American Justice for Americans Citizens Act (Introduced in House)

THOMAS DATABASES ^ | April 1, 2004 | Mr. PAUL (for himself and Mrs. MUSGRAVE)

[taxcontrol]

Nice idea but I'm afraid little more than feel good legislation.

Courts wont listen until the Congress uses it's oversight authority and either starts impeaching rouge Justices or using the budgetary whip to rein in courts.

[Ed Current]

1. Law Review Article
2. The Supreme Court and the Politics of Impeachment by Matthew J. ...
3. It's Time to Hold Federal Judges Accountable -- March 1997 Phyllis ...
4. WallBuilders | Resources | Impeachment of Federal Judges
5. Judicial Tyrants Should Be Impeached

[Prime Choice]

To ensure that the courts interpret the Constitution in the manner that the Framers intended.

Starting with the SECOND AMENDMENT in the BILL OF RIGHTS, if you please.

Anything less renders this bill as nothing but a puff piece.

[DTogo]

Right on!!

[Ed Current]

Anyone who fails to grasp the original meaning of the Second Amendment, see The Revolutionary Second Amendment written by Brent J. McIntosh, Law Clerk, Hon. Dennis Jacobs, United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit:

The revolutionary understanding of the Second Amendment is founded on the idea that the right to bear arms exists to protect the American populace from governmental tyranny. The revolutionary right to bear arms is premised on the normative assertion that while representative government will generally ensure non-tyrannical governance, it is still imperative that the populace retain the means with which to effectuate the most drastic of representative actions: the overthrow of an antidemocratic regime. If other vehicles for popular control of the government (particularly the vote) fail, the right to alter or abolish the government ensures that the citizenry possesses the ultimate trump card in the interaction between the governing and the governed. This so-called "right of revolution"⁽¹⁹⁾ is a fundamentally collective right; it does not exist for just any dissatisfied citizen to attempt overthrow of the government.⁽²⁰⁾

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Prime Choice]

This so-called "right of revolution"(19) is a fundamentally collective right

I don't buy the "collective right" argument. There's no way anyone can argue that "the People" means the People in every amendment except the Second Amendment.

Besides, what part of shall not be infringed don't these jackwits understand?

[Bonddad]

This is a terrible idea.

The US is already enmeshed with various foreign organizations -- especially in the area of trade. For example, NAFTA states that international standards are the minimum standard of all signatories standards.

In addition, this is a blatant attempt by the legislature to begin to whittle away at the Court's discretion.

The argument that the court is violating the will of the people ignores the possibility that the majority may act in an unconstitutional manner. Segregation is a prime example. A majority of Southerners agreed with segregation, yet that action was clearly unconstitutional as the Supreme Court noted in Brown v Board of Education.

[Ed Current]

Democracy by Decree | by Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod

While American neoconservatives use "the war on terror" to impose democracy on the Middle East, two New York Law School professors urge us to rescue democracy here at home. In a newly released book from Yale University Press, "Democracy by Decree," Ross Sandler and David Schoenbrod show how the plaintiff's bar and judges have used consent decrees to take government away from elected officials.

The two law professors know of what they speak. The careers of both as "public interest" attorneys contributed to creating the situation which they now deplore.

Rule by coercive court decree originated with the public school desegregation case, Brown vs. Board of Education. ^{Issues & Views: The <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i> Fraud} Prior to this case, reform relied on persuasion, a balancing of contending interests, and appeals to public opinion. Brown inaugurated a new era of reform coerced by class action lawsuits and judicial decrees.

The result, according to Messrs. Sandler and Schoenbrod, is that law in the U.S. is no longer accountable to the people, because state and local governments have lost both legislative and administrative powers. Schools, welfare agencies, prisons - indeed, practically the entire range of state and local public institutions - are actually controlled by attorneys and judges, not by governors, mayors and the voting public.

Mr. Sandler and Mr. Schoenbrod offer measures that they believe would restore politically accountable law, but American democracy might be too far gone. The will to fight has departed from legislative bodies, and the American people are distracted and uninformed. Legislators, mayors and governors have learned they can avoid making political enemies by letting judges decide divisive issues.

