Welcome back to
the Liberty Insider.
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Before the break,
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I was holding forth
on Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
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a woman of great integrity
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that passed away
recently from life
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and from her life
tenure on the Supreme Court
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and the battle
that's picking up again,
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on the different factions
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trying to stack
the Supreme Court,
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which is a wrong
concept to start with.
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I want to share this
editorial that I wrote last year
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about this sort of phenomenon
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was called Stare
Decisis revisited,
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hopefully upon there
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because Stare Decisis
means established law.
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And the idea in the judiciary is
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if something is
settled and established,
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you don't lightly overturn that,
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it has its own
weight of continuity.
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And I wrote, "These
are not normal times.
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We seem to be living
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through the Pauline prediction
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that what can be shaken
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will be shaken in Hebrews 12:27.
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I use the Bible text advisedly
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because so many people of faith
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seem to have
committed themselves
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to shaking the
system of secular laws
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to bring about moral renewal.
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Liberty has not spent
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a lot of space on
Roe v. Wade in the years
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since that 1973
Supreme Court case.
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In those 46 years," 47
years now, maybe nearly 48,
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"the Christian opposition
to this abortion precedent
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has swelled from moral outrage.
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It's such a blatant
denial of the value of life
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through two violent acts,
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including murder
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against those who
perform abortions,
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and finally on to
concerted political action
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to gain power and rollback this
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and other
objectionable precedents.
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I have commented
before in Liberty
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and even on this program
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at the rather
ironic doctrinal dynamic
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that once saw
Roman Catholic leadership
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upfront in opposition
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for reasons that
had everything to do
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with original sin
and the immortal soul."
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It's worth remembering,
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that is a base
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why the Roman Catholic
Church objects to Roe v. Wade.
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I think they have
right to object to it,
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but the theological
dynamic is something
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that Protestants don't accept,
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original sin and
the immortal soul,
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at least not the first.
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"But later joined
in arguably overtaken
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by American
Protestant leadership,
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which seem not to care
as much as Luther et al
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about such differences.
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But for the point
of my comments here,
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it makes little difference.
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A unified
Christian Action Coalition
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is on the move to rollback Roe
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and as many by
their own statement
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says 120 of the court actions
that they find offensive.
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So-called heartbeat
bills in a dozen states
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now criminalize all
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but the most
early term abortions.
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Alabama recently went ahead
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and passed an
openly anti-abortion bill
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that could apply penalties
of up to 95 years in prison
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to doctors who
perform abortions.
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It passed the State
Senate by a vote of 25 to 6.
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Of course, such a bill
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is in violation of
Supreme Court precedent
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and by design,
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I think it's obvious
that this is in expectation
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that the newly
conservative Trump court
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will promptly overturn Roe
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when this challenge is taken up.
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I know that some
recent applicants
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murmured against established law
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during their confirmation,
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but many think
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that that is a necessary
white lie to do good later on.
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A while back, I
read some comments
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on all of this by Jeffrey Tubin
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writing in the New
Yorker, in May 27, 2019.
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Justice Thomas
wrote for the majority
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and franchise Tax
Board of California
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versus hire.
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I know these things
seem dull and tedious
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to many listeners,
but they're important,
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these cases, "on whether,"
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in that case,
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"on whether the 1979
precedent of the court
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should be overturned.
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In this view," writes Tubin,
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"it is fine for the court
to do away with Stare Decisis
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or the rule of precedent.
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If the current majority believes
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that the precedent represents
an 'incorrect' resolution
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of an important
constitutional question.
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Tubin writes,
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this is not how Stare
Decisis is meant to work.
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What he didn't write,
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but I think apropos
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is that this looks
like legislating from bench,
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something we've
been warned about
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for years by
the very same people
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who now attempt it."
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Back to Roe again.
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"I think it obvious
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that in practice the phenomenon
of gratuitous abortions
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often used as birth
control have cheapened
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or has cheapened
the value of life
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and paved the
way for some people
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seeming unnecessary
in a utilitarian society.
