Meanwhile, in the Supreme Court decision in Roper vs. Simmons to arbitrarily set an age limit on the assessment of the death penalty to juvenile criminals, once again our imperial judiciary has completely disabled state legislators and juries in a decision that pre-empts the value judgments of the people. And again I repeat—the critical issue is not the substance of the underlying case or the moral issue involved, but rather the question of who decides.
To compound this particular decision, we have reliance on “evolving standards of decency” and “national consensus”, the evidence for which is questionable at best, not to mention another instance of reliance on “the overwhelming weight of international opinion”. Where in the U. S. Constitution is the authority for the Supreme Court to impose its moral values as the law, determine the national consensus, or rely on international opinion to overturn an American jury?
Representative democracy is being further undermined, and we need to get very serious about this very soon. We should start by demanding of the Republican Senate leadership that the Democrats be stopped from perverting the constitutional advice and consent doctrine in the confirmation of judicial appointees, regardless of the potential fallout for other legislative priorities, all of which are secondary to this one. We should also demand that our legislative leaders take charge of the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary, as they are empowered to do by the Constitution, and reassume policy leadership on any number of issues on which they have abdicated their responsibility. A good guide to thinking about all of this is Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America, by Mark R. Levin.