Today I am proud of the courts. 


States' rights, the separation of powers and a little thing called the US Constitution. 

Yesterday morning the US Supreme Court issued a one-sentence statement regarding the attempted appeal brought to it by the parents of Terry Schiavo. The statement simply said that the court would not hear any arguments on the matter, full stop, the end. The Supreme Court--a body which may have indeed overstepped its bounds when it agreed to hear and passed judgment on the Bush v. Gore case in 2000--has remained true to the position that our Founding Fathers had intended it to have which was to judge matters of importance to the nation as a whole, not on matters best left to individual states' jurisdictions.

Three levels of federal courts either explicitly upheld the previous Florida state courts' rulings or implicitly did so by refusing to hear the case. Good for them. By doing nothing over the judgments of the Florida courts--judgments that had been made and appealed several times over during a period of several years--they upheld the validity of the state courts in ruling on matters relating to citizens of their states and did not alter precedent.

Of course, "conservatives" (more accurately referred to as "members of the Religious Right") will accuse the federal jurists' inaction as being anti-life and pro-death or something silly like that and will probably turn it around to some form of "legislation from the bench" or "judicial activism" as they are so readily able to label court decisions with which they disagree these days. But I don't care; I prefer to be and remain intellectually honest and true to my principles, not hypocritical like the GOP Congress appears to be acting. I will not bow down to events or parties that may change others' opinions and positions, but I will continue to champion the cause of individual liberty, small government, a strong national defense and American leadership in the world.

Government should do for the people what the people cannot do for themselves.

Never give up the cause. Thank you, our courts, for preserving in this go at least one precedent on which this nation was founded and on which its laws are based. 

Posted: Sat - March 26, 2005 at 12:13 AM          

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