Court Finally Gets One Right

I have been fairly critical of the United States Supreme Court in recent days, especially since they have shown no respect for legislative process. However, events this morning have caused a need for some kudos, after they finally got a judgement correct. According to Reuters news service, the Supreme Court struck down the Washington, D.C gun ban, in Heller v. the District of Columbia, declaring that the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution does indeed guarantee an individual right to own guns.

According to Reuters,

In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia said the Second Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.

Although an individual now has a constitutional right to own guns, that new right is not unlimited, wrote Scalia, a hunter.

He said the ruling should not be taken to cast doubt on long-standing prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill or on laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in places like schools and government buildings or laws imposing conditions on gun sales.

Honestly, this should have been an easy call. The Second Amendment is one of the shortest and clearest parts of the entire document. As quoted from the National Archives it says,

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

While liberals try to obfuscate the issues with the explanation of the Amendments that mentions the need for a militia, the basic text states "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This is pretty blunt, and unlike some Supreme Court decisions (Boumediene and Kelo come to mind, not even mentioning Roe) is completely supported by the Constitution's text itself. No foreign law, no waffling from leftists trying to disarm Americans so as to more easily impose their own brand of Communism. It is almost impossible to misconstrue the meaning of the Second Amendment and I am delighted to see that five justices actually had no problem understanding the clear meaning of the actual text itself.

Of course, we should worry that four justices (Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens and Breyer) somehow cannot understand the plain language of the Amendment. They are capable of inventing new rights out of thin air for unlawful combatants, and rewriting parts of the Constitution with which they disagree (Kelo), yet when it comes to one of the clearest parts of the actual Constitution, they are unable to understand its clear import.

This ultimately, is why elections matter. Since Congress has abrogated its Constitutional role of judicial oversight, the only way to guarantee that the Constitution is upheld is to appoint strict constructionists, and the only party that shows any signs of doing that is the Republican Party- the Democrats prefer to appoint people who want to change the Constitution- not uphold it. So to all my conservative and libertarian friends whoa re considering sitting out the 2008 Presidential election, i say that although John McCain is not perhaps the candidate we would prefer, he is infinitely preferable to Barack Obama.

Supreme Court: Criminals Have More Rights Than Victims

In yet another disgraceful decision today, the Supreme Court once again ignored the will of the people and declared that criminals have more rights than their victims. In this case, the defendant was a man convicted of raping his then-eight year old daughter. I believ that there is no one among us- especially of those who have children in their lives- who would disagree that this is a monstrous crime. A child by definitiion is an innocent who is powerless to defend oneself. And the State of Louisiana had passed a law stating that the deserved punishment of such a crime is death. Yet the Court's majority- Souter, Kennedy, Breyer, Stevens and Ginsburg- have decided that this is a mere peccadillo and the criminal should be allowed to subsist on taxpayer funds for the remainder of his life instead of receiving his just desserts. In so doing, they have essentially made it impossible to impose the death penalty on anything- despite a move nationwide back towards a tougher attitude towards criminals

Since Congress cannot or will not exercise it's Constitutional power to rebuke the Court for these kinds of decisions, we must accustom ourselves to this type of judicial over-reach. I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that there is no valid legal reason for the Court to overturn the State of Lousiana's elected representatives' decision in this case. According to Yahoo! News,

"The death penalty is not a proportional punishment for the rape of a child," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in his majority opinion.

Again, if death is not a proportional punishment for raping a child, I don't know what is. The Supreme Court (in the person of these same justices) has already decided that raping an adult woman is OK- they have outlawed the death penalty for that as well. Now they have declared open season on children. If a criminal knows that there is no chance he will face death for raping children, there is no incentive for him to refrain from doing exactly that. Life in prison? No problem- he knows that after say ten or fifteen years, the same bleeding hearts who allowed him to live will ensure his early release because after all- he's only a rapist, not a real criminal.

It is interesting how the media and womens' rights groups are completely silent on this case, where once again, women's protections are stripped away. One would think that the safety of women and children would be important to so-called liberals. Instead, they have once again proven that they care only for the rights of predators- victims are not important. If you are female, the Court has declared open season on you- and now, they have extended that open season to children- the very people that they ought most to protect. If I were a Supreme Court justice, I would be ashamed of myself, but these five have proven before that shame is not in their repertoire.

