Only with Court Reform can we have real freedom
I’ve read a fair amount of opinions and analysis of where the Supreme Court is at, especially after this latest travesty of a decision taking away a woman’s essential right and liberty to determine their own health, futures and family. While I agree that the Court’s legitimacy has been irreparably damaged (at least in the near term) at this moment in time I don’t think it’s going to matter. After all, the ones who can do something about it, our elected officials, haven’t so far, nor do I believe that they will. (Yelling and screaming and Tweeting aren’t fixing the problem, though it’s good to know the Democrats are, as a whole, royally pissed off.) The legitimacy of the Court is merely academic. After all, does it really matter if some people are harmed by the Court’s decisions so long as the votes keep coming in, or the gerrymander still works? If the donor dollars continue to flow like Spice from Arrakis then the Empire is assured. Destruction is down the road (kind of like how paying down the national debt is perpetually a problem for tomorrow). The wheels of the Statehouses and D.C. will continue churning and turning (and in many States burning your Rights). Republicans will continue to widen their entrenched minority rule while Democrats feign horror at the thought of Democracy dying.
Meanwhile, those of us living in the real world dealing with the all too visceral effects and affects of the latest egregious anti-Inalienable Rights Supreme Court decision will continue to raise our voices and our fists demanding justice and a righting of the ship. All to no avail. The days of marching and demanding and pleading and fighting to get what we so surely deserve and earned are over.
As long as the current framework of the Supreme Court stands.
So, what can we do? What should we do? After all, aren’t I being completely fatalistic and pessimistic about the future of our country and our civil rights? Do I really believe there is nothing to be done?
Well, no. Sure, I’m not enthusiastic about our immediate future. But, here’s where I see real, legitimate hope for correcting these horrific decisions. The upcoming mid-term elections (and every election thereafter). Voting Democrats into office up and down ticket, not just at the Federal level, but in the Statehouses, the county boards, city and village mayors and councils. Anyone and everyone who vows to fight for reproductive rights, to protect the Inalienable Rights to ones own body, mind, spirit and heart. We must engage our elected officials and ensure that they don’t just stop at legislation guaranteeing a woman’s bodily autonomy, but that they actively pursue court reform. I want to see the court expanded, term limits imposed, limits to the number of Justices any President can appoint throughout their entire presidency, be it one or two terms. For an effective Supreme Court to exist, a court that earns its legitimacy, it needs oversight, be it an independent judicial council or a bipartisan Congressional Committee that actively oversees judicial conduct and ethics. The days of a free wheeling, self-policing Court must come to an end, otherwise the Court will continue to be yet another partisan branch of the government. Neither balancing the other two, nor reigning in its own baser instincts and desires.
Only when the Supreme Court is reformed, reworked and reshaped to better meet the modern age will it start to see it’s legitimacy repaired. Only when the legal doctrine of a living Constitution, a Constitution that works for any age as intended by the Framers, is brought back and utilized by this refreshed Court will its legitimacy begin to be repaired. Until then, We the People are Unfree. We remain chained and herded by the personal and political whims of the very, very few. Victims to those men and women who believe themselves wiser, more pious, enacting the Word of G-d upon a Nation while founded with a strong belief in Religious Freedom nonetheless Constitutionally does not ascribe to one belief over another, one G-d amongst the many, one prophet over another, one saviour over the one to come. Unless the Supreme Court, whether under today’s makeup or tomorrow’s, is corralled alongside the other two branches of government we as individuals are no better off, no freer, than our forebears who found it imperative for life itself to throw off the yolk and chain of tyranny so that all could be free.
It is time to reign in the Supreme Court. It is time to guarantee our Inalienable Rights to be free to choose for ourselves, to be secure in our privacy and personal affairs, to pursue and lead our lives as we see fit. It is past time for Congress to act, to legislate in no uncertain terms that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness means bodily autonomy, the freedom to love and be loved by whomever one chooses, the Inalienable Right to self-determination. It is well past time that Congress brings the Supreme Court of These United States into the modern age of oversight, term limits, balanced so that no one President can ever again bring ruin upon our Individual Rights and Freedoms.
