THE EVOLUTION OF JUDICIAL TYRANNY IN THE UNITED STATES:

"If the judges interpret the laws themselves, and suffer none else to interpret, they may easily make, of the laws, [a shredded] shipman's hose!" - King James I of England, around 1616.

“No class of the community ought to be allowed freer scope in the expression or publication of opinions as to the capacity, impartiality or integrity of judges than members of the bar. They have the best opportunities of observing and forming a correct judgment. They are in constant attendance on the courts. Hundreds of those who are called on to vote never enter a court-house, or if they do, it is only at intervals as jurors, witnesses or parties. To say that an attorney can only act or speak on this subject under liability to be called to account and to be deprived of his profession and livelihood by the very judge or judges whom he may consider it his duty to attack and expose, is a position too monstrous to be entertained for a moment under our present system,” Justice Sharwood in Ex Parte Steinman and Hensel, 95 Pa 220, 238-39 (1880).

“This case illustrates to me the serious consequences to the Bar itself of not affording the full protections of the First Amendment to its applicants for admission. For this record shows that [the rejected attorney candidate] has many of the qualities that are needed in the American Bar. It shows not only that [the rejected attorney candidate] has followed a high moral, ethical and patriotic course in all of the activities of his life, but also that he combines these more common virtues with the uncommon virtue of courage to stand by his principles at any cost.

It is such men as these who have most greatly honored the profession of the law. The legal profession will lose much of its nobility and its glory if it is not constantly replenished with lawyers like these. To force the Bar to become a group of thoroughly orthodox, time-serving, government-fearing individuals is to humiliate and degrade it.” In Re Anastaplo, 18 Ill. 2d 182, 163 N.E.2d 429 (1959), cert. granted, 362 U.S. 968 (1960), affirmed over strong dissent, 366 U.S. 82 (1961), Justice Black, Chief Justice Douglas and Justice Brennan, dissenting.

" I do not believe that the practice of law is a "privilege" which empowers Government to deny lawyers their constitutional rights. The mere fact that a lawyer has important responsibilities in society does not require or even permit the State to deprive him of those protections of freedom set out in the Bill of Rights for the precise purpose of insuring the independence of the individual against the Government and those acting for the Government”. Lathrop v Donohue, 367 US 820 (1961), Justice Black, dissenting.

"The legal profession must take great care not to emulate the many occupational groups that have managed to convert licensure from a sharp weapon of public defense into blunt instrument of self-enrichment". Walter Gellhorn, "The Abuse of Occupational Licensing", University of Chicago Law Review, Volume 44 Issue 1, September of 1976.

“Because the law requires that judges no matter how corrupt, who do not act in the clear absence of jurisdiction while performing a judicial act, are immune from suit, former Judge Ciavarella will escape liability for the vast majority of his conduct in this action. This is, to be sure, against the popular will, but it is the very oath which he is alleged to have so indecently, cavalierly, baselessly and willfully violated for personal gain that requires this Court to find him immune from suit”, District Judge A. Richard Caputo in H.T., et al, v. Ciavarella, Jr, et al, Case No. 3:09-cv-00286-ARC in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Document 336, page 18, November 20, 2009. This is about judges who were sentencing kids to juvenile detention for kickbacks.


Saturday, July 4, 2015

4th of July: fireworks, reunions and barbecues. Where did the independence part go?

Today, across America there will be 4th of July celebrations.

People plan reunions with extended family and friends over the 4th of July weekends.

Highways are packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Tickets to observe 4th of July fireworks in historical locations are sold out.

It is summer, it is time to have a good time on the beach, and with family and friends.

Stores start to cell merchandise with 4th of July attributes long before the actual day.

Yet, with all the summer barbecues and fireworks and family reunion celebrations going on, it is easy to forget what the 4th of July was about  to begin with - the Independence Day.  The day people paid for with their lives.

Independence from arbitrary and absolute power of the government (the King) to do whatever he wants with its subjects.

The King and his men can do no wrong?  Americans rejected that concept and established a Constitution to rule them.

