On 01-04-98, ROLAND BALKE declared to ROBERT PLETT:
RB> RP> We the People have much to repent of in that regard, as it is we who
RB> RP> have turned from the citizen legislature our founders intended and
RB> RP> elected mostly a bunch of lawyers instead.  Little wonder our laws 
re
RB> RP> in such a mess these days, and little wonder Congress hasn't the 
pine
RB> RP> to take on the Mount Olympus of so much of its membership, the 
upreme
RB> RP> Court, as it is Constitutionally bound to do when the Court is out of
RB> RP> line.
RB>The Bard of Hannibal, back in the latter part of the last century,
RB>commented that our society was unique for having its own built-in
RB>criminal class, that being Congress. He further noted at that time
RB>that congress was WELL OVER 95 lawyers.
RB>As to the Olympian nature of the Supremes... last I looked, save for
RB>O'connor and Bader-Ginsburg, they all put their pants on one leg at a
RB>time.
Their nature isn't in any way Olympian to me, but to lawyers ... well,
that seems to be another story.
RB>They are (ostensibly) humans, capable of error as much as the rest of
RB>us.  The day that they DO forget this.... well, I'll read a requiem
RB>for our poor country...
Start reading - they forgot that long ago, as is so well illustrated by
the following premises on which the Court operates as noted in Gov. Fob
James' letter to Judge Ira Dement, exerpted from a speech given by
Justice William Brennan, Nov. 21, 1982:
   1. the judiciary is "the essentially disinterested, rational
      and deliberate element of our society"
   2. society's "older values" may not be "fully adequate" and may
      contain a "degree of deception"
   3. "obviously we Americans must accept that...'upon judges, and
      particularly Justices of the Supreme Court, rests a great share of
      the delicate responsibility of deciding what must be preserved and
      what must be changed, what we shall protect and what we shall
      abandon' "
   4. to "re-define" constitutional rights in "every generation" is
      the "business of judges", and the "legal profession" should
      "improve the understanding" of "some laymen" who "tend to assume"
      that "constitutional law... is fixed and certain"
Compare the above with the following words of Thomas Jefferson:
   "The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws
   are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own
   sphere of action but for the legislature and executive also in their
   spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch.  To consider the
   judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions is a
   very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under
   the despotism of an oligarchy....  The Constitution has erected no
   such single tribunal."
Bob     /\-/\   - proud Ilk   homebody@galstar.com
C.A.T. ( o o ) Chapter Ilks
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Green Country - Oklahoma      http://www.galstar.com/~homebody/
 * SLMR 2.1a * Self-government requires active, knowledgeable citizens.
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