Replies

This is a state’s rights issue. Justice Thomas was right. Justices Alito and Roberts were also right in that the law legitimately could have been ruled invalid for being too broad.

You see, government and parents are the same thing in America. We are supposed to live in a representative republic where a majority of parents are supposed to be able to set standards for their own communities.

There are many situations where parents (aka the government) have the right to set restrictions on minors, to include restricting constitutional rights, like the 1st Amendment. For example, communities (of parents) can prevent the selling of obscene materials to children.

Some FReepers disagree and state video games are not obscene or harmful to minors, but in a representative republic, we are supposed to respect the right of other communities to make that determination for themselves. We may not always agree with laws passed by different communities, but that doesn’t make those laws unconstitutional.

What amazes me is how some FReepers put the onus on parents to raise children but then take away the power of parents to run their own communities! In other words, blame the parents but take away their authority to act. So each family is supposed to be its own tiny island in the vast sea of our dysfunctional culture. Send the children out like little fish swimming in shark infested waters, and if a shark nabs them, blame the parents. Ah, but whatever we do, don’t let the parents band together to try and protect the children. Oh no. That would be unconstitutional!

What nonsense!

On this celebration of our national Independence I wish to speak to Antonin Scalia and those who follow his judicial philosophy, at least those problem parts of it as I am about to describe.

Mr. Scalia I will be simple.

First objection: The doctrine of Stare Decisis is an amoral doctrine at best and often in these times: immoral. Why? Because no ethics or moral philosophy informs it. It is vacuous.

When men and the culture operate morally it seems an efficient and pleasant method of crafting rulings. But as it becomes used more and more Judges lose sight of the markers, the bounds and metes, that are foundational.

Long chains of prior decisions each one a step further and further away from ideal brings the application of judicial logic to direct opposite of those ideals. Not in all cases, but as men are confused and prone to hubris, greed, and all sorts of motive, it is the nature of the evil influence in the world to shave away at good ideals more often than reinforcing them. So the majority of law, as practiced by Judges in mighty trains of logic based on prior decisions becomes corrupted. The ideals are forgotten, buried, and then the very opposite of those ideals becomes the law as Judges declare it.

Second objection:

No law or ruling upon a case to which the law might apply should ever be absent application of those laws which our Creator established for men, between men and over all the rest of this magnificent creation. The Founders knew that, the Declaration declares that as paramount and explicit:

The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
The Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions

Judge Scalia, when you advise those in your profession to rule without recourse to the self-evident Laws of of Nature and Nature's God, you then allow the Rights of Men which were endowed upon us by our Creator to be ignored, and the ideals of the law that our Founders so desired to Liberate us have now become tyrant oppressors.