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1. There is not a single judicial precedent in the entire Brown opinion.
2. The Brown opinion was based on the political pressures of the day, not on universal principles like the Rule of Law, Natural Law, morality, equality, justice, truth.
3. The Brown opinion was based on the false social science of racial relativism (all people are equal no matter what they do) and radical liberalism (separation of morality from public policy). The Court even cited what later proved to be the flawed scientific research of Dr. Kenneth Clark and Dr. Mamie Phipps Clark, the famous sociologist team that studied at Howard and received their Ph.D's from Columbia University. Their studies centered on color and how black children favored white dolls as the prettiest as evidence of self-hatred in the black community due to America's history of racial segregation in society. Their research on color and dolls was critical in persuading the Court to adopt the then radical public policy remedy of racial integration of the public schools in America.
4. The Brown opinion was founded on purely Positive Law grounds (secular, man-made law) rather than on Natural Law (morality/legality integrated out of the Judeo-Christian tradition) or on constitutional grounds (particularly the 5th Amendment Due Process Clause, 14th Amendment Privileges and Immunities and Equal Protection Clauses).
5. The Court refused to utilize any of the arguments the Abolitionists had used for over a century because their ideas were based on morality and affirmed the dignity of all God's creation–including black people. The Court thought that the Abolitionist's reasoning about black people being equal to white people on Natural Law, moral, religious or humanitarian grounds as fanatical, provincial and unsophisticated.
6. The Court used humanistic and New Age language, like this: segregation in education must end in America because to keep segregated schools based on race would "hurt the feelings" of "Negroes" and their "self-esteem" and "educational success" would be hindered. In one telling passage the Court quoted from the researcher's brief which was included in the arguments the NAACP presented to the Court: "To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone. . ."

[Ed Current]

I don't buy the "collective right" argument. There's no way anyone can argue that "the People" means the People in every amendment except the Second Amendment.

Besides, what part of shall not be infringed don't these jackwits understand?

You may have misunderstood:

You have the INDIVIDUAL right to possess and bear arms.

You have the COLLECTIVE right to join others under the leadership of lower ranking government officials to revolt.

You don't have a right to assassinate any government official on your own.

Hot Topics - visionforum.org Black's Law Dictionary: Interposition

"The doctrine that a state, in the exercise of its sovereignty, may reject a mandate of the federal government deemed to be unconstitutional or to exceed the powers delegated to the federal government.

The concept is based on the 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States reserving to the states powers not delegated to the United States. Historically, the doctrine emanated from Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 Dallas 419, wherein the state of Georgia, when sued in the Supreme Court by a private citizen of another state, entered a remonstrance and declined to recognize the court's jurisdiction. Amendment 11 validated Georgia's position.

Implementation of the doctrine may be peaceable, as by resolution, remonstrance or legislation, or may proceed ultimately to nullification with forcible resistance."

[Bonddad]

You are correct in stating there is no precedent sited in the case. Thurgood Marshall based his entire argument on the Equal Protection Claus of the 14th Amendment.

"The plaintiffs contend that segregated public schools are not "equal" and cannot be made "equal", and that hence they are deprived of the equal protection of the laws"

This was a new application of a clause that already existed
in the Constitution, but was not used by lawyers because of the Court's decision in the Slaughterhouse cases. Therefore, there is a constitutional dimension to the decision.

The court relied on more information than the Clarks. They rellied on Witmer and Kotinsky, Deutscer and Chein, Bramfield, Frazier and Myrdial, as well as several other authors.

While you quote the first part of a paragraph, you fail to mention "Segregation with the sanction of law, therefore, has the tendency to retard the educational and mental development of the Negro children."
This is central and is true. Place yourself in a black persons position in the rural south in the 1950s. The law tells you you are not equal. At some time you will believe that.
Radical liberalism (separation of morality from public policy). Using this definition, your argument implies that legally enfranchising equality is immoral.