The U.S. Constitution has been proclaimed as a supreme law of the land in its Article VI.  And that proclamation continues to exist.  In the U.S. Constitution.  On paper.

All Americans are taught at school that the 4th of July is about Independence of the nation, about founding of the nation upon the "rule of law" (Supremacy of the U.S. Constitution) and that the 4th of July is the uniting holiday for the entire nation.

It is common, when the history of the holiday is taught, for teachers to teach their students "to remember the sacrifices" that have made independence of this country possible.

"Freedom is not free" has become a common phrase.

It is not free, indeed.

It is true that many men and women of this country have laid down their lives - their only lives - their ultimate sacrifice - to abolish arbitrary and absolute power of the government and to establish the rule of law.

And it is true that that absolute and arbitrary power to do whatever the government wants to do with the people - through its judicial branch - has returned full swing. 

Somehow people now look at what the 5 judges in the U.S. Supreme Court will say about what the U.S. Constitution says, and not what the U.S. Constitution says.

Article VI of the U.S. Constitution does not deem judicial decisions as the Supreme Law of the land, yet, the whole nation, from uneducated people to legal scholars, hold their collective breaths to see what the judicial kings of this country will say, then celebrate certain U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the streets and call it the binding law of the land.

If the ultimate sacrifice of the men and women of this country to make independence of the U.S. from arbitrary power of the King and the birth of the U.S. as a new nation are to be truly respected, then the U.S. Constitution should be trule respected, followed and enforced, and not used to say the oath of office as a meaningless mantra, in order to get absolute power and forget that oath the moment it was taken.

Judicial decisions are not binding when they violate the Supreme law of the land.

It is very simple.

The U.S. Constitution cannot be the Supreme law of the land, if every judge in this country can "overrule" it, after gaining office and privileges of the office, by pledging to follow and enforce it.

Judicial decisions that violate the U.S. Constitution can only be binding if this nation acts like slaves and allows the absolute power of the government to return - without fanfare, without bloody battles, creeping in through words on paper.

Once again, Article VI does not list judicial decisions as Supreme Law of the land, and judicial decisions that run contrary to the U.S. Constitution, of any judge, including those decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court justices, are not "binding" law.

I did not say anything radical, I did not say anything revolutionary, I just referred to Article VI of the Constitution of this country established after this country has declared independence from Britain, Britain's King and absolute arbitrary power of that King, established at the price of many lives.

Celebrating the 4th of July as an annual ritual, while allowing the absolute and arbitrary power of the government to creep in through judicial decisions based on principles that "the King" (the government) and his men, including judges, can do no wrong and that the victims of such absolute arbitrary power do not have a remedy and should be even punished for attempting to get a remedy, is the same as letting that ultimate sacrifice be for nothing.

I am glad that social media, "next door" people, is picking up on the concept that they, the "next door" people, are "the King" in this country, and that their runaway "public servants" should be put back where they belong, in the place of limited power under the full control of the U.S. Constitution they are all pledged to protect, uphold and enforce.

I am glad that social media, the ultimate tool of democractic government nowadays,  is pushing for abolishing of any kind of immunities of "the King and his men" from the rule of law, even when the "mainstream media" is conspicuously silent.

Only when immunities created by public servants (the key word is "servants") for themselves to absolve them from liability to their master - we, the People - are truly placed where they belong, in the waste basket, and are no longer allowed, in real life, is when the 4th of July will regain its original meaning - abolishing absolute and arbitrary power of the government over people and estabilshing the rule of law.

  • While such immunities still exist and while American citizens, from uneducated Americans to lawyers and especially legal scholars who know better, slavishly accept them and obey the runaway "servants" to rule their master, the People of the United States,
  • while the government, and particularly its judicial branch, have, as it does at this time, absolute and arbitrary power over every aspect of our lives and rule in complete disregard of the same Constitution that every elected and appointed official is pledged to protect, uphold and enforce, 
  • while American public officials exercise that arbitrary absolute power much more than it is done nowadays in the original country from which the U.S. gained its independence,
the 4th of July will remain just a glorified barbecue, reunion and fireworks day.

No less.  But no more.

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