Posted on 08/12/2003 3:06:38 PM PDT by LibertyAndJusticeForAll
We live in a global economy, right? But the elites mouthing this mantra haven't shared with the U.S. people the news that globalism not only means open borders for the movement of goods and the migration of peoples, but also textbooks teaching children to be citizens of the world instead of patriots.
Globalism also means bending the U.S. Constitution to conform to the opinions of foreigners who pompously enunciate new laws and new human rights. The utterings of these self-important bureaucrats in the United Nations and Europe could be merely matters for TV humor if it were not that U.S. Supreme Court Justices Steven G. Breyer, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens take them seriously.
Breyer gleefully told George Stephanopoulos, a former White House adviser during the Clinton administration, on ABC News how the United States is changing "through commerce and through globalization ... (and) through immigration," and that this change is having an impact on the courts. He speculated on "the challenge" of whether our U.S. Constitution "fits into the governing documents of other nations."
Where did he get the idea that the U.S. Constitution should fit into the laws of other nations? If a country can't make its own laws, how can it be a sovereign nation?
In a dissent in Knight vs. Florida, Breyer said it was "useful" to consider court decisions on allowable delays of execution in India, Jamaica and Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe, indeed, has had a lot of experience with executions, but it's hardly a country from which we should get guidance about due process.
Kennedy couldn't find language in the U.S. Constitution to justify overturning the Texas sodomy law in Lawrence vs. Texas, so he invoked "other authorities" in "Western civilization," namely, the European Court of Human Rights, which invalidated EU countries' domestic laws proscribing homosexual conduct. Kennedy cited an amicus brief filed by Mary Robinson, former United Nations high commissioner for human rights.
Kennedy wrote, "The right the petitioners seek (to engage in sodomy) has been accepted as an integral part of human freedom in many other countries," and he emphasized the "values we share with a wider civilization." In fact, most other countries do not share American values, and Americans don't want to share theirs.
Reading foreign court decisions no doubt contributed to Kennedy's reliance on "emerging awareness ... in matters pertaining to sex" instead of on the Constitution. Four justices joined in Kennedy's majority decision without distancing themselves from his globalist reasoning or his false recitation of U.S. history of sodomy laws.
Justice Antonin Scalia eloquently dissented: "Constitutional entitlements do not spring into existence ... because foreign nations decriminalize conduct." He called Kennedy's words "dangerous dicta," adding that the Supreme Court "should not impose foreign moods, fads or fashions on Americans."
Of course, the Supreme Court should not. But it did. Is the Court now going to use Canada's fad about same-sex marriages to overturn the laws of our 50 states?
Instead of condemning Kennedy's use of foreign courts to change U.S. laws, A.P. Carlton Jr., the president of the American Bar Association, opined, "the concept of fundamental law knows no national boundaries." Sounding off from left field, Harvard professor Laurence Tribe chimed in to "applaud" the "important insights" of the "global legal community."
Ginsburg and Breyer, concurring in Grutter vs. Bollinger, cited a treaty to justify the University of Michigan Law School's affirmative action. They wrote: "The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, ratified by the United States in 1994 ... endorses special and concrete measures to ensure the adequate development and protection of certain racial groups ... for the purpose of guaranteeing them the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
When the Senate ratified that treaty under pressure from the Clinton administration, 30 years after President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed it, I wonder if anyone predicted that it would require U.S. schools to impose reverse discrimination based on race.
In Atkins vs. Virginia, Stevens' majority opinion cited an amicus brief from the European Union. The EU warned us, Stevens wrote, that "within the world community, the imposition of the death penalty for crimes committed by mentally retarded offenders is overwhelmingly disapproved."
Scalia retorted, "The views of other nations cannot be imposed upon Americans." But five justices did impose foreign views on us.
It is obvious why the Democrats filibuster judicial nominees they suspect of being a strict constructionist. Democrats love an activist judiciary because court decisions can make fundamental changes against the will of U.S. citizens and their elected representatives.
It is also obvious why Democrats like United Nations treaties. Activist judges can use them to circumvent our Constitution and laws - and diminish U.S. sovereignty.
The Feds have used this trick to gain municipal police powers over things like duck hunting and industrial hemp.
The US is under no legal compulsion to take any other national or international body's statutes into consideration.
True.
We can choose to incorporate Euro-socialist political ideas into our Constitution, through the amendment process, but that's the only way they should be able to get there.
I think their behavior is grounds for impeachment. Our Constitution wasn't written to seek the approval of foreigners.
Judicial activism is bad enough, but I see the interpretation of the Constitution in light of foreign laws and attitudes as treason.
So, which Constitutional Rights are YOU willing to give up?
Well, I'd be willing to consider not having the right to not have British troops quartered in my house, but I'd have to think about it.
I agree with the process as you described, but sure don't agree with the idea of doing it.
If the Euro-socialists' lunatic ideas had had to survive anything like the amendment process described in the Constitution, they'd never have been adopted there, let alone here.
Remember - a majority of the population supports the death penalty, in most European states.
The only political idea I've seen come out of Europe in the last 200 years that I think worth listening to are the referendum provisions in the Swiss Constitution.
50,000 voters or eight cantons can petition that any proposed law be subjected to a referendum, which requires that it receive a majority of the vote in a majority of the cantons before taking effect.
Doesn't that harken back to a democracy vs a republic though?
Nope.
Swiss referenda can only block proposed laws, they can't create new ones.
That's not what my Constitution says.
Article. VI.
Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
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