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Alexander's
Column
It's
the Constitution, Stupid...
Our
Founders and Constitution prescribed that the specific role of Supreme Court
justices was, and remains, to uphold Rule of Law.
By
Mark Alexander · February 1, 2017
“[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are
constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of
action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make
the Judiciary a despotic branch.” —Thomas Jefferson (1804)
In 1992, when Bill Clinton was overwhelming George H.W. Bush's campaign for
re-election, his chief adviser, that Ragin' Cajun James Carville, framed
Clinton's successful campaign around these words: “It’s the economy, stupid.”
In the most recent presidential election, Donald Trump's advisers framed his
campaign around that same theme, combined with one other: "It's the
Constitution, stupid."
In fact, Trump's victory was, in large measure, due to his commitment to nominate constitutional
constructionists to the Supreme Court. As I noted repeatedly last fall,
the presidential election was "much more than a quadrennial vote — it is a
quarter-century vote for the composition of the Supreme Court."
This week, conservatives across the nation are unified in declaring Mr.
Trump's nomination of Judge Neil
Gorsuch, currently serving on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, as his
nominee to replace the SCOTUS seat vacated by the revered late Justice Antonin
Scalia.
This nomination is an unequivocal victory for Rule of Law, which is why it
will triple the howling hysterics of statist Senate Democrats and
their wailing mass of minions across
the country.
Notably, despite how the Democrats and their Leftmedia echo chambers want to
frame this issue, it is NOT a "Republican versus Democrat" or "conservative
versus liberal" debate. This is a Rule of Law versus a rule of men issue, the terminus
of the latter irrevocably being tyranny.
Our Founders and Constitution prescribed that the specific role of Supreme
Court justices was, and remains, to uphold Rule of Law in accordance with their
oaths "to Support and Defend" our
Constitution. Otherwise they would become, as Jefferson warned, a "despotic
branch" whose jurists legislate by judicial diktat, as has been the case with
statist Supreme Court jurists for the last 70 years.
Perhaps through the din of liberal rants, some of our young countrymen will
gain some much-needed civic insights into Liberty and Rule of Law. And one of
the most highly acclaimed tools for those insights is our pocket guide to
Essential Liberty.
As noted last week, I'll be devoting much-needed time in the coming weeks to
a thorough revision of our Essential Liberty Guide — just
in time for the Reagan revival now
underway.
Production of the Essential Liberty guides is not in The Patriot's
budget, rather it's a project of our non-profit arm, the Patriot Foundation Trust. With your
generous support, we've been distributing these highly acclaimed booklets for
years at no charge to students and other citizen groups who will be
force-multipliers to sustain and defend Liberty in the future.
Will you please help us fund the next printing of Essential Liberty and
extend Liberty to the next generation? The cost to produce 250,000 of these
guides is approximately $57,600.
Please send your tax deductible donation by check to the Patriot
Foundation Trust, and mail it to:
Patriot Foundation Trust PO Box 507 Chattanooga, TN 37401
Thank you for standing with us in defense of Liberty. Neither our mission nor
operations would be possible without you.
Mark Alexander Publisher, The Patriot Post
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