The entire purpose of having an independent judiciary is that it NOT rule based on popular sentiment, but on adherence to the law. The fact that 55% of people might think someone is guilty of a capital crime does not mean we convict them. If 55% of the population were to vote that redheads should pay more taxes than others, the Supreme Court would rightly strike that law down.
The Constitution is an expression of what rights the government CANNOT take away from people—rights we might define as “inalienable.” It is critical that the executive honor its oath to DEFEND the Constitution, and do so by honoring the separation of powers. The Legislature makes the laws, the Judicial decides if they are legal and rules on their interpretations, and the Executive enforces the laws.
It’s often said that the police would arrest more criminals if it weren’t for those pesky warrants—but it is on all of US to understand that the warrant requirement exists to prevent the worst thing from happening: the requirement for law enforcement to submit to the judiciary to get a warrant is what prevents Tyranny.
Prior to the American Revolution, 99% of the world lived under a tyrant’s thumb. The tyrant (monarch or emperor) had largely unchecked powers. Americans, although they lived in the freest country in the world at the time, didn’t want to be “freest.” They wanted to be free.
The American forefathers created a Constitution for a country specifically designed to prevent tyranny. And tyranny of the majority is still tyranny. The American Constitution is among the greatest works of man. It can be amended when there is strong enough sentiment, but it is DESIGNED to work in a world where we understand that political sentiment is capricious. The GENIUS of the Constitution is that it specifically understands the risks of a government and how people will be tempted to use the power of government to RULE over others. Jefferson recognized this as well in his mighty words when he expressed that “…governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”
It is critical now that people who love America and who love the idea of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, stand up to defend the Constitution. When the Executive branch implies that the Judicial branch should not rigorously defend the rights of people because the majority thinks they don’t deserve those rights, we undermine the very principle of the Constitution. If we ever stop defending the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, we stop being America.
Now, can the Constitution be wrong or incomplete? Absolutely. And we have a procedure to amend the Constitution when it requires correction. We have done it for moral reasons when the will of the country is sufficient. A group of moral crusaders once made alcohol illegal in the United States, specifically stripping away a right of the people to drink alcohol. And because they changed the Constitution, the Executive and Judicial branches enforced the law.
If there is popular sentiment sufficient to change the Constitution to remove both due process and habeas corpus, then those amendments should be proposed. It is worse for people to “look the other way” and ignore the attacks on the Constitution that happen when people’s rights are violated and the Judicial branch is weakened.
It’s time for people to stand up and remember the mighty words of Abraham Lincoln, as he stood at a battlefield in Gettysburg. In the middle of a five-year conflict, Lincoln recognized that the war would either be won or lost, and he asked the people to resolve “…that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Once America fails, there will never be anything else like it. Let’s make sure it doesn’t.
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.”
–Thomas Jefferson
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