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February 10, 2012
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The Kosher Gourmet byDana Velden: Going to the bother of making soup? You know it better be good. This CREAM OF TOMATO SOUP certainly is! And it's a cinch to make, too (Includes techinques and serving secrets)
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Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
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Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
February 1, 2012
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Emily Brandon: How to Take Advantage of New 401(k) Fee Disclosures
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January 30, 2012
Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim: Misreading Teheran's limits -- deadly and economically devastating as they may be -- is a risk administration, Europe seem willing to take
Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
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Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
Melissa Dribben: Jewish voters to play a key role in Florida's Republican primary
Jordan Rau: In quest to grow, Catholic hospital system will announce this morning its break from church
Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
January 19, 2012
January 18, 2012
January 17, 2012
Frank J. Gaffney Jr.: No-kidding red lines: U.S. response to an Iranian nuke may be bluster, but Israel's won't be
David G. Savage: They sued their principals after slandering them online --- now the cases are headed to the Supreme Court
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Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz: Thriving through touch: Gentle massage helps older people with low mobility improve in mind and body
January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
Katy Hopkins : Consider This Before You Pay for an Online Degree
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January 11, 2012
Shari Roan: Millions of atrial fibrillation sufferers at risk for devastating, but preventable, stroke
Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
Dec. 14, 2006
/ 23 Kislev, 5767
Supreme farce, Part II
By
Thomas Sowell
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
From time to time, the Supreme Court of the United States makes a decision that causes anger or outrage, but that reaction usually passes with time, especially since there is nothing the public can do about it either to change the decision or to remove from the bench those who made it.
This has emboldened many federal judges at all levels to take advantage of their lifetime appointments to make rulings that impose their own personal views and call it law. Some have even added insult to injury by rationalizing such judicial activism.
In a recent interview, Justice Stephen Breyer claimed that laws are "not clear," so that judges are forced to base their decisions on the "values" they see behind the laws, rather than the specific words in those laws.
"Not clear" is an old ploy and "values" are a blank check.
Most of the controversial Supreme Court decisions that have outraged and polarized the country have not involved laws or facts that were "not clear." Everybody knows what an abortion is and what the death penalty is.
Everybody knows the difference between government's power to seize private property for "public use," like building a reservoir or a bridge, and allowing politicians to grab people's homes willy-nilly, in order to turn the property over to some other private parties, such as owners of casinos, hotels or shopping malls.
"Not clear"? Even the most crystal-clear law in the world can be twisted by clever lawyers and clever judges to seem unclear, if that is all it takes to give them the power to impose their own notions as the law of the land.
To people who want to see judges impose their own views instead of applying the laws as written, "not clear" is a magic phrase like "open sesame," opening the floodgates to unbridled judicial power.
The people who use this foolish argument are not fools themselves, though they may well regard the rest of us as fools enough to buy some pretty words, at the cost of losing the right of free people to govern themselves through the democratic process.
Very often both headstrong judges and those who support them in the media and in academia act as if these elites have both the right and the duty to impose their superior wisdom and virtue on the rest of us.
Many are unduly impressed by their superiority to others within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns. From the fact that they know so much more than the average person, at least within that narrow band, they assume that they have more knowledge than all the millions of average people put together, across the whole spectrum of concerns involved in decisions.
That is the grand fallacy of social engineering in general.
No doubt the central planners in the days of the Soviet Union knew more economics than the average Soviet citizen. But nobody knows enough to set the 24 million prices that central planners had to set.
Yet hundreds of millions of ordinary citizens could have dealt with 24 million prices much more effectively because each individual or enterprise had only to deal with the relatively few prices necessary for their own decision-making.
In this, as in so many other situations in so many other societies, the total knowledge of the many vastly exceeded the special knowledge of the few.
That is what makes limiting the powers of the government so important because it is virtually impossible to limit the presumptions of government officials, whether legislative, executive or judicial.
In the United States, those limits are set by the Constitution. Yet those limits have been repeatedly and increasingly exceeded by activist judges claiming that the laws are "not clear."
It is shameless sophistry. But they are not going to stop until they get stopped. And the only way to stop them is to start impeaching those judges who go counter to the law.
There will of course be outcries about a threat to an "independent judiciary." But the judiciary is not supposed to be independent of the laws, which is the dangerous situation today.
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© 2006, Creators Syndicate
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