I felicitate Americans whose Supreme Court has found for the American Evangelical bakers.
I hope our own Supreme Court will come to a similar conclusion about some Ulster Evangelical Bakers. Call me a Marsh-wiggle if you like, but I don't trust that Lady Hale who is the new president of our Court. She backed the sacking of a couple of senior Glaswegian midwives who refused to organise abortions. She held that conscience clauses only protect medical personel from being compelled physically to partake in the 'procedure'.
It will be interesting to see what today's SCUK Judgement on the validity of the Northern Irish Abortion Law comes up with. Will it resurrect the old Denning dream of judges (in effect) setting aside Statute Law?
Dear Father. The tyranny of the Judicial Branch suffered only a temporary set back and it will be back.
ReplyDeleteABS still harbors secular hope that Trump is clever enough to denounce a decision of The SCOTUS as Unconstitutional and refuse to execute its decision.
Trump (who else?) must do this in an attempt to restore the original Constitution which supplied for three separate but equal branches but the animals in the Supreme Court House are far more equal than the other two branches because those unelected tyrants can judge acts by the other two branches as unlawful.
The Constitution was written for we the people and so when Trump (please just do it) declares an act by The SCOTUS of Congress as Unconstitutional we the people can determine what the Constitution means via the electoral process.
We can determine what the Constitution means by supporting Trump in his actions vis a vis The SCOTUS or support his opponent who will oppose Trump's acts relative to the constitutional substance under debate.
Of course this will sound crazy to those who have become inured to rule by Judicial Tyranny so such a shocking truth wil be a blast.
O, you say that The SCOTUS , long ago, claimed the sole authority to say what he Constitution means?
Yep, that is the problem isn't it?
A tyrannical usurpation of power and authority by unelected govt officials.
Trump can really make the Deep State weep.
Over at First Things, Darel Paul explains that the Supreme Court did not rule on whether a baker could refuse to make a cake for a same-sex wedding but only that this baker had improperly been found guilty by a commission that exhibited hostility to religion.
ReplyDelete"In a lopsided 7-2 ruling, the majority found in favor of the Colorado baker Jack Phillips, owner and operator of Masterpiece Cakeshop, in his claimed right to the free exercise of religion. But this opinion is not a victory for religious liberty. The Court majority ruled in favor of Phillips strictly on procedural grounds. The substance of his claim to refuse to bake custom cakes for same-sex weddings went untested. In fact, the balance of the five separate opinions filed by the nine justices strongly suggests that the next Masterpiece Cakeshop will not fare nearly so well."
It is worth reading the whole article.
While it is good that the baker won,it was a very narrow ruling and butchers and candlestick makers are still unprotected, as are the florist and photographer whose cases are still in process. The Court's decision turned on the hostility to religion shown by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The Commission is free to reconsider the complaint against the baker, be nicer about his religious conviction argument, and still come to the same decision against him.
ReplyDeleteThe agenda is not about securing reasonable rights for same-sex couples. It is about removing religion as a consideration in the public square. And it is also about an expanded understanding of what constitutes speech and exercise of religion. All of these questions are still open here.
Marsh-wiggles are of a Higher Order !
ReplyDeleteI wonder what would be the view of this Hale woman of those who might, God forbid, decide to 'organise' her demise? Would she only support the charging of her physical assassins?
ReplyDeleteIndeed Michael, well made point.
ReplyDeleteIt was serious mistake (or was it the plan all along?) to establish a Supreme Court in the UK. We can see what's happened in the US.
ReplyDeleteThe US is far more democratic than the UK--unfortunately many people confuse democracy with representative government. Here in the UK we have MPs, but they're chosen by two and a half parties who reserve the right to tell us whom we have the privilege to vote for. Anyone else who dates present himself as a parliamentary candidate will face the full brunt of the political and media establishment--as Mr Farage did in South Thanet. In theory anyone can stand; in practice, it's quite impossible. Last night I had the interesting experience of hearing Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe at a post-evensong 'conversation' at St Mary-at-Hill, and he kept referring to British 'democracy' without an apparent trace of irony. Such is the establishment view.
In the US, where once I lived, there is real democracy--people have control over what developpers can or can't do in their own communities, for example. But the Achilles' heel of American democracy has been the unelected judiciary, a self-selected elitist professional caste whose diktats are supreme. We don't give doctors or accoutants of hairdressers the power to rule by fiat and trump the legislative process--why do we do so for lawyers?
