WARNING--SILLY ITEM! (via Glenn Dryfoos)

Warning -- Serious Item! (Gregg Easterbrook, 8/26/03, TMQ)

Judge Roy Moore, the publicity-seeker who put the 2.5-ton Ten Commandments in the Alabama state courthouse, declared Monday that he could disobey the direct order of a federal judge because "judges do not make laws, they interpret them." Since, Moore continued, an interpretation can be wrong, therefore he may defy a judicial order. So presumably Judge Moore also thinks that if he sentences a man to prison, the man can declare that the interpretation might be wrong and walk free? It's exactly the same logic.

Moore further said that the First Amendment precept, "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion," does not apply to him because "I am not Congress." Drag this incompetent lunatic out of the court quickly, please. Anyone with entry-level knowledge of Constitutional law knows that the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, was intended to extend the Bill of Rights to state governments; that a 1937 Supreme Court decision specifically declared that the First Amendment binds state officials like Judge Moore.

We're big fans of Mr. Easterbrook--for his political writing, and despite his love of the anti-American/anti-human NFL--but note the core silliness of the argument that the 14th binds all state officials to federal standards is demonstrated in the incorporation rulings a mere 70 years later. It's like saying the Constitution was intended to protect abortion rights as shown by Roe v. Wade. Folks who favor judicial activism should at least have the honesty to acknowledge that, no matter how much they like the results, it is anticonstitutional and antidemocratic.

Further, it is Mr. Easterbrook's logic that is specious: judges, including Judge Moore, are quite specifically given the authority to sentence people to jail; there is no similar grant of authority to federal judges to apply the Bill of Rights universally. James Madison and company may be dead, but if the Left wants to bind states with the Court's interpretations of the Bill of Rights, it should be easy enough to draft such an amendment. And it will be adopted on the 4th of never, which is why they don't use constitutional means to achieve their end. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 27, 2003 10:08 AM