"Just as fake news spreads ideologically motivated misinformation with a newsy veneer, fake law brings us judicial posturing, virtue signaling, and opinionating masquerading as jurisprudence." Seems to me that there are too many leftist-activist judges corrupting the Constitution and making law from the bench. This includes some SCOTUS judges. "Something ugly is happening to the First Amendment. It is being contorted to enable judges to protest Donald Trump's presidency. The perennial impulse of judges to manipulate the law to achieve morally and politically desirable ends has only been exacerbated by the felt necessity to "resist" Trump. The result: Legal tests concerning the freedoms of speech and religion that in some cases were already highly dubious are being further deformed and twisted." http://www.weeklystandard.com/fake-law/article/2007934#!
Since the advent of the Republic, judges have sought to be the legislators. In my view, philosophically speaking, judges are supposed to interpret and apply the law. In reality, once a decision has been made by the judicial branch of government up to the Supreme Court, that decision does not stand. Instead, the courts reinterpret their own decisions. Unless we figure that out and fight back, we may as well send Congress home and let the judges rule.
Not exactly. It stands unless and until it's reinterpreted. Case "law" = Fake law. Judges have undermined the Constitution and the Republic since at least Marbury vs Madison (1803), when they seized the power to "interpret" the Constitution, a power never granted to the 3rd branch by the Constitution. It was a blatant violation of the 10th Amendment. They effectively gave themselves the power to override Congress and the Executive and gave themselves the power to Amend the Constitution daily. Judicial review is about interpreting laws for constitutional compliance, not the Constitution itself.
I would agree with that, but even if the courts determine that a law is constitutionally compliant, they are not at liberty to reinterpret the first decision they handed down.
Each case is unique so it's a contextual issue dependent on how the law is applied to a particular case. Part of a law may be compliant in one case but fail compliance in another case (or it may involve another part of that law). Also, a decision is dependent on the hierarchy of the court. For example, a higher court can override a lower court's decision. IMO any part of a law that fails compliance should automatically be sent back to the original legislature for modification. Even though just part of a law may not be compliant, removing that part may affect the remaining parts or the whole.
Rather than to drag this out, let me give you a concrete example: "The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed." The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree..." We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his naturalright of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly, is in conflict with the Constitution, and void; and that, as the defendant has been indicted and convicted for carrying a pistol, without charging that it was done in a concealed manner, under that portion of the statute which entirely forbids its use, the judgment of the court below must be reversed, and the proceeding quashed. Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243 (1846) "The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power." Cockrum v. State 24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859) There you go. The first example was the FIRST time a gun control law was over-turned on Second Amendment grounds. A few years later another state comes to the same conclusion. Within a few short years later, the United States Supreme Court weighed in and ruled: "The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence." United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875) The Court says the Right exists; however, it is not granted by the Constitution, NEITHER is it dependent upon that instrument for its existence. ALL of those rulings were consistent and the Supreme Court did their job. Those rulings were even consistent with the INTENT of the Second Amendment. Two years before the Bill of Rights was legally ratified, Albert Gallatin wrote: "The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals . . . . it establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." Now, watch very closely at what a MODERN court rules (Supreme Court, BTW): "Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited." District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (200 WTH??? What do they mean with "most rights?" How can some rights be unalienable and others not? The Bill of Rights was passed as ONE BILL. The Supreme Court, in Heller, had no authority to limit an unalienable Right. As per my own argument, the Supreme Court had no authority to declare standing precedent regarding unalienable Rights to be alienable by limiting them.
And I wholeheartedly agree. These decisions are not interpretations of the Constitution, they are interpretations of constitutional compliance. The 9th Amendments protects all unenumerated rights, that is all rights not mentioned by the first 8 Amendments. So do individuals have the right to kill? Well yes to preserve their life and liberty (or their loved ones) but no when killing for nefarious reasons. So protecting unalienable rights (i.e. the right to kill) is limited to protecting rights as long as they don't infringe on another person's rights. You're correct of course, SCOTUS does not have the authority to limit an unalienable right. But they do have the authority to determine if a law limits or fails to protect the exercise of an unalienable right (as long as the exercise of that right does not infringe on another person's rights).