You state the decision is not based on "Natural Law" arising from the Judeo-Christian tradition. Actually, treatment of all people in the same manner is an inherent element of the New Testament -- "Love Your Neighbor as Yourself". This comes directly from the Judeo-Christian Tradition.
The fact that the court went with social science over religion is indicative of the time. There was a greater reliance on science and statistics, as there is today.

[R. Scott]

I guess we can dream.

[OldSgt.]

Ok, Man is man, but what on God's green earth can we the people ever do to ensure the criminals that are running this mess stop being themselves. Is the answer, Nothing???
and don't tell me just to vote them out.

[Ed Current]

Thurgood Marshall based his entire argument on the Equal Protection Claus of the 14th Amendment.

Lino A. Graglia, A. Dalton Cross professor of the University of Texas School of Law:

"....Hope once lay in the making of new appointments, but the failure of ten consecutive appointments by four Republican Presidents to change the direction established by the Warren Court has shown this hope, too, to be unreliable. Rule by judges can certainly be solved by abolishing judicial review, but the real problem resides less in judicial review as such than in the Court's reading of the Fourteenth Amendment as a text without any definite meaning. That problem could be solved either by returning the Fourteenth Amendment to its original meaning or by giving it any definite meaning, thus making it a judicially enforceable rule." ^{The Committee for Justice}

 

For the history and thorough refutation of the Incorporation Doctrine, see the following: The Ten Commandments and the Ten Amendments: A Case Study in Religious Freedom in Alabama, 49 Ala. L. Rev.434-754 (1998)., Jaffree v. Board of School Commissioners of Mobile County (1983), Rehnquist's Dissent in Wallace v Jaffree (1985) ,Government by Judiciary: The Transformation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Second Edition, Raoul Berger, Forrest McDonald , Liberty Fund, Inc.; 2nd edition (June 1997), The Fourteenth Amendment and the Bill of Rights; The Incorporation Theory, Charles Fairman, Stanley Morrison, Leonard Williams Levy, Da Capo Press , January 1970

[LinnieBeth]

Courts wont listen until the Congress uses it's oversight authority and either starts impeaching rouge Justices or using the budgetary whip to rein in courts.

Amen, now if we can just get the our legislatures to crack down. How can we do that?

[Bonddad]

Your reply implies to me a sense of desperation regarding the current situation. I personally don't see that. For example, I hear a some people mention that politicians are in special interest's pockets. They have always been in this position. Politicians were beholden to the railroads in the late 1800s, the utilities in the 1930s etc.... In effect, nothing has fundamentally changed except the players.

I am guessing you are referring to the idea of "judicial activism" in the courts, especially in issues like abortion and gay marriage. Personally, I agree with both of those decisions. Regarding abortion, the history of Supreme Court precedents clearly indicates reproduction autonomy is a substantive due process right. Regarding gay marriage, not letting a group of people fully utilize certain legal avenues is a violation of equal protection. You may not like it, but I think it's a correct legal decision.

[Ed Current]

1. The Liberty Committee
2. United States Representative John N. Hostettler, Eighth District 8th District of Indiana

[Ed Current]

Regarding abortion, the history of Supreme Court precedents clearly indicates reproduction autonomy is a substantive due process right.

Rehnquist, "Roe V. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)," "To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.

There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted. The only conclusion possible from this history is that the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter." ^{http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113}

[Ed Current]

Link fix JUDICIAL TYRANTS SHOULD BE IMPEACHED

Judge Robert Bork warned that lawless Courts are "engaged in civil disobedience, a disobedience arguably more dangerous, because more insidious and hence more damaging to democratic institutions, than the civil disobedience of the streets." The Battle of Bunker Hill was not fought and the Founders did not pledge their "lives, fortunes and sacred honor" to empower federal judges to twist, as Jefferson said, the Constitution into any form they please. If constitutional liberties are to be restored and republican government preserved, Congress must utilize its constitutional impeachment power.

(Bill Graves is a lawyer and a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.)