“We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom… The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”
-Barack Obama
Go ahead and rip off Lady Justice’s blindfold. And, while you’re at it, tip those balanced scales as you see fit. Apparently it’s no longer okay to apply the rule of law equally, regardless of race, ethnicity, disability, age, and so on and so forth.
Such is the problem with attaching a relativistic worldview to the law, particularly U.S. Constitutional law. The Constitution is a binding and objective contract between the federal government, the states, and the people, but if that contract is continually violated to bring a particular version of utopian “social justice” to certain groups of people, then it’s no longer a valid contract.
The philosophy that the Constitution is a “living document” subject to whimsical interpretation perverts the founders’ intent, effectively whittling away at our liberties and freedoms. And how, exactly, does treating the Constitution as a “living document” do this?
First, by side-stepping the stringent parameters of the Constitution you are, in effect, giving the government powers beyond the limited powers originally delegated to it. According to the Constitution, these powers are very specific and limited in scope, and for good reason.
The founders, however, provided a means to make the Constitution “live” and breathe as the nation progressed and evolved. It’s called the “amendment process” and has been quite effective at changing the scope of government and defining aspects of its relationship to the states and the people.
But it’s not easy to amend the Constitution, and certainly not as easy as setting policy by judicial fiat. The reason for a difficult amendment process is simple: it ensures that a powerful minority does not exert its will over the majority. The look and feel of the aristocracy has changed over the years – yesterday’s aristocracy may have worn powdered wigs and run giant plantations while today’s is busily denouncing the majority for their backwoods backwardness from the stage at the Academy Awards – but its dangers are just as real now as they were in the 18th Century.
Beyond changing the law through the amendment process, the Constitution is quite clear: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.”
Despite the clear intent of the founders in framing the Constitution, leftist relativists insist on re-defining it by other means, namely the courts. The job of the courts is to apply the law as it stands, not as they want it to be or think it should be.
It is true that each Justice will bring his or her own perspective and prejudices to the Court. However, there is a code of ethics which requires each Justice to provide an unbiased analysis of the issue at hand subject to the framework of the Constitution, a.k.a., blind justice.
But when justice is no longer blind, and we begin to pick and choose how the law will be applied unequally based on some minority status or perceived injustice or inequality, then the law becomes, by definition, unfair and unjust. But this is how the so-called progressive dispenses justice, and how the progressive dispenses all political power.
The progressive’s dispensation of power and justice is not based on law, equality, liberty, and freedom, but on how to expand his control over others, either by turning them into dependents or dictating the parameters of each person’s life – what they can think, say, and do.
So, when you hear the term “empathy” used to define one of the primary qualifications a potential Supreme Court nominee should have, prepare to lose another chunk of your liberty in the process. The last thing you want as you face the federal government is Pontius Pilate washing his hands and rhetorically asking, “What is truth?”
Recent Comments