Maybe We Just Shouldn't Have "Supreme Courts" Anywhere

Barrister Jeremy Brier, former adjunct professor of EU law at Pepperdine, writes:

But there was always a particular moment, midway through our first lecture on the EU, when my American students would look particularly dumbstruck.  It was when they learnt that the common market, entered into in a spirit of amity to heal war-torn Europe, had by the reasoning of its appointed Judges, determined that EU laws must reign supreme over those of the EU’s member states.

...

In the present British debate, it is informative to recall the shock that greets an outsiders’ first understanding of how the EU grew. Its history is of an unstoppable escalation, either emanating from its own internal logic and powers or by a concerted but quiet power grab.

Open borders with Turkey within a decade is the inevitable apotheosis of a century in which we diluted our laws, pooled our sovereignty and vowed to intermingle our land and laws with our neighbours and beyond.

9 comments:

Grim said...

American students who are astonished by this have not paid any particular attention to their own history.

Tom said...

And no wonder. I really don't think this is taught in the US in general. I need to do a lot more reading to come to a solid opinion, but my tentative thought right now is that FDR's administration was a change second only to the Civil War in magnitude.

Grim said...

Well, to Reconstruction. At the end of the Civil War all that had changed was that the slaves were free -- a substantial change, to be sure, but it was Reconstruction that made them citizens, gave them the vote, and placed Federal courts in a newly sovereign position over what had formerly been independent states.

What FDR accomplished was to liberate the executive bureaucracy from the other branches to a very large degree.

Tom said...

True; I usually lump Reconstruction in with the Civil War, though of course they were two very different things. I should be more precise.

Also, FDR's Supreme Court gave the federal government tremendous power over the economies of the states.

Eric Blair said...

Well......Absent WWII, it's possible that FDR's changes may have been rolled back, (actually most were, except for Social Security).

But really it's WWII that cemented in the current power of the Federal Government.

Tom said...

I've wondered about that. How do you think?

Ymar Sakar said...

WWII's propaganda helped ensure that people's patriotism prevented them from challenging conformity, so it did help the culture adapt to the new national norms. But the federal government's most powerful supply of logistics came from the confiscation of gold and the restructuring the income tax and the various fiat currencies.

America had enormous industrial production and individual production/wealth. All of that could be taxed indirectly via fiat currency, even if they were backed by gold (gold in Ft Knox). Without a war, it might have been difficult to centralize the printing of money and what not. But once the political class got a taste of obtaining 50-90% of the wealth of each individual in a nation, by printing fiat currency, they could never ever go back. Without an almost complete to 50% purge of the political and bureaucratic classes, replacing them with a New generation bred in the desert or anti cultural norms.

Ymar Sakar said...

and placed Federal courts in a newly sovereign position over what had formerly been independent states.

None of which prevented the state courts from replacing Republican administrations with Democrat ones, via KKK voter suppression of blacks. The Union accepted fully that the Southern rebels and secessionists would be integrated back into the Union as independent states. Which is where Jim Crow came in. That is the result of giving states independence, and when that is abused, and in areas where it ran contrary to the abolitionist Republican's party's reason for existence, pushback was inevitable. Although it was too late for the slaves, who were then free, but now put back into their place by the Rule of Law.

Ymar Sakar said...

The documents of Secession also wished for federal courts to have the power to impose and enforce the Slave Fugitive Act, on abolitionist states such as New York.

It is a bit of irony that losing the war would still empower the federal courts, but there is no illusion now that the secessionists wanted the power of the federal courts to be curtailed. It was their objective all along, to increase the power of the federal court system, to enforce the protection of private property, which means owning slaves and taking them back when they run away.

The secession crisis may have come about because Northern Democrats were working on a compromise, one that would re admit the Southern states on more favorable concessions. Democrats have a tendency to boycott elections and processes, in order to coerce the majority to their way. This one, however, went beyond their expectations. Lincoln didn't fold. And the Scotts Irish weren't going to back down either. Even though their descendants say they didn't own slaves, yet fought for slave lords that were made exempt from military service.

Either ways, systems of government tends to consolidate power over time, irregardless of who wins.