Misconstrued Power

     The recent appointment of John Roberts as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has presented a difficult problem for many politicians in Washington - how does one get around that embarrassing document, the Constitution? The Constitution was “an ingenious attempt to specify and thereby limit the powers of the federal government. By listing the powers of the federal government in Article 1, it implicitly (and, in the Tenth Amendment, explicitly) forbade the exercise of other unlisted powers.” (brianwilson.net).

Sadly, ever since Roosevelt was president, the federal government has been trying to ignore the Constitution and has decided that the best way to do this is to make the courts the final judge of how broadly their powers will be construed. This basically gives the courts the power to rewrite the Constitution with no one’s consent, reducing it to an elegant wall decoration.

Of course, if the Constitution means whatever the federal government wants it to mean, it cannot serve its original purpose of keeping the government in check. This means the whole point of the Constitution is defeated. The federal government can claim all the powers it wants - which is exactly what has happened.

This is where the argument over Judge Roberts originates. Liberals in the government like Senator Kennedy want a judge who will cater to the “evolving standards” of the Constitution. Kennedy, of course, would be hard-pressed to explain how a standard could be a true standard if it evolves. The other end of the argument is that a Supreme Court justice should interpret the Constitution as it was written. In other words, it should remain as constant as possible.

I personally think the Constitution should be interpreted as literally as is reasonably possible. To use an analogy of why progression or change is wrong, think about it like this: liberals like Kennedy are like termites. They burrow deeper and deeper into the foundation of a house, and then when it finally collapses they shake their heads in confusion.

Hopefully these recent events will wake the American people up to reality. In a perfect world Congress would use the threat of impeachment to get the courts into line. Obviously our world is far from perfect and I doubt any of this would ever materialize, and that’s just fine as far as Washington is concerned.