Of course, in theory, Supreme Court decisions can be nullified by Constitutional amendment--in practice, that's almost impossible to do. When has it actually ever happened? The 11 the amendment (long time ago!) and the 16th (on income tax) are the only times I can think of off-hand.
What's needed is an Article 5 Constitutional Convention (never done before) to limit the power of the judiciary and to right the wrongs committed by the courts. I also think it's critical to introduce language into the Constitution specifying how a state might secede from the union, to avoid a repetition of Lincoln's civil war, which to this day remains the bloodiest in American history and which produced the legacy of resentment and racial tension which still plagues the country.
Many men think we Americans live in a democracy but one way to dissipate that mirage is to turn a blast of cold facts upon it.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nationallibertyalliance.org/files/docs/foundingdocs/16th%20Amendment.pdf
ABS knows this is neither the place or the time to pursue political perfidy but the war against southern liberty is indefensible on any level for secession is a classic American act - it was through secession that the colonists sloughed off the English Crown.
As for Honest Abe Lincoln, ABS is of the opinion that he got his nickname for the same reason a 400 lb mobster gets the nick name, "Tiny," and he is the model republican in that he was a tool of big business (railroads) who specialised in lies (read his first inaugural address in which he pledged to leave the south and slavery alone just so long as it paid its taxes and duties).
He was a world-class racist who considered it wildly wrong to think the negro was equal to the white man and up until the day he was justly assassinated, he was striving to convince the blacks to move to what is now Panama and mine coal because such a volunteer deportation would benefit both blacks and whites.
O, and The Emancipation Proclamation did not free one slave - not a single one.
Tony V, I recommend Pitcaithley's The U. S. Constitution and Secession published just last month. It focuses on the period between Lincoln's election and his inauguration as President.
ReplyDeleteRather than being a "self-selected... caste", federal judges are appointed by the [elected] President only with the "advise and consent" of the [elected] Senate.
ABS, the link in your post is to Benson's argument that the 16th Amendment authorizing a tax on income was never properly ratified by the states and is of no effect.
ReplyDeleteWhen Benson made that argument in court to justify his failure to file income tax returns for several years, he was sentenced to four years in prison and five years of probation. When he appealed the verdict, the Appeals Court declared his argument to be fraudulent.
In your expression "war against southern lliberty", Picaithly's book explains that the liberty the slave-owning states sought was to bring their slaves to free states and territories without the slaves becoming free. Also, that state law enforcement officers and citizens should be commandeered to enforce the federal Fugitive Slave Act.
Jhayes, the entire legal profession is self-selected--this is true of most professions, my own (medicine) included. You can't just make yourself a lawyer--you need to convince a law school to accept you (that's not solely done on grades, by the way), and then to get through successfully you have to keep saying the right things. To get ahead in your career, you need to keep spouting the party line. If you fancy the judiciary, you must hold certain opinions or you'll get nowhere. If you don't, you're marginalised. The elite hold the strings and decide who advances. It's kind of like the RC episcopacy.
ReplyDeleteThose are the people from whom the US president selects SC justices. Theoretically, he could nominate anyone. Pragamatically, that would never fly. (Just like theoretically, Nigel could have been elected in South Thanet--but for the colossal weight of the media-political establishment.)
The US was founded on the principle that a people could 'dissolve the political bands' that tied them to another--yet curiously, the Constitution provided no mechanism for secession, hence the Civil War. (Oddly, the constitution of the short-lived CSA contained no such provision either.)
ABS, following the Civil War, the Supreme Court ruled that there was no right to secede
ReplyDelete"The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to "be perpetual." And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained "to form a more perfect Union." It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?"
Texas v. White (1869)
Sorry, my last comment was in reply to Tony V, not ABS
ReplyDeleteDear Jhayes. One could cite The SCOTUS in claiming abortion and so-caled Gay Marriage is jake.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it is important to note that The Generals on the side of Liberty and the Generals on the side of Tyranny both attended West Point where the texts concerning secession were in favor of it.
Countless links could be supplied to correct the self-justifying myths of the pubic schools but ABS will just provide one to a series about secession by an excellent professor.
https://mises.org/profile/donald-w-livingston
Dear Father. Thanks for your patience about this OT matter. ABS is done
Pax tecum