7th Circuit Federal Judge: Studying Constitution is a Waste of Time

He has a good point about the SCOTUS being too uniform in background, but his remarks about the Constitution ought to be grounds for removal from office. They ought to be seen, in other words, as disqualifying for the office he holds.
“I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries — well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments),” he wrote. “Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.”

He added, “let’s not let the dead bury the living.”
Sounds like a remedial course in Aristotle's Politics would be helpful. There's a reason constitutions -- not just ours -- are an important feature in keeping a government from turning toxic. To whit, they restrain the class that exercises power from pursuing its own interests instead of the common good. Constitutions represent a permanent statement about the will of the people. They can be altered but not easily, and only with widespread consent.

Perhaps the most destabilizing American political factor of all in my lifetime has been the transformation of the Supreme Court into a rolling committee on amending the Constitution. Perhaps not: there are several other candidates, such as the vast increase in executive branch legislation-by-regulation, or the success by the global financial/corporate sector in capturing Congress (and certain Presidents) to serve their interests instead of the American people's interests. This sway by the Federal courts toward thinking of themselves as superior to the Constitution, of their will as having priority in determining the content of the Constitution, is at least one of the major factors in destroying the American republic.

14 comments:

Tom said...

I think the executive excesses depend on the USSC's treating the Constitution as infinitely malleable.

The problem with Congress and corporations might be as well; if the USSC hadn't gutted the Commerce Clause, then a lot of financial decisions would be made at the state level and the US Congress would not be as valuable to subvert. Hard to say about that one, though; it's just a suspicion at the moment.

raven said...

The fact this person is a sitting US justice is a blot on us.
Not even study the Constitution for a second, eh? So the next question is simple. Does he think the Constitution has any relevance whatsoever to modern America? If not, then where does he think his authority derives from? And, if the entire foundation of the law is irrelevant, why should we not simply dispose of him and find a new judge? Where will he find any recourse?

What we are seeing here is this, shuffled forward a few hundred years-

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Eric Blair said...

So, no judicial precedent, then? Why study the law?

WTF, over.

jaed said...

More than that, he holds his office under the Constitution. Without the Constitution, there's no reason anyone should pay any attention to him or any other federal judge, other than main force. Does he want to live in a world where main force is the only and final argument for political power?

Undercutting the legitimacy of your political adversaries may make sense. Undercutting your own legitimacy makes none at all.

Ymar Sakar said...

Unless their legitimacy comes from Lucifer, the Devil in the Christian culture/religion/metaphysics.

They disregard the US Constitution because it was divinely inspired or revealed to the Founding Fathers, along with miraculous defenses and saving graces such as Washington's Long Island escape.

It's about evil, essentially. Technically this judge derives his authority from the US Constitution. But in reality, his authority is somewhat different in source.

Dad29 said...

a lot of financial decisions would be made at the state level and the US Congress would not be as valuable to subvert

You've identified most of the problem with the 17th Amendment, albeit indirectly.

Joel Leggett said...

Posner needs to go, or else be impeached!

Grim said...

Jaed raises a particularly excellent point.

Anonymous said...

Posner is a Jewish Judge and this is what Jewish Judges do.
It's their "tribe first" mentality, and trust me, your not a member of the tribe and your liberty does not count. They want to kill the constitution if they can.

Here is another Jewish Judge that hates our Constitution.

Justice Ginsburg: “I Would Not Look to the U.S. Constitution”
http://dailysignal.com/2012/02/08/justice-ginsburg-i-would-not-look-to-the-u-s-constitution/

Want to understand Richard Posner more? He is just not happy destroying warping the Constitution, he wants to destroy Marriage as well.

Richard Posners deeply amoral defence of same-sex ‘marriage’
https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/a-deeply-amoral-defence-of-same-sex-marriage



I agree with Grim, Posner's remarks about the Constitution ought to be grounds for removal from office.




Grim said...

I think your anti-Jewish sentiment is entirely too strong. The link is not to "Jewishness," but to a strain of Judaism that is harmful even to Judaism.

It is true that Ginsburg, Posner, Kagan, and others are both Jewish and opposed to the idea of being bound by the Constitution, rather than being free to interpret it as they see fit. It's also true that a large portion of the American Jewish community is attached to a kind of Reform Judaism that is really structurally very similar to this approach to the Constitution: the tradition is similarly seen as 'living,' and open to new readings by living authorities that are supposedly just as valid as older ones.

On the other hand, in religion, a hard core fundamentalism or literalism can also be quite harmful. Al Qaeda is the leading example of that, but there are radically literal Jews as well. They do things like try to blow up the Dome of the Rock in the hope of hastening the apocalypse.

