Can We Stop Judicial Tyranny?

In a 1982 speech, former liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan pulled-back the curtain (or the robe in his case) to show the heart of a true judicial supremacist. During his remarks, Justice Brennan stated that, in previous eras, “the function of the law was to formalize and preserve (accumulated) wisdom,” but “over the past 40 years law has come alive as a living process responsive to changing human needs.”

What he was really saying is that moral absolutes and established principles stand in the way of judicial supremacy, and that needs to change.

It’s funny that Justice Brennan had such a problem with the preservation of human wisdom, since the founders of the American Republic revered the wisdom. They revered it because they, rightly, believed that the process of accumulating wisdom was truly the process of discovering the Natural Laws that God ordained to govern creation. In fact, James Madison wrote, “experience is the oracle of Truth and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.” In other words, experience and longevity are the best teachers, and they reveal the true nature of creation as God created it.

So, when we see judges championing the concept of a “living Constitution” they are truly championing the trampling of human liberty. When they rebel against consistency and truth in law, they truly are exalting the knowledge of man over the wisdom of God, even while they are establishing the supremacy of the courts over the Constitution.

I must say that the current activist judiciary in this country, if left unchecked, is a grave threat to liberty. If unelected judges continue to impose their opinions over the will of the people, then our Constitution, and the very liberty for which our founders fought, will be lost forever. Let’s restore the Judicial Branch to its Constitutional role, before it relegates the Constitution to the ash heap of history.