How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary

How to Dethrone the Imperial Judiciary, by Dr. Edwin Vieira Jr. ★★★★★
This book was chosen to be read by me, as it pertained to thoughts I was having about the “mis-balance” of powers that we currently observe in the function of our national government, particularly, that the judiciary has tended to create law, rather than just interpret the law, and to do so outside of the boundaries permitted by the constitution. Vieira, as a constitutional lawyer, develops an argument against our current court system in a manner better thought out than even Andrew Napolitano, who was recently reviewed by me. While Vieira may not be as public of a figure as Vieira, Vieira deserves a much greater audience, and more seriousness gave to his appeal in this book and others that he has published. Napolitano seems to have a strong public forum, since he is functionally a libertarian with leanings toward natural law theory, though he does claim to be a devout Roman Catholic. I have no clue as to Vieira’s religious sentiments or beliefs, but would be forced to identify him as a strictly natural law theorist, in part because he constantly reminds us of the statement in the Declaration of Independence which offers that “the Laws of Nature and [ ] Nature’s God” is the entitlement for their grievance. Vieira, like Napolitano, utilizes much legal jargon, mostly in Latin, but easily defined with the Apple computer dictionary.
The book is divided into two parts, the first being the argument that 6 members of the Supreme Court, Breyer, Ginsberg, Kennedy, O’Connor, Souter, and Stevens committed high crimes and treason, but making a judgment under the veil of constitutional authority while defying the constitution in seeking the authority of European and international law decisions. Specifically, the court case mentioned was Lawrence v. Texas, in which the Supreme Court charge was against a law on the Texas books forbidding homosexual sodomy. Vieira does a masterful piece in demonstrating how the Supreme Court ruling defied the US Constitution and went against all previous court judgments. Vieira shows how permission of international court rulings as a basis for American law has since been frequently used to overturn the very substance of our constitution, and will eventually lead to the death of many of our freedoms.
The second portion of the book is a thoughtful and reasoned consideration of how we should react to this. Vieira discourages adding more laws to the books to strike down the Supreme Court ruling. The constitution already has provisions for dealing with an “imperial” judiciary, and more laws will only lead to the proliferation of even more laws. Rather, Vieira reminds us that in the Marbury v. Madison ruling, the court allowed that they had the ability to strike down unconstitutional laws generated by the legislature, but also opens the door for either the Executive or Legislative branch to do the same with the courts, in that all three branches of government are responsible for upholding the constitution, and no branch has a monopoly on interpretive “rights” to the constitution. The constitution affords the states the ability to object to court rulings, should they deem them to be unconstitutional (state interposition). The constitution also allows for impeachment of court members, and Vieira notes the absence of the Legislature or Executive branch to a renegade Supreme Court as also being negligent of the constitutional duty to uphold the constitution. In his last words, he states that “if the House of Representatives cannot muster sufficient forces to put through even a basically toothless remonstrance to Lawrence, it should consider changing the nation’s emblem from the eagle to the ewe”. True story. Anybody serving in a public capacity, whether it be as a lawyer or judge, serving in public office, or simply acting as a public commentator on political issues, MUST read this book.
Lest I leave the reader of this review with an absence of the humor and color of Vieira’s writings, it becomes sensible to offer a series of his notable quotes from the book. All of the following below are quotes from the book, and will not be referenced.
Whereas, a judicial decision such as Lawrence is “the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture”–and perhaps not even the original product of the Justices themselves, but of their clerks, who come wet behind the ears from the intellectual hothouse of that “law-profession culture,” infected with the latest communicable viruses of “good thinking” in “the culture war”.
If [ ] the Justices can incorporate foreign law–or even intergalactic legal principles drawn from episodes of Star Trek–into the Constitution, [  ] the sources of their inspirations are ultimately beside the point, the inspirations themselves becoming “law” of each case simply perforce of their enunciations.
…the “living Constitution” provides no excuse for promiscuously interpolating foreign law into constitutional interpretation–unless the Preamble can now be read a mandate “to form a more perfect Union [with foreigners], insure [international or global] tranquility, provide for the common defense [of a New World Order], promote the general Welfare [of people throughout the World] and secure the Blessings of Liberty to [a global community, according to foreigner’s ideas of what constitutes Liberty].”
Truth, not power (or worse, the hubris of office), is the touchstone of constitutional jurisprudence.
Besides the logic of the situation, WE THE PEOPLE can imagine hundreds upon hundreds of possible decisions of judges that no one free to leave a lunatic asylum would dare to defend as constitutional…
There are many, many more quotes. Read the book. It’s worth it.