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Of course, before
Roe, people were treated...
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Women were treated
badly in this regard
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and often bore both the blame
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and the consequence
for unwanted pregnancies.
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So it cannot be good
for Big Brother government
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with Uncle Faith
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to lay a heavy hand
on personal behavior.
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This is the conundrum here.
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Yes, abortion as
it is come to exist
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as part of a moral
decline in society.
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And yes, people of faith
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risk being part
of the stoning crowd
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who brought a
woman before Jesus.
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Somehow, faith
supported legal initiatives
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should be more in line
with Jesus advice to her,
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'Go and sin no more, '
He told her in John 8:11.
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Now back to that Latin term.
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I always find it very
telling that so much of the law,
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and so much of Roman Catholicism
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is steeped in Latin,
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evidence that we
are not so far removed
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from the long lived or
slow to die Roman Empire.
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And I write this in gratitude
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that I was only a
generation removed
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from obligatory
Latin lessons in school.
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Stare Decisis is a term derived,
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a central to any
discussion of the law.
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It means to stand by
what has been decided.
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Or as a more
elongated translation
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of the larger
Latin statement goes,
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stand by what has been decided
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and do not
unsettle the established.
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It is a good legal
principle in any society,
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aiming its
stability as the Romans did.
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I remember
once, a few years ago,
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listening with much interest
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to the inimitable
Justice Antonetta Scalia,
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expand on his
principles of original intent
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in interpreting
the US Constitution.
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He was hardly a legal neophyte,
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and his general principle
had matched or recommended,
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even if it tended to
play amateur psychologist
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with dead icons
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and ran the risk of summoning up
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the lesser of the
founders intentions."
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What I'm saying
there in plain language
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and trying not to be clever,
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he would look back
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and try to divine
what the founders meant.
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Well, other than the hard
words in the Constitution,
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you're really sort of
parting back the curtains,
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a musty mausoleum
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who could know what they thought
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in their innermost
minds, what they really meant.
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We've got a pretty good
idea that in some cases,
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they view was
quite truncated on today
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and it's worth knowing
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that much of what
happens on the Supreme Court
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is divided between literal
as you look at the words,
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and some who take
those words as principles
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and try to apply
them in a modern world.
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It's an arguable point,
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but a little jump
from the literal words.
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Anyhow, it says, "At
one point in his lecture,
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he railed against
English common law,
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and indeed on any
other legal system
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as being irrelevant.
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But I think I saw a twinkle
in his eye as he said it,
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and I took it as
more of a dare than effect
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because US law
is deeply indebted
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to English common law.
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How could it be otherwise?
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The 13 original
states were English colonies.
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One little window
into the legal awareness
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is Jefferson's discussion
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of the origin of
morality and common law, "
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where he clearly says
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that we inherited
in the United States
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English common
law, I remember...
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Sorry.
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"Further, in spite of
the revolutionary language
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of the American Revolution,
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it was not the
radical ejection of the old
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that the French
Revolution introduced.
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If the French Revolution...
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In the French Revolution,
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the old political
order was he attained
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and religious
structures demolished.
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The American Revolution
took to the next level
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the aspirations of republicanism
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that had already stood
England in its civil war,
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and nevertheless ended up
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with its own
versions of wigs and Tories
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and the upper and lower houses
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and the presidency
set up suspiciously
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like a constitutional
monarch of the time.
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And I say thank God
Washington refused the crown.
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It was offered to him.
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I know the current
President sees article two
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as conferring unlimited power,
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but the reality is
that the king of England
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had little more than veto power,
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and the presidency was intended
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to be the
instrument of the people.
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During the alarms
00:10:06.07\00:10:07.40
that followed the
September 11 attacks.
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Various attempts were made
to change to settle the law.
00:10:10.27\00:10:14.08
I remember well the comments
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of a George
Washington Law School professor
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that presidential actions
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on arbitrary imprisonment
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for anyone
designated an enemy combatant,
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put us back before Runnymede
and the Magna Carta of 1215.
