The Court of Last Resort
Commentary by Greg Lewis / TheRant.US
February 25, 2005
Since 1994, the Democrat Party has managed to lose control
of the House, the Senate, and the White House. In the face of their obviously
diminishing power and influence, Democrats have become a party whose activities
and pronouncements betray a growing desperation. As they founder, casting
about broadly, seeking remedies to reverse their diminishing influence,
it is no surprise that their attention has come to rest on the courts.
It can be argued that Democrats see their only remaining hope for holding
onto political power in mounting a strenuous resistance to President Bush's
federal judicial nominees.
The court system, overpopulated as it seems to be by judges
with left/liberal leanings, has been one of the Democrats' primary means
of influence for the past three decades. From bypassing the Legislative
branch of government to legalize abortion through the Roe v. Wade decision
to ostensibly legitimizing gay marriage by flouting legislative precedent
in the recent Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case, a judiciary sympathetic
to left/liberal political positions has tampered, not only with the U.S.
Constitution, but with the fundamental rights of American citizens to
have their wishes represented by the federal and state legislators they
elect.
By acting in an arrogant and presumptive manner with regard
to legal and constitutional precedent, liberal judges (and the political
interests they serve) have steered our nation on a course that was laid
out by communist apologists more than 70 years ago. Indeed, activist judges
are promulgating a vision of the law as a tool for the perpetuation of
a "correct" political agenda that was articulated in William
Z. Foster's book, Toward Soviet America, in 1932, and affirmed by John
Hart Ely in his 1981 book Democracy and Distrust: A Theory of Judicial
Review. While Ely's book has been influential in the rather more rarefied
air surrounding legal theorists, Foster's work directly and unapologetically
laid out in layman's terms international communism's intentions with regard
to the takeover of our country.
The legal system in a communist America would, as Foster
envisioned it, "be free of the pest of lawyers." The purpose
of the courts would be to come to "speedy" and "correct"
decisions, decisions which reflected the fact that they were handed down
by "class-courts, definitely warring against the class enemies of
the workers." In other words, the American Soviet legal system as
envisioned by Foster would have been a tool for the imposition of Marxist
rule on the American people. Such a court system would be at the service
of a Marxist agenda; it would eschew entirely any attempt at impartial
justice.
Seen in this light, the motivation for Democrats' current
desperate resistance to President Bush's judicial nominees becomes quite
clear. Unless they can continue to subvert Robert's Rules of Order to
their own nefarious purposes by implementing a strategy that includes
filibustering Bush's judicial nominees, Democrats face defeat in the third
and final arena of political influence, the judiciary. Having lost control
of the executive and legislative branches of government, they are making
a last stand to hold onto the judicial branch.
Given Democrats' continuing resistance to allowing many
of Bush's judicial appointees even so much as an up-or-down vote on the
Senate floor, the choice facing the GOP seems to hinge on whether Bill
Frist will invoke the so-called "nuclear" option (which Republicans
prefer to call the "constitutional" option). This would involve
Republicans' applying to the presiding officer of the Senate, in this
case Dick Cheney, for an interpretation on the constitutionality of the
use of the filibuster against judicial nominees. If Cheney determines
that the filibuster is unconstitutional in this case, Democrats would
not be able to employ the tactic. The upshot would be that the President's
judicial nominees could not be blocked by filibuster. They would need
only a simple majority, 51 votes, to be approved, and not the 60 votes
currently needed to override a Democratic filibuster.
It has been speculated that Republicans' invoking the
"nuclear" or "constitutional" option would cause Democrats
to escalate their recalcitrance in working with Republicans to craft bi-partisan
legislation. In this event, however, what might hold them back from even
further increasing their use of obstructionist tactics is the knowledge
that being perceived as an obstructionist was what got Tom Daschle dis-elected
last fall. Although they might not be willing to admit publicly that Bush's
51% majority was a borderline landslide given the existing political climate,
you have to think that, in the backs of their minds, many Democrats are
saying, "It might be wise to exercise a little restraint here, not
to go overboard in torpedoing the agenda of a popular President."
Indeed, it is because the left wing of the Democrat Party
— as represented by Howard Dean, Teddy Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, and
Harry Reid, to name a few — has effectively commandeered the political
spotlight to emerge as the public voice of the party that we're even having
this discussion. Rather than seeking to represent the interests of their
constituency through legitimate legislative means, Democratic leadership
continues to look for ways to impose on all Americans a leftist agenda
that the majority of U.S. citizens resoundingly rejects.
Maintaining a stranglehold on the judiciary by denying
President Bush's appointees an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor is
but one more tactic by which Democrats are revealing their intentions.
Those intentions, as William Z. Foster articulated them many years ago,
remain to render through the courts "speedy" and "correct"
decisions that reflect, not the will and values of the American people
nor the upholding of the U.S. Constitution, but the imposition of a leftist
political agenda on the citizens of the United States.
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