Friday, August 13, 2010

Shut the Frak Up About the Courts, OK?

Whether on the liberal side of the matter, ie, McDonald, Heller and Citizens United or on the conservative side, ie, the Proposition 8 case, you will find no shortage of wholly ignorant pundits moaning about judges who overturn laws.

And yes, even I've done it from time to time.

Still, we should all just shut the fuck up about it.

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) set forth the principle that it is the job of judges to review the laws.
It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.
The judges get to say whether a law is constitutional or not. That is the system in this country. A politician who blathers on and on about how wrong it is that an "activist judge" can overturn a law only betrays his or her own ignorance about the principles underlying the rule of law in this nation or, worse, a total lack of honesty covered over by a veneer of cynicism and a desire to manipulate the idiots in his or her own base.

(Yes, I am thinking of Sarah Palin as I type this, a politician who has mixed ignorance and cynicism into a modern political smoothie.)
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2 comments:

  1. Anonymous8/13/2010 12:42 PM

    Great blog. I had thought about that very thing when reading the op-ed from that brilliant moron, Goldberg yesterday. It IS the province of the courts to judge the constitutionality of a law and the judge in California did just that. Still, I am not pleased with the Supreme judgement that makes corporations individual citizens. It just doesn't make sense.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eck!8/13/2010 3:30 PM

    Justice Marshall made it clear, our Constitution has precedence and establishes we are a country of laws
    and those laws will be measured against the Constitution.

    Laws may be created that are defective. A laws popularity does not make it less defective and only attests to why we have a system that can test for defective applications.
    It's the judicial branch that has to examine if they violate higher existent law, the Constitution is that and all subsequent laws that stand must establish it. To do less
    makes the people of government superior to the law, this is not the case as they are the servants of the law.

    Those that complain, have wishes, not law.

    Eck!

    ReplyDelete

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