On Stolen Valor and Sinister Judges

Oh! There’s that awful smell again! I believe it’s coming from the judiciary! For decades, leftists have been worming their way into the legal system and slithering onto court benches. And now they have infested the system to the point where we are now seeing an almost daily assault on our liberties, traditions, borders—pretty much our entire American way of life—coming from outrageous court rulings, and it stinks to high heaven!

I had planned to write a short piece on the activist Colorado judge’s ruling from a couple of weeks ago which declared the Stolen Valor Act unconstitutional. But before I could write my column, the activist judge in Phoenix gutted Arizona’s anti-illegal alien legislation, until it can work its way through the other courts. That’s just great! I feel like we’re living in a virtual dictatorship where judges are now regularly and single-handedly issuing the most egregious rulings, whether the rulings respect reality, the Constitution and we the people, or not.

By now, you’ve heard plenty about U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton’s ruling which flies in the face of, not just common sense in our country, but the will of the people and government of Arizona.

"Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked."

What? “Lawfully-present aliens” will have their liberty restricted while their status is checked? You mean, in the same way that each of us has our liberty restricted when our “status” is being checked at a road block or when we’re pulled over for a traffic violation? You know, it takes a little while to run our driver’s license and car tag, too. That “loss of liberty” is the same inconvenience we all face at one time or another.

Okay. So this tyrannical Obama administration gets its way for now on this one. Illegal aliens are not really illegal in Arizona by activist judicial fiat. Oh, you and I still have to produce our papers when asked, but not the hordes of foreign invaders! Can you say, “November?!” Please!

The other ruling I’m writing about is the decision by U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn in Denver who ruled that the Stolen Valor Act is “facially unconstitutional,” because he sees it as a violation of free speech. In case you don’t know, the Stolen Valor Act makes it a crime to lie about receiving military medals and decorations. It carries a punishment from a fine to 6 months in prison.

The case before the judge was that of Rick Strandlof, who falsely claimed he was an Iraq war veteran. Felica Cardona, writing for the Denver Post reported,

“Strandlof, 32, was charged with five misdemeanors related to violating the Stolen Valor Act — specifically, making false claims about receiving military decorations.

He posed as Rick Duncan, a wounded Marine captain who received a Purple Heart and a Silver Star. Strandlof used that persona to found the Colorado Veterans Alliance and solicit funds for the organization.

Actual veterans who served on the board were suspicious of his claims and reported him to the FBI.”

So, this judge sides with the ACLU and other civil liberties groups in basically claiming that it’s not a crime to lie. And get this. One of the Colorado ACLU lawyers, Chris Beall, wrote a friend-of-the-court brief, in which he said,

Beall then goes on to point out that Strandlof was not charged with theft of any money from the veterans group. He said,

“That’s plain-old, regular-vanilla everyday fraud, and we do prosecute that every day. Congress does not need a special statute to prevent people from using false claims of valor in order to prevent fraud.”

Well, what do you know! Not to change the subject here, but as a side note, that is quite similar to our arguments against so-called “hate crimes” legislation. We already have laws on the books for violence against people, why add a special class of protected citizens based on real or perceived motivation?

So, the bottom line here is that this nutty judge has declared lying to be protected speech. In what world does this man live? There most certainly are laws against lying. When you go up on the witness stand in court to testify, if you lie, buddy, I guarantee that’s not you practicing your freedom of speech! You can go to jail for lying on the witness stand. Or, try lying to a cop who pulls you over, and see how that works for you. It’ll be fine! Just tell him you’re practicing your freedom of speech!

So these slimy ACLU guys want to nitpick the Stolen Valor Act to say that since this guy did not lie about receiving medals in order to cheat others out of money—that’s okay. His despicable lying is just his 1^st Amendment right. Maybe what they’re really doing is trying to get cover for all the rat politicians who keep getting caught lying about their fake military service.

The out-of-control, leftist judges may be the end of our country yet. I hope it’s not too late to stop them.

This is a tricky case, because, as the article states, there wasn’t any fraud committed, so it’s hard to show there is some compelling reason to limit speech. To say that lying isn’t protected speech because of perjury laws is a little simplistic, since the government has a compelling interest to limit speech in that circumstance, since it would interfere with a legitimate government function. There’s no such compelling interest, that I can think of, to stop a guy from going around lying about his military service.

A better argument would be to say it’s akin to impersonating a police officer. In that case, doing so can cause a “clear and present danger” to the public that the government must prevent. Since he wasn’t posing as an active-duty soldier or interfering with any military operations, I think that would be pretty difficult to prove. As disgusting as the impersonator’s actions were, you need a better argument than that they were despicable if you want to get around the 1st Amendment.

“The First Amendment protects speech we don’t like. We don’t need the First Amendment for speech people like. The government cannot criminalize a statement simply because it is false, no matter how important the statement is.”

So I guess this judge, immediately acted on the amicus brief and releaseed anyone in prison or under indictment for perjury? (Do these "lawyers" even think about what they are writing?)

"To say that lying isn’t protected speech because of perjury laws is a little simplistic, since the government has a compelling interest to limit speech in that circumstance, since it would interfere with a legitimate government function."

My wife, who is an Army veteran, has received thousands of dollars in medical care from the VA over the last year. It is specifically her claim to veterans status the entitles her to that benefit. I'd say the government would have a compelling interest in limiting false speech in that instance.

Based on my personal experiences with some lawyers, many of them don’t even show up to trial prepared for the case at hand. Given that, I think one could assume that sometimes they just don’t start their brains before they engage their keyboards.

But what can we do to get rid of these idiot Federal Judges?

Is there a recall or impeachment process? I hate to say “We need a law” but if you have certain judges whose decisions are often overturned by some higher court, maybe congress should have some way to remove them for their incompetence and activism.

I wonder if the judge would find that the First Amendment protected someone going to the news media, calling themselves “judge,” and falsely claiming years of service as a federal judge, with episodes of bribe taking and other forms of misconduct.

Yeah, and the fact that people are even thinking along your lines is a sad state of affairs.

My article did not even address the moral aspects of lying. Why did God see fit to include lying in his Top Ten list?

Of course, to leftists who wish to deconstruct our Constitution, Bill of Rights and American way of life, such questions of right and wrong are simply points to be picked apart, dissected and dissolved into meaninglessness. The left loves lying—lives on it, in fact—and wants lying to lose its “stigma.” Thus, they use our very own Constitutions, rights and freedoms against us.

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