Despotism Masquerading As Jurisprudence
I've been meaning to post something on the SCOTUS' outrageous Roper v. Simmons decision for the past few days. The farthest I'd gotten was a parody of Justice Kennedy's "digging through the backs of bubble gum cards if I have to" majority opinion citing just about every source except the Eight Amendment and established High Court precedent on the issue of juvenile capital punishment:
"250 years from now the criminal code of the United Federation of Planets will list only one crime punishable by execution, and since the underage murderer in question not only has never been to Talos IV but never even left our Solar System, we could be changing future history if we 'put him to sleep' and endangering the very existence of the Federation itself. 'We cannot, in any good conscience, run the risk of succeeding where the Borg, Dominion, Sernaix, and Ankin Rotor will all fail,' wrote Justice Kennedy wrote. 'Even more than to our Constitution, we have a duty to our descendants to refrain from short-sighted temporal biases. Their future of idealistic, enlightened peace can only be assured if we value the lives of contemporary violent teenage psychopaths over those of their victims, whose self-evident weaknesses would otherwise ill-serve the human gene pool."
Or something like that.
But then at the American Spectator site, George Neumeyr articulated my thoughts smack-on:
The Roper v. Simmons decision is a stunningly stark illustration of...despotism that masquerades as jurisprudence. Despotism is not an overwrought description here: we are dealing with a lawless court, judges who obey no law save their own will. Yes, they invoke a living Constitution, but that just means the real Constitution lies dead at their feet, having been trampled beneath a juggernaut of false progress.
The Supreme Court has been holding a de facto constitutional convention for decades, ripping up the old one and writing a new one without the consent of the people. A fitting punishment for this act of hubris will come when the chaos that their own example of lawlessness has set in motion consumes them in impeachment trials or worse.
As the Supreme Court writes a new constitution, the justices are using as their co-authors foreigners not Americans. This now routine reliance on foreign fashions illustrates their alienation from and distrust of the American people. In citing the "overwhelming weight of international opinion" in the Roper decision, the justices are in effect saying to the American people: we are right, you are wrong; since you won't support our boutique views, we will look abroad for support.
Mr. Neumeyr's column reminded me of the climax of Rocky III, when Rocky has Clubber Lang against the ropes, defenseless, and is overwhelming him with haymakers. All his columns are like that, but this one was particularly devastating, and equally as satisfying as a result. Please do read the whole piece.
I do have to add a caveat, though: given the quasi-deities the Justices have become, and the quasi-Scriptural reverence with which their rulings are viewed, just exactly who would have the balls to mount an impeachment drive against any of them? Or even term-limit them?
The Klingons may have slain their "gods." Somehow I don't think their human, American, secular counterparts have anything to equivalently worry about any time soon.
"250 years from now the criminal code of the United Federation of Planets will list only one crime punishable by execution, and since the underage murderer in question not only has never been to Talos IV but never even left our Solar System, we could be changing future history if we 'put him to sleep' and endangering the very existence of the Federation itself. 'We cannot, in any good conscience, run the risk of succeeding where the Borg, Dominion, Sernaix, and Ankin Rotor will all fail,' wrote Justice Kennedy wrote. 'Even more than to our Constitution, we have a duty to our descendants to refrain from short-sighted temporal biases. Their future of idealistic, enlightened peace can only be assured if we value the lives of contemporary violent teenage psychopaths over those of their victims, whose self-evident weaknesses would otherwise ill-serve the human gene pool."
Or something like that.
But then at the American Spectator site, George Neumeyr articulated my thoughts smack-on:
The Roper v. Simmons decision is a stunningly stark illustration of...despotism that masquerades as jurisprudence. Despotism is not an overwrought description here: we are dealing with a lawless court, judges who obey no law save their own will. Yes, they invoke a living Constitution, but that just means the real Constitution lies dead at their feet, having been trampled beneath a juggernaut of false progress.
The Supreme Court has been holding a de facto constitutional convention for decades, ripping up the old one and writing a new one without the consent of the people. A fitting punishment for this act of hubris will come when the chaos that their own example of lawlessness has set in motion consumes them in impeachment trials or worse.
As the Supreme Court writes a new constitution, the justices are using as their co-authors foreigners not Americans. This now routine reliance on foreign fashions illustrates their alienation from and distrust of the American people. In citing the "overwhelming weight of international opinion" in the Roper decision, the justices are in effect saying to the American people: we are right, you are wrong; since you won't support our boutique views, we will look abroad for support.
Mr. Neumeyr's column reminded me of the climax of Rocky III, when Rocky has Clubber Lang against the ropes, defenseless, and is overwhelming him with haymakers. All his columns are like that, but this one was particularly devastating, and equally as satisfying as a result. Please do read the whole piece.
I do have to add a caveat, though: given the quasi-deities the Justices have become, and the quasi-Scriptural reverence with which their rulings are viewed, just exactly who would have the balls to mount an impeachment drive against any of them? Or even term-limit them?
The Klingons may have slain their "gods." Somehow I don't think their human, American, secular counterparts have anything to equivalently worry about any time soon.
posted by JASmius at 11:38 PM
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