Despotism In Adolescence...

The Supreme Court Abandons Reason for Whim.

Mr.Atos

If this site maintained a 'Quote of The Week" posting, it would be torn at present between two notable statements, made by distinctly different characters, yet pertainining to the same condition. The first was made by Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday, and can be paraphrased this way:

'The Left believes they are smarter than reality!' - R. Limbaugh, March 1, 2005

That statement deserves a place in the notebooks of history to be certain. But, the next statement, expressed by Justice Antonin Scalia as a dissenting opinion in the case, Roper vs. Simmons, regarding juvenile executions for Capital crimes, is one for the annals of American History.

"The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards--and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent."

The United States Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, ruled to uphold the vacancy of the Missouri State Supreme Court of its own prior unanimous decision to uphold the execution of a 17 year-old juvenile defendant for a premeditated act of savage brutality culminating in murder. In effect, it overturned all statutes that apply the death sentence to 16- and 17 yearold murderers. Tony Blankley, in his column at Townhall today, describes the majority position of the SCOTUS between citizens and justice, quite appropriately:

The question before the Supreme Court was whether this [pending execution] presented a case of cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment to our Constitution. No, the court was not concerned with whether being assaulted in your home, wrapped in a towel, duct tape and electrical wire, and thrown off a bridge was cruel and unusual punishment. That's OK. The Court is only concerned with whether it was cruel and unusual to execute the strapping 17-year-old murderer who did it.

Blankley includes a brief description of the defendent and his crime. It should be read by everyone.

The crime, as described yesterday by Justice Kennedy in Roper v. Simmons, writing for the majority:

At the age of 17, when he was still a junior in high school, Christopher Simmons ... committed murder ... There is little doubt that Simmons was the instigator of the crime. Before its commission, Simmons said he wanted to murder someone. In chilling, callous terms he talked about his plan with his friends ... Simmons proposed to commit burglary and murder by breaking and entering, tying up a victim and throwing the victim off a bridge. Simmons assured his friends they could "get away with it" because they were minors.

Writing in his Majority decision, Justice Kennedy, struggles to find justification of his 'feelings' beyond the majority of united States and instead probes the abitrary body of International Law... a loose amaglamation of preferences, practices, desires and edicts from democratic socialists republics to third-world dictatorships.

I turn, finally, to the Court's discussion of foreign and international law. Without question, there has been a global trend in recent years towards abolishing capital punishment for under-18 offenders. Very few, if any, countries other than the United States now permit this practice in law or in fact. See ante, at 22-23. While acknowledging that the actions and views of other countries do not dictate the outcome of our Eighth Amendment inquiry, the Court asserts that "the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty ... does provide respected and significant confirmation for [its] own conclusions." Ante, at 24. Because I do not believe that a genuine national consensus against the juvenile death penalty has yet developed, and because I do not believe the Court's moral proportionality argument justifies a categorical, age-based constitutional rule, I can assign no such confirmatory role to the international consensus described by the Court.

In a previous post (Let Slip the Dogs... ), I made the point that The Left has rejected rational principle in favor of pragmatic consensus...

In the contemporary era, the Left has discarded truth in favor dogmatic consensus. Principles are established on the basis of pragmatic convenience and political advantage. Concepts are rendered by situational imperatives, contradictions are ignored, and precepts never existed. The Left has established its own religion - a doctrine of moral relativism.

Kennedy's own statement confirms this presumption, noting a quest for consensual approval favoring a decision that required rationalization, in face of its overwhelming irrationality. What was established in the body of United States Law in perpetuity is a 'Moral' decision based on no Principle. In effect, the decision will act like rot in the fruit of U.S. jurisprudence.

Mark R. Levin, in a recent post at The Corner, further illustrates the Constitutional ignorance of members of the U.S. Supreme Court as personified by Justice Kennedy's history of erratic logic.

I think a good argument can be made that Anthony Kennedy has "evolved" into the most activist of the justices. Here are some of his pearls of wisdom, demonstrating his complete contempt for the Constitution and his role as a justice:Lawrence v. Texas (homosexual sodomy):

"Freedom extends beyond spatial bounds. Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression, and certain intimate conduct. The instant case involves liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensinos. "The petitioners are entitled to respect for their private lives. The State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime. Their right to liberty under the Due Process Clause gives them the full right to engage in their conduct without intervention of the government ... The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual."

Planned Parenthood v. Casey (abortion) (attributed to Kennedy): "These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteeth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State."

Roper v. Simmons (juvenile death penalty): "When a juvenile offender commits a heinous crime, the state can exact forfeiture of some of the most basic liberties, but the state cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity."

This kind of argumentation is standard fare on the Oprah Winfrey Show, but not from a Supreme Court justice who cares about faithfully executing his constitutional role.

Despotism has been reborn in this nation, in the form of judicial tyranny in the hands of Activist judges appointed and supported by the world Left. Their's is an agenda that defies reality in favor of a preferential existence that cannot be maintained. It is a chimera founded on delusions regarding human nature that have repeatedly resulted throughout history in atrocities of horrific proportion. By assuming the roles of moderator to a reality with which they disagree, Leftists risk superimposing conditional priorities over the inalienable preconditions of human existence. They repeatedly choose to defy the reason of logic in philosophic principle, thereby subjecting Americans and the world to the abattoir of arbitray whim in the hands of any charlattan who can muster stronger consensus (more guns) than the other thugs. It leads to an age far darker than any known before. This despotism is past its infancy and well into adolescence. It must be stopped now before maturing to devour Mankind by the millions... again.

A behemoth grows from the inane sensibilities of small men like Justice Kennedy and his Supreme consensus of useful idiots.