The originalist approach to law allows for reason to inform tradition, but in a way that seeks a broad consent from the People for the changes -- rather than investing the power to change the Constitution in an elite like the Supreme Court. In religion, what I think that looks like is a clergy who maintain the validity of tradition to the People -- but who sometimes, slowly, always putting brakes on popular desires to hurry, consider and integrate new ways of thinking.

There is a right way to be a Jew, in other words, or a Catholic, or a Muslim, or a lawyer. Or a citizen. There's a kind of broad analogy that's worth making. But it's not going to prove as simple as saying that it's a problem that you're a Jew. It's your approach to law, religious and secular, and your sensibility about keeping them in their right spheres.

Nor is the analogy exact, as analogies always break. It's just useful to a certain degree.

Ymar Sakar said...

There are Jews who are allies of the Christian God or compatible, and there are Jews who serve Lucifer and are evil. Technically in the latter case, they have been rebelling against God for some time now. It's why they got kicked out of Judea/Palestine for so long, well the Temple in Jerusalem that they kept reconstructing at least.

It's important to make the distinction, because evil isn't about being Jewish. Evil is far more powerful than some ethnic bs somebody in the last century came up with for political advantage via leveraging class and ethnicity conflicts.

the tradition is similarly seen as 'living,' and open to new readings by living authorities that are supposedly just as valid as older ones.

The Jewish legal tradition, the Torah, is about adding on top of the laws of Moses. Meaning, they aren't divine inspired, as they would admit. It's human laws added ontop of the divine laws, and then later on, the human laws override the divine laws. So if the US Constitution is mostly or partially divinely inspired, then the Jewish Torah tradition makes it permissible to add unto it. However, once you add unto it long enough, it becomes unrecognizable. For example, the Jewish leaders had many laws and rules about the Sabbath day. Even to the point of criticizing Jesus for healing somebody on the Sabbath day. So were people respecting the Sabbath day to please their god or to please the Jewish Torah and judges? Because they can either obey the divine law or they can obey human laws, when the two conflict.

In other words, an oligarchy run by lawyers, based upon the Supreme power of the Law, which is controlled by humans, is a kind of Deus Ex Machina, a man made god designed to replace the divine source that mankind no longer can touch or even believe in any more. It's either blasphemy or sacrilege, of a sort.


The problem with anti Jewish beliefs is somewhat complex. Part of it is displacement, they don't want to admit that more than half of humanity is evil or soon to be, and needs to be purified. So they pick on some small ethnic group that could potentially be eliminated, so they think they can eliminate evil just as easily. But that's not how it works. It's also not about Anti Semitism, since the Jews are not the only semitic people. They clam to be the Chosen tribe, but there were 11-12 other "chosen tribes". And they aren't the only Semitic people either, even though they keep using the Nazi/Germany terminology for Jews=Semitic.

Ymar Sakar said...

“Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.”

Perhaps, although anything is possible with the power of Good or Evil involved.

Still, people can think on the matter and use their free will, to determine what is really going on. The Founding Fathers did foresee the evil in humanity's heart. Which is what the Republic was for. Which was what being armed was for. Which is what being a moral people was for.

Even if America has lost the vast majority of its founding principles and virtues, people still have guns and to a certain extent, free will.

But the Jurist from Hell philosophy is that mankind should be better constrained via Laws, and not necessarily divine ones either. It decreases the authority of the Founding Fathers, by relegating them to an inferior position, such as that of a helpless fetus or embryo. The Judges and the Lawyers will decide what happens to them, you see, they occupy the place of Higher Authority and power.

Unless people can fight a war, that is how it will remain. There'll be lists created by the CAIR controlled FBI and the SPLC, that will determine whether you deserve access to the 1st Amendment or the 2nd Amendment or due process or in fact Any Process Whatsoever.

The philosophy of evil as it relates to humanity, is the enslavement of the human species. Since humanity is dangerous when given freedom, it is better to constrain them. Force them to bow their knee and Obey the commands of their betters. Not for the immediate and temporary present situation of emergencies, but for eternity itself. They've already picked up on the blood magic of the Aztecs. There's something they are creating with that many human sacrifices. And it's not something good. It is something extremely powerful, though past that I cannot see its exact details.

douglas said...

Grim, I think "Anonymous's" comment is right for all but the identification of the tribe. It's not the Jewish tribe, it's the secular leftist tribe.

And, Anonynous- if you would please adhere to the policies of the hall and use some sort of handle (or your name, if you're so inclined) so that your comments are attributable and not able to be attached to anyone else, especially given the subject matter in this case.

Grim said...

Indeed, that is the rule. I believe I may have mentioned this to you before, although it's hard to tell since one never knows whom "Anonymous" might be.