© Joshua Roberts / Reuters
US Supreme Court in Washington, DC
Democrats are in a state of sheer panic.
They're panicking because last week, Justice Anthony Kennedy -- a reliable vote in favor of certain leftist priorities including abortion and same-sex marriage -- announced that he will step down from the Supreme Court, leaving President Trump a second selection. This apparently will lead to the end of a free America. According to Jeffrey Toobin of CNN, the remade Supreme Court will spell doom: "Abortion illegal, doctors prosecuted, gay people barred from restaurants, hotels, stores; African-Americans out of elite schools, gun control banned in 50 states, the end of regulatory state."
None of this is true, of course. It simply demonstrates the wild overreach to which the left has subjected the judicial branch to date.
The judicial branch was never meant to act as a superlegislature, using the verbiage of the Constitution in order to implement preferred policy prescriptions. In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton expressed the idea well: "The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body."
Substituting will for judgment would make the case for utterly dissolving the judicial branch.
Yet, according to the Democrats, the Supreme Court should exercise will instead of judgment. The role of the court, according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is to help expedite change in our society: "Our society would be strait-jacketed were not the courts, with the able assistance of the lawyers, constantly overhauling the law and adapting it to the realities of ever-changing social, industrial and political conditions." Justice Elena Kagan believes the same thing, which is why she constantly describes the Constitution as "abstract," leaving her room to interpret it as poetry rather than statute.
Comment: The US military is not welcome in Okinawa due to rampant crimes against the citizens. Protests and rallies have been ongoing for many years but the US never seems to get the message. See also: