In case after case, Justice Anthony Kennedy, the most regrettable legacy of the Reagan Administration, provides the fifth vote for the Supreme Court's liberal bloc, coming down on the wrong side of whatever's before the Court.
Yesterday he held to form, determining that it's "unconstitutional" to execute child rapists, a provision that one enlightened state had in its criminal code, because it's "disproportionate" to the crime. He didn't dare use one of the favorite arguments of liberals on the Supreme Court, that the constitution has to reflect the "evolving standards of the people." If only! If that were the standard, Kennedy knows there would be no way to support yesterday's ruling.
See if you think the death penalty is "disproportionate" to this crime. Read about what the child rapist, now spared by Anthony Kennedy, did to an 8-year old that got him the death penalty in the first place. Warning: it's not for the faint-of-heart.
Prediction: It is reported that the Court will release today its long-awaited opinion, on whether the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns. Look for one of those maddeningly inconclusive decisions with multiple opinions, where Kennedy issues a "concurring opinion" of his own, agreeing with the outcome in this particular case, but leaving a large ambiguuity about the central legal issue at stake, thereby giving the Left the ability to argue that, see, the Court didn't affirm an individual right to bear arms after all.
As President, Andrew Jackson had the right idea. Of a particularly objectionable Supreme Court ruling, Jackson said, "The Chief Justice has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." It wasn't enforced.
Along the same lines, we think it would be a salutary act of civil disobedience for the Governor of Louisiana to defy the Court and throw the child rapist into the electric chair today. The Governor would instantly become a national hero, and deservedly so.
The Supreme Court has said for years that it derives its authority only from the voluntary consent of the people to follow it. We hereby withdraw ours. If the Constitution of the United States is really the bastardized accretion of decades of leftist rulings like sparing rapists of 8-year olds, then, most emphatically, we do not support the "Constitution" of the United States and we do not support the Country that tolerates it.
5 comments:
As the father of a child, and someone who's not bothered by a carefully-administered death penalty for the worst of the worst, I don't know about this decision.
On one hand, you have a good argument that the crime in this case was horrific.
On the other hand, if child rapists think that they're going to be executed for their crime, don't they have still another incentive to kill the child after they rape them? Unfortunately, in a lot of abduction and murder cases, the child is killed to keep them quiet.
Rottencheter:
"On the other hand, if child rapists think that they're going to be executed for their crime, don't they have still another incentive to kill the child after they rape them? Unfortunately, in a lot of abduction and murder cases, the child is killed to keep them quiet."
So, you are saying that laws affect how criminals act? Thus, the death penalty would actually work as a deterent?
More to the point, the Supreme Court's opinion is not based on anything in the Constitution, and leads many of us to respect that institution less and certainly does nothing for the rule of law. Your (and the supreme court's) arguments against the death penalty for child rapists may or may not make sense and/or be persuasive, but that is for the legislatures and for the people to decide.
the 5 justices of the supreme court usurping that power to themselves to decide POLICY is so stunningly wrong and against all historical precedent as to be frightening.
We are now in an era where the constitution has no meaning whatsoever. In other words, we are not a nation of laws, we are a nation ruled by our kings the judges of the supreme court. Our elections have no meaning as only what Kennedy and his ilk believe is important at the end of the day.
It is decisions like these that lead to civil unrest as a majority of americans lose faith in our institutions and in our republican system altogether. If we can't trust the supreme court not to seek out power and become a dictatorship, what can we trust?
Truly, a shocking decision - one of the worst in terms of legal reasoning I have ever read. It basically says the law is unconstitutional because they don't like it. that is the only basis for their decision.
Great Banana
I think Rottenchester makes a great point.
I also think the SC had to make this ruling.
Think of how catastrophic this would be to the Catholic Church if the SC ruled in favor of death for rapists. They'd be scrambling to replace way too many Priests.
"Thus, the death penalty would actually work as a deterent?"
If the wrath of God and eternal damnation isn't going to stop them, what's a little needle full of barbiturates to make you go nighty night before they inject you with a little Sodium Pentothal, bromide, and Potassium Chloride gonna do to deter it?
Eye for an eye. Can't take the whole body when the rapist took an eye.
Green Banana:
So, you are saying that laws affect how criminals act? Thus, the death penalty would actually work as a deterent?
I did say I don't have a problem with the death penalty, and, yes, like any other law, the death penalty deters bad behavior.
I did say I don't have a problem with the death penalty, and, yes, like any other law, the death penalty deters bad behavior.
Well then, you must believe that having the death penalty for child rape will deter child rape.
Yet, you believe that the argument that having the death penalty for child rape may incite some child-rapists to kill their victim is a good argument for finding the law in question unconstitutional.
Putting aside, for the moment, the fact that such an argument is a policy argument that ONLY the legislature should be deciding - how does such an argument rise to the level of a constitutional violation? And, how does it overcome the value of detering child rape in the first instance?
As I said, that argument may or may not be persuasive - the fact that people make such an argument to defend the supreme court's usurpation of power shows a distinct lack of understanding of the constitution and what the supreme court's function should be.
For instance, the anonymous commenter right above your last comment is a prime example of such serious ignorance of our federal system, the constitution, and the role of the supreme court. It's hard to fathom how people can be so clueless as to the government of the country they are citizens of.
- great banana
Post a Comment