Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Is Obama threatening the Supreme Court?

President Obama offered some additional commentary today regarding his earlier comments that the Supreme Court, as unelected people, do not have the authority to overturn unconstitutional laws. His words today seemed to be a bit of backpedaling after yesterday's comments. They were softened to say that the court has traditionally given deference to the legislature in matters of national economic concern. His comments on Monday were stronger than that and almost a challenge to the Supreme Court.

Apparently Obama hasn't studied much history because the court has overturned many unconstitutional laws in the past. They overturned Jim Crow laws, forced desegregation of schools, enforced Miranda rights. He said that the Obamacare law was passed by an overwhelming majority in Congress. It passed in the House by 219-212. That doesn't seem very overwhelming to me. Even if it had passed unanimously, that doesn't make it constitutional. We live in a constitutional republic not a democracy which means if a law violates our rights and the constitution it is null and void. Here's a hypothetical. Suppose Congress unanimously passed a law sending all blacks back into slavery. According to Obama's standard of it being an overwhelming majority, the Supreme Court should uphold the law. That would be a violation of their rights and should absolutely be overturned however. Obama has spent his term as president acting more and more like a dictator. Who knows what he will try push through when he no longer has to worry about reelection whether that's this November or in four more years.

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