Maybe not Audacious, but Supreme

Look ma, an argument against the imperial Supreme Court without the crutches of w-w (trigger warning – not written by a Protestant):

Brown is the most important decision ever rendered by the United States Supreme Court. Its significance lies much less in its impact on the civil rights movement, which was indirect at most, than in establishing the idea that the judicial branch holds a monopoly on constitutional interpretation. Though controversial in 1954, the Segregation Cases (as Brown was initially called) are today almost universally regarded as the epitome of judicial wisdom and courage. Because the Supreme Court did what is considered so obviously right when the rest of the political system would not, it came to be considered preeminent among the three branches of the federal government.

It is still living off the moral capital acquired in Brown. Three years after that decision, the Court, enforcing the desegregation of Little Rock High School in Arkansas, went so far as to assert that its interpretation of the Constitution was the Constitution, the “supreme law of the land.” In 1992, the majority wrote in Planned Parenthood v. Casey:

The American people’s belief in themselves . . . as a people who aspire to live according to the rule of law is not readily separable from their understanding of the Court invested with the authority to decide their constitutional cases and speak before all others for their constitutional ideals.

In other words, the rule of law depends on the rule of judges. The American people and their elected officials have largely acquiesced in this usurpation. Public opinion polls show that the Court is near the top of institutions that Americans trust—way above Congress and the media, behind only the police, the military, and small business.

See? It is possible to reach politically conservative positions without resorting to theology or the Bible. In fact, theologians and pastors who write about politics as theologians and pastors usually let theology and the Bible get in the way of the Constitution.

4 thoughts on “Maybe not Audacious, but Supreme

  1. In my view, the United States government system has been deeply flawed since the victory of the north in the civil war.

    Now don’t get ahead of me. I am a northerner. I have ancestors who were part of the underground railway. I think that there were many, many practices, in the old south which were abhorrent and called for reform.

    But a triumvirate with one of the three members “more equal than the others” is nothing but a dictatorship. State rights need to be restored. Until this happens, and states have some freedom to make some of the laws for governing their own populace, the dictatorship (of the nine) will continue.

    So. Will states rights be reasserted? Time will tell.

    (Please be gentle with me. I am a sensitve soul, even if you feel my views stink.)

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  2. OK, I’ll bite. Why should we say the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were superior?

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