More Thoughts On Boumediene

So the Supreme Court has decided that our rights belong to our enemies, not to us, with their decision in the case of Boumediene v. Bush. Yesterday, after reading the decision, I posted my thoughts on this despicable and completely unconstitutional decision and I remain convinced that with this decision, the Supreme Court has laid the germ of the United States' eventual destruction. And of course they have fulfilled the wishes of the media and the left-wing Democrats who so badly want their own country to lose and fall under the control of fundamentalist Islam. The most disturbing part of this scene is that they have managed to prevail in spite of our brave soldiers actually winning the war on the ground. However, facts are irrelevant to the media and their allies in the legal profession. They have handed eventual victory to Islam in their centuries-old war to destroy all opposition to their imperial religion.

The Constitution does not set up judges as the ultimate arbiters of power in this country. There have been bad Supreme Court decisions before- anyone recall Dred Scott? However, there is nothing preventing the President from refusing to enforce any Supreme Court decision that is based either in bad law or that breaks the Constitution's separation of powers. This decision quite clearly does both- it is based on absolutely no precedent that I can discover (no previous cases have ever conferred access to US courts to aliens captured in combat, either lawful or unlawful combatants), and it over-rides the President's Constitutional powers as Commander-in-Chief. It also over-rides Congress' powers to legislate as they have twice passed legislation stripping the courts of jurisdiction over enemy alien combatants- most recently in 2006.

However, none of that appears to matter to five justices on the Supreme Court, as they have decided that the people and their representatives must not be allowed to make decisions- only the unelected, unaccountable justices of the Court are allowed that right. As they did in striking down the Fifth Amendment in the near-equally disgraceful Kelo decision, the justices have once again flouted the Constitution they are sworn to serve, have violated the wishes of the people via their elected representatives and most shockingly, have ignored the fact that Congress twice specifically removed jurisdiction from them. None of this stopped five justices of the Court from imposing their own wishes over those of the vast majority of their fellow Americans.

I repeat- when Islam achieves its goal of complete control over the United States and the rest of the Western, civilized world, those to blame will be the lawyers who fought so hard to give them access to the reins of power, the media who covered for them, and told Americans ceaselessly that we were the bad guys, and the elected politicians (especially those in the Democratic Party) who were too craven to assert their own Constitutional rights and instead allowed these five judges to over-ride centuries of law and the prerogatives of Congress itself.

Supreme Court Snatches Defeat From Victory

Well, it has occurred. I cannot say I am surprised, but I am disappointed. I was hoping that at least one justice would actually read the Constitution before opening the floodgates of litigation by giving rights that are intended for U.S. citizens to people who meet none of the criteria for such rights. Yes, you heard me correctly. Today the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 decision, announced that the inmates of Guantanamo Bay, people who by definition in the Geneva Conventions signed by the United States of America are not eligible for any such rights, are eligible for the right of habeus corpus and are allowed to sue the US government in US federal courts. By so doing, with one stroke they have managed to hand the Islamic imperialist forces the victory that they could not win on the battlefield.

I quote the Geneva Convention as follows- see for yourself if our enemies in al Quaeda and Iraq fall into one of the following categories:

Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

(4) Persons who accompany the armed forces without actually being members thereof, such as civilian members of military aircraft crews, war correspondents, supply contractors, members of labour units or of services responsible for the welfare of the armed forces, provided that they have received authorization, from the armed forces which they accompany, who shall provide them for that purpose with an identity card similar to the annexed model.

(5) Members of crews, including masters, pilots and apprentices, of the merchant marine and the crews of civil aircraft of the Parties to the conflict, who do not benefit by more favourable treatment under any other provisions of international law.

(6) Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.

B. The following shall likewise be treated as prisoners of war under the present Convention:
(1) Persons belonging, or having belonged, to the armed forces of the occupied country, if the occupying Power considers it necessary by reason of such allegiance to intern them, even though it has originally liberated them while hostilities were going on outside the territory it occupies, in particular where such persons have made an unsuccessful attempt to rejoin the armed forces to which they belong and which are engaged in combat, or where they fail to comply with a summons made to them with a view to internment.

