EPA had incorrectly labeled their property a "wet-land" (a clogged drainage ditch was the culprit).  Rather than admit they were wrong (even though the local court had sided with the family on the matter), they threatened the family with $34,000 per day in fines if they did not do what they asked (put the land back to its original state and plant "wetland" plants, even though it wasn't a wetland).  The family brought the matter to the Supreme Court because under the EPA jurisdiction, we do not have a right to meet them in court to confront them.  The Supreme Court ruled  9 - 0 in favor of the family that they could not be fined by the EPA without the right to face them in court.


But those who rail against the Supreme Court believe the "MIGHT MAKES RIGHT!" and "The 99% should over-rule the 1%".   They say, "Forget the Supreme Court!  We know whats right for you! You are just too ignorant to know the difference".   And this is not just something the left does either.  I must admit, that I too sometimes get frustrated when laws that I voted for are thrown out.  Here in California we had Prop-8 which was the law to say that marriage in California would only be between a man and a woman.   Passed by a slim majority, the law was brought to the State-Supreme-Court for review.   If struck down, it would be for the same reason as Obamacare would. If so, should we call for the abolishing of the State-Supreme-Court?  Should we riot in the streets and demand their resignations?  No.  Absolutely NOT!  They have same mandate as the Supreme Court:

THE GOOD OF THE ONE OUTWEIGHS THE GOOD OF THE MANY!




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