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English legal precedent,"
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yes, "part of the
founding principle
00:10:30.53\00:10:33.53
in the US of Habeas Corpus
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and the full legal process
as protection against tyranny.
00:10:35.23\00:10:39.80
Once we turn
against the settled laws
00:10:39.83\00:10:42.40
and liberties that
define free people,
00:10:42.44\00:10:45.61
anything is possible.
00:10:45.64\00:10:48.78
A morality unmoored from law
00:10:48.81\00:10:52.08
is apart from an
inbuilt contradiction,
00:10:52.11\00:10:55.55
mortal peril for all freedoms.
00:10:55.58\00:10:58.95
How easily some forget
00:10:58.99\00:11:01.26
that the Soviet Union
and the grand dictatorship
00:11:01.29\00:11:04.19
of the proletariat in advanced
was unsettlingly moralistic.
00:11:04.23\00:11:10.50
How few remember
00:11:10.53\00:11:11.87
that it was a
yearning for moral renewal
00:11:11.90\00:11:15.20
that raised the
Nazi brown shirts
00:11:15.24\00:11:17.34
to power in Germany.
00:11:17.37\00:11:19.57
And who has the temerity
00:11:19.61\00:11:21.88
to raise the topic
of the Inquisition,
00:11:21.91\00:11:24.45
not just in Spain
00:11:24.48\00:11:25.88
but throughout the
old and new worlds,
00:11:25.91\00:11:28.15
an inquisition that overturned
00:11:28.18\00:11:31.22
the logical freedom and ruts
00:11:31.25\00:11:33.15
in its search
for moral security."
00:11:33.19\00:11:36.39
You know, these are unsettling
00:11:36.42\00:11:40.46
what ifs and
maybes and parallels
00:11:40.50\00:11:43.63
to the past that I'm raising,
00:11:43.67\00:11:45.30
but we need to be
unsettled in our assumptions
00:11:45.33\00:11:48.90
because there are
many who are wanting
00:11:48.94\00:11:50.91
to unsettle established law.
00:11:50.94\00:11:54.31
I personally
00:11:54.34\00:11:55.68
and I think anyone
of any biblical morality
00:11:55.71\00:11:58.38
is uncomfortable
with something like
00:11:58.41\00:12:01.05
the Roe v. Wade dynamic
and what has brought with it,
00:12:01.08\00:12:04.12
but we should be
equally uncomfortable
00:12:04.15\00:12:06.69
against doing what
Jesus warned against
00:12:06.72\00:12:09.79
saying that the kingdom
of God gives us the power
00:12:09.82\00:12:13.80
to interfere with
the kingdom of man.
00:12:13.83\00:12:16.13
We're to bring God's
kingdom in hearts here and now
00:12:16.16\00:12:20.97
to be fulfilled in
its great fulfillment
00:12:21.00\00:12:23.20
in the future
00:12:23.24\00:12:24.57
when God
establishes His eternal kingdom,
00:12:24.61\00:12:27.28
but to meddle with
compulsion to faith is not good.
00:12:27.31\00:12:33.52
We fought against
00:12:33.55\00:12:34.98
those who from the Islamic world
00:12:35.02\00:12:36.95
have crossed this line
and think that they can force
00:12:36.99\00:12:39.39
and kill in the
name of religion.
00:12:39.42\00:12:41.82
Why should we
think it any better
00:12:41.86\00:12:43.66
if we do the same
00:12:43.69\00:12:45.46
in the name of a
generic Christian morality
00:12:45.49\00:12:50.37
in a country of
free republicanism?
00:12:50.40\00:12:54.00
Not good.
00:12:54.04\00:12:55.37
Stare Decisis is
a good principal.
00:12:55.40\00:12:59.47
Protection of the
established is good
00:12:59.51\00:13:02.61
and we should work towards
00:13:02.64\00:13:04.08
establishing the
God's will in our lives.
00:13:04.11\00:13:07.95