A Return to a Constitutional America

by

       M. Richard Maxson

      Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is a Constitutionalist. He believes that the Founding Fathers meant what they said and said what they meant. This is known as “Originalism.” Originalism is taking the constitution as it was written and having the courts interpret what it means. What was the concept what was the ideas what was the meaning behind those words on the paper. In other words, what did the Founding Fathers of this nation have in mind? They laid down basic truths that serve a vital role in sustaining the republic, a nation established on the idea that the government exists to serve the people—not the other way around. He believes that our founders chose to believe that the people could govern themselves prudently, without destroying the civil liberties their ancestors had won, and without subjecting political minorities to arbitrary power. Originalists continue trying to be vigilant to be sure the courts are not making up and substituting their own personal preferences or political biases or their policy ideas for what is actually on the pages of the Constitution. The only thing a judge should consider, “Is this law true to the Constitution?”

      Unfortunately today, as he sits on the nation’s highest court, he is troubled by what he sees as an attack on the country and the Constitution by Leftist forces that would like to see that Constitution replaced or modified in diversion of it’s original intent. Progressives are trying to turn the Constitution and the country in a different direction than what the founders had in mind and put on paper and the Constitution. He sees the lower courts filled with “activist” judges that do not interpret the Founders meaning in the Constitution as they should do but rather how they would “like” it to be. He wrote, “American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education. This overweening addiction to the courtroom as the place to debate social policy is bad for the country and bad for the judiciary.”

       The rejection of “originalism” is known as the theory of the “living constitution.” Its tenets are that modern-day jurists can adapt the Constitution to modern-day societal preferences and governmental needs or in novel and creative or even destructive ways, according to their own ideologies. It permits them to adapt a meaning in the text that they wish had been there to fortify contemporary societal attitudes. They are not there to wish and this “we are above the mere words on the paper is a violation of their duty as jurists’ This raises the question whether we are still living in America, where "we the people" are supposed to decide what kind of society we want, NOT have our betters, that the progressives think they are, impose their notions on us. He wrote. “If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

      Federal judges have life tenure because they represent the anti-democratic part of the federal government. Their job is to preserve constitutional norms and structures and guarantees from interference by the popular branches of the federal government or the States, even when those branches or the States command popular support that runs against the Founding Fathers intent. Former Supreme Court Chief Justice Anthony Scalia argued that the job of the jurist is not to adapt the text of the Constitution to public trends or cultural changes. That is the job of the Congress and the States through legislation as set out in the Constitution. Justice Scalia argued that that itself violates the judicial oath, which is to uphold the Constitution as it was written, not as some jurists may wish it to be.

      As an American Patriot and an originalist myself. I am relieved to have a president who is also one. To see so many originalist jurors being sworn into our federal courts gives me hope for the future of the country. The judgments by lower court progressive jurists who continually rule by popularity and feelings are constantly being over-ruled at the higher judicial levels as their comrades in government continue to put an end to the originalism by vainly attempting to removing an elected president. For our nation, they must fail and they are failing gives me hope for a return to a Constitutional America.