Dr. Richard Moss, a Republican candidate for Congress for Indiana’s 8th district, released this message regarding the untimely passing of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia.
Jasper, IN
The recent passing of Supreme Court Antonin Scalia raises pointed issues at this perilous time in our nation’s history. What type of nation are we? How are we to be ruled? Is our Constitutional system still in effect or do we live in a Post-Constitutional Age?
There has been over the past 100 years an ongoing assault on our nation’s institutions and form of government by the so-called “progressive†left. It began with Woodrow Wilson and others, was taken up by Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and now Barack Obama, where it has reached its acme. For the left the “ends justify the means†and the Constitutional process means little unless it advances their cause. When it interferes, they are content to bend and twist it to achieve their goals. In the end, they loathe it as a relic of the past, of dead white slaveholders, an impediment to their aim of creating a socialist paradise.
Scalia was a constitutional “originalist,†which means that he did not believe the Constitution was a “living-breathing†document that had to change with the times, but something that was solid and foundational and served to restrain the federal government through a variety of checks and balances including separation and enumeration of powers, competing structural mechanisms, the bill of rights, federalism and states rights. By limiting the federal government, we expanded liberty for everyone else. With Scalia we had four progressives on the bench balanced by four Constitutionalists, and one “swing vote,†Anthony Kennedy. With the loss of Scalia, that balance is now threatened. It is particularly concerning because the left is wont to pursue its ends through undemocratic channels when necessary. In effect, it never loses. When they win elections they have a mandate. When they lose, the election is illegitimate and they pursue their interests through executive orders and the unelected branches of government, in particular the federal bureaucracy and the courts.
There have been many awful decisions issued by the Supreme Court but among the worst was last year’s Obergefell decision imposing gay marriage on the country. Here, we encounter 5 lawyers in black robes, flawed human beings like the rest of us, but apparently endowed with superior knowledge who know what’s best for 320 million people, fifty states and fifty democratically elected state legislatures. Five thousand years of human history and custom, biology, nature and natural law, the mating process, and common sense are out the window for our enlightened overseers. That the Constitution says nothing about marriage means nothing. That this has always been an issue left to the states and the people in our federal system is equally irrelevant. That the states and the people overwhelmingly reject gay marriage including blue states like California is similarly non-persuasive. And so our philosopher kings, the judicial oligarchs, decided this most fundamental matter for us. But how are we to be ruled? Through our elected branches or, as Scalia himself referred to them, a majority of a committee of nine unelected lawyers?
Obama is likely to appoint an activist judge to the court, a fellow traveler with an expansive view of the court’s role in determining policy and culture, at ease with legislating from the bench, arriving at decisions based on advocacy and ideology, devoid of restraint and regard for the Constitution, a judicial zealot in pursuit of specific outcomes. We are now one vote away from sweeping gun control, a Constitutional right to abortion on demand, partial birth abortion, without, of course, parental notification. We are one vote away from government coercion of churches to pay for abortion, conduct gay marriage ceremonies, and live under the thumb of our new commissars. We are one vote away from a despotic President issuing lawless executive decrees mandating amnesty and open borders. Free speech, freedom of religion and assembly, the right to self-defense, private property rights, all are threatened. We are one vote away now from a frontal assault on the Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our culture and traditions, and system of government. The stakes could not be higher.
In article II, section 2 of the Constitution, the President “shall have the power to nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint… Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States…†Appointments then are a shared power. Our Founders did this purposely – to provide a check on the President. The Senate has no obligation to give a lame duck President devoid of proper esteem for the country, our Constitution and system of government, a hearing on a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court in the middle of a Presidential election. Such an appointment will move the Court further toward lawless judicial activism. Let the people decide who the replacement to the great Antonin Scalia will be by deciding who our next President will be. Obama wants to pack the court on the way out the door. Senate Republicans must refuse. We have a nation and a Constitution to save.
