If you chose to believe government propaganda outlets like Fox News, odds are that you believe that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is an example of “Judicial activism run amok.”
And you’d be wrong.
The three judge panel of the court was made up of two Republican nominees and one Democratic nominee. The phrase “Under God” was added to a religiously neutral pledge of allegiance in 1954 when another nearly brain-dead Republican, President Eisenhower, thought that it would be pretty neat to put such a phrase in a white, Christian, freedom loving nation like the U.S.
The judges were required to decide if the phrase “Under God” amounted to a government endorsement of monotheism.
The Constitution of the United States mentions religion in only one instance. In the First Amendment, among many guarantees of freedom is it the freedom to worship. Specifically, congress shall pass no law …
You should know the rest if you are a true patriot.
The contrapositive of the freedom to worship is the freedom not to worship. This is a clear-cut case of the government endorsing monotheism against the bounds of the Constitution. There is absolutely no judicial activism in this case. The Constitution says that the government needs to stay out of the religion business.
Reading the letter of the law and enforcing the letter of the law and reinforcing the letter of the law and keeping your personal feelings out of a judgment is called judicial restraint–something that conservatives claim to be the most virtuous trait of a judge.
The White House Muppet, Ari Fleischer, said that W was dismayed. After all, God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and a whole bunch of other documents. The Republicrats added more evidence to the theory that the word partisan and the word bullshit are related beyond the fact that each have eight letters by reciting the pledge of allegiance on the steps of the capital. Anyone that could get a camera pointed at their face expressed contempt at the circuit court judges that made the hard choice of reading the law rather than interpreting the political winds.
Can anyone sit back and say that these judges made their decisions easily? Without a doubt, each judge knew that they were going to walk straight into a shit storm. They made the right decision because the law was wrong in 1954 and it’s wrong now. Ordinary people and politicians–especially politicians– can go straight to hell.
Each and every person that yelled judicial activism was certainly smart enough to know full well that the judges acted with tremendous restraint. They all chanted the similar nonsense that the judges were out of touch with reality and out of touch with the way Americans feel.
Besides defining the true nature of judicial activism and offering all of the evidence anyone needed to see that no judicial activism occurred, the politicians demonstrated exactly why judicial activism is so dangerous. Striking down a law or of failing to strike one down for the sole purpose of catering to political winds and/or a fear of mob rule is not a country that anyone in their right mind should want to live in.
The Supreme Court is notorious for their militant adherence to the philosophy of judicial restraint. The Conservative movement will reap what they have sown when the high court upholds the 9th Circuit ruling. The Supreme Court justices were there before W and they will be there and long time after W.
Simply believing in God, as I suspect most people–including the judges of the 9th Circuit–do, does not mean that this ruling was incorrect and immoral. It definitely does not warrant any impeachment trial as most conservatives are calling for. And barring an astounding defiance of the sacred mantra of judicial restraint, the Supreme Court will uphold the ruling. You can put money on that.