(2) The persons belonging to one of the categories enumerated in the present Article, who have been received by neutral or non-belligerent Powers on their territory and whom these Powers are required to intern under international law, without prejudice to any more favourable treatment which these Powers may choose to give and with the exception of Articles 8, 10, 15, 30, fifth paragraph, 58-67, 92, 126 and, where diplomatic relations exist between the Parties to the conflict and the neutral or non-belligerent Power concerned, those Articles concerning the Protecting Power. Where such diplomatic relations exist, the Parties to a conflict on whom these persons depend shall be allowed to perform towards them the functions of a Protecting Power as provided in the present Convention, without prejudice to the functions which these Parties normally exercise in conformity with diplomatic and consular usage and treaties.

This is so disappointing on so many levels it is difficult for me to begin. I think that if I were the President, I would order the troops to shoot ever single inmate at Guantanamo- immediately. After all, since these people have now outlived their usefulness, and will soon be released into American society with (probably) American citizenship (can't deny these poor mistreated people the privileges of US citizenship since the Court has decided to give them every other right). I am sure the Court will do everything in its power now to ensure that these people receive millions of dollars for their 'mistreatment'- never mind that these are the same people who planned and executed 9/11- and will soon have a plan in place to allow them to settle down in the very country thy so badly wish to destroy. When America finally falls, as so many other great cultures have fallen to Islam, it will be the Democrats, the leftist legal profession and the media who will bear all the blame, since they seem determined to take Americans' privileges away and give them to people who do not deserve them.

As far as this disgraceful ruling goes, I think that Michelle Malkin hit the nail on the head. She wrote on her site,

What’s that sound? The thunder of left-wing lawyers and Gitmo detainees jumping up and down for joy at the Supreme Court’s ruling this morning. Brace yourselves. Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia warns that the ruling “will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed” and concludes “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today. I dissent.”

Chief Justice John Roberts says the rule of law and the American people have lost out–and with this ruling, we “lose a bit more control over the conduct of this Nation’s foreign policy to unelected, politically unaccountable judges.”

I could not agree more. I think that with this decision, the Court has finally succeeded in doing what Osama Bin Laden could not- deliver victory in this war to Islam. It won't be immediate, but this country is doomed. The Left has got their hands on the true power, since Congress and the President will not exercise their right as equal branches to the Court to refuse to recognize illegal decisions such as this one which have no basis whatsoever in the Constitution itself. The Founders clearly did not intend for non-lawful combatants and illegal aliens to qualify for the same rights as American citizens. Now that the Court has handed those rights over to the worst possible group of detainees, how long will it be before legitimate prisoners of War- those who DO meet the criteria contained in the Geneva Conventions- start suing in federal courts? Malkin says it will not be long and I sadly agree.

To those who have a way out of this country, I strongly advise that you begin looking at your options. To those who don't, I suggest you start practicing your shooting- you will need your defences once sharia takes control, aided and abetted by the same lawyers and so-called 'elites' who were so eager to hand over our rights to our enemies. America has fallen at last, and it is now only a matter of time before Islam replaces the Constitution with Sharia law, since our own elected officials and these unelected judges would rather ignore the Constitution to hand out our rights to our enemies than actually do something to protect their own country. As Byzantium before us, we are doomed, due to our own self-loathing elites. If you happen to have a moment, read Sir Steven Runciman's The Fall of Constntinople. It details the fall of Constantinople, once one of Christendom's proudest empires, but which was eventually delivered to Islam by its own leaders and allies- just as we are being delivered to Islam.

And as an aside, when you are looking for places to retreat, don't choose Europe. Without our protection, Europe hasn't a chance of surviving. They are a lot further down the path of self-destruction than we. Pick a nation that has some nationalistic pride, like China or Japan. But make sure that you pick one that will fight, because I don't think any of us would want to live under Islam's sharia law- it is even harsher to non-Muslims than it is to Muslims. I wonder how the so-progressive Left will enjoy living under what they have brought us? I almost wish that I would live to see that event, but I am saddened by knowing that my son will be forced to live in a world where the United States no longer exists as such.

So farewell to the Great Experiment! Farewell America! She has endured for over two centuries, but now her own elites, encouraged by the people's ignorance and inattention, have delivered her to her enemies and now it is only a matter of time before they manage to hand over the remainder of what once were considered the rights of Americans. To be shortly followed, no doubt, by the reins of power to the medieval clerics who want to take us all back to the Middle Ages. it was a great ride, but like so many other cultures before us, we have been destroyed from inside by our own ignorance, stupidity and pride.