Judicial Tyranny: The New Kings of America?

Historically accurate. Constitutionally sound. Its a shame there are few options left for Americans who remember what our country was found upon. I encourage reading this for both new comers and scholars of both law and American tradition. Very easy read and simple constitutional terms that are legally accurate, yet no longer adhered to, by those claiming to represent the people.

This is a book to pay attention to. Easy to read & understand, & what every American needs to know.

Good seller, thanks for the book.

This is an excellent book, with lots of important information about our three branches of government and how it was originally set up to operate. Lots of great info with which to arm ourselves to urge congress to recall some of the radical judges.

In his book Judicial Tyranny: The New Kings of America, Mark Sutherland has assembled a wonderful cast of Christian attorneys, jurists, political scientists, and clergy who offer a rather perceptive analysis of judicial tyranny and our hope and means of restraining an overactive judiciary. Contributors include James Dobson, former U.S. Attorney General Edward Meese, former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore, Don Feder, David Gibbs, Howard Phillips, Rev. Rick Scarborough, Phyllis Schlafly, and Herbert Titus among others. For too long, Congress has been complacent in the face of an overreaching, activist judiciary that has been out-of-step with the will of the great majority of the American people, and the judiciary has overstepped the bounds of its constitutional authority time and time again. Herein, the issue of an activist U.S. Supreme Court and federal judiciary is confronted with painstaking precision in manner intelligible to even the lay person. Meanwhile, solutions to overcome the tyranny of these black-robed deities are presented with amazing clarity. As Edmund Burke once declared, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Complacency and ignorance will only allow the judicial oligarchy to become more entrenched and continue to foist its will upon us that is so frequently out-of-touch with the sensibilities of the American people.The framers of our Constitution hoped to establish an independent federal judiciary; however they by no means hoped to establish some new and peculiar government that might be termed an archonocracy-a national domination of judges. As John Randolph of Roanoke, in observing the activism and usurpation of power by the federal judiciary in his time quipped that "I can never forget that the Book of Judges is followed by the Book of Kings." Thomas Jefferson opined, "...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy." Alexander Hamilton considered the judiciary to be the "least dangerous branch" of the federal government because it had neither the sword of the Presidency nor did it control the purse-strings like the legislative branch. In our time, the appellation of "least dangerous branch" to describe the federal judiciary seems rather far-fetched in light of twentieth-century history. While Hamilton made some compelling arguments about the virtues of an independent judiciary, he did not perceive the judicial tyranny that looms over us today. On the hand, Thomas Jefferson and George Mason were very weary of an overactive judiciary and they offered prophetic insight that has bore bitter fruit. George Mason warned that if unchecked the federal judiciary would destroy the state judiciaries, and encroach upon their jurisdictions. In his twilight years, Jefferson remarked that the "federal judiciary" was an object of "fear" declaring, "That body, like gravity, ever acting with noiseless foot and unalarming advance, gaining ground step by step and holding what it gains, is engulfing insidiously the special governments into the jaws of that which feeds them." As John Taylor of Caroline opined, "A jurisdiction, limited by its own will, is an unlimited jurisdiction." The States coupled with the horizontal checks and balances within the federal government itself were intended as a bulwark against usurpation by any branch. As Madison has declared, "ambition must be made to counter ambition." Yet Congress remains complacent in moving against an overactive judiciary by any "ambition" of it's own and the States have been rendered impotent. The Executive branch generally refuses to interpose against encroachments against the Constitution by the judiciary, though it is sometimes committing its own usurpations. Alexander Hamilton reminds us that, "It may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments." Andrew Jackson encapsulated the power of the executive to interpose, in declaring, "The Supreme Court has made it's decision, now let them enforce it." Jackson, of course, had no intent of give their judgment efficacy. Interposition, of course, should be utilized to uphold the rule of law.Some of the most powerful changes in civil society came not from the Congress but from an overactive judiciary. Justice Scalia in one of his famous dissents lamented that the Supreme Court had assumed the role of "a sort of junior-varsity Congress" in contravention of the constitutional design of the framers. While Hamilton's assertion that the judiciary is the "least dangerous branch" have proven erroneous in our time, in Federalist #78 Hamilton declared, "The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body." Since FDR's court-stacking in the mid-1930s and the activist push of the Warren Court in the 1950s, American conservatives have grown steadily more concerned about a judiciary gone awry. The U.S. Supreme Court in our time has sanctioned the removal of the Ten Commandments and prayer from public places, diminished local community standards of obscenity, trampled upon the sanctity of life in legalizing abortion throughout all fifty states with Roe v. Wade in 1973, and mor recently the court has trampled property rights by sanctioning eminent domain abuse for private politically-connected interests in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Judicial fiat now trumps the rule of law, and we have supplanted the law with the rule of men. The agenda of social liberalism is foisted on society most successfully by an overactive federal judiciary. With the most absurd and twisted reasoning, the Supreme Court made a steady, unforeseen move towards the legalization of abortion, such as the case of Grizwold v. Connecticut the court discovered an unenumerated right of privacy in the "penumbras, formed by the emanations," of the Bill of Rights. Ancillary to that right of privacy was a concomitant right to infanticide. Justice Goldberg boldly state that such unenumerated rights were "rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people," to give a locus of legitimacy to the court's arbitrary whelm.George Mason, Thomas Jefferson and John Taylor of Caroline feared that the federal judiciary would devour the jurisdiction of the states, and become activist. Nonetheless, Congress has the constitutional means to counter an overactive judiciary by impeachment and by circumscribing the jurisdiction of the federal courts including the U.S. Supreme Court. Hamilton reminds us that it has been long-standing Anglo-American tradition that judges only hold their tenure in "good behavior" and this was a barrier to the "encroachments and oppressions of the representative body. And it is the best expedient which can be devised in any government to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws." Yet Impeachment is hardly even considered to reign in on judicial tyranny. Phyliss Schlafly perceptively notes, "The Founding Fathers did not write a Constitution that set up a judicial oligarchy. They gave us a government based on the Separation of Powers. The mighty power of government was divided among three branches of government, and each is supposed to restrain the others by an interlacing network of checks and balances. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution justifies judicial supremacy." Nonetheless, in our time, the design of the federal republic has unraveled, and judicial usurpation has made the assault on the Constitution all the more egregious. Justice Antonin Scalia has sardonically referred to his colleagues as "black-robed masters" who manipulate and distort the Constitution, and abysmally conflate their powers. "Within the last 20 years, we have found... the right to abortion, which was so little rooted in the traditions of the American people that it was criminal for 200 years [and] the right to homosexual sodomy, which was so little rooted in the traditions of the American people that it was criminal for 200 years."Judge Roy Moore makes it clear that all federal laws are not "the supreme law of the land" or by implication "constitutional law" merely because it was effectuated by a federal court ruling, but only those laws made "in pursuance thereof" to the Constitution as per Article VI. Even sitting Justice Scalia has expressed his disdain at his activist colleagues on the High Court: "So it is literally true... that the court has essentially liberated itself from the text of the Constitution, from the text and even from the traditions of the American people... and the Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake. It's a legal document. And like all legal documents, it says some things and it doesn't say other things." There are even recent precedents that show Congress has willingness to act against the judiciary's mischief, but the hope of conservative Christian evangelicals is that the Congress would do more and abate the judiciary's raw grab for power. In 2004, both House and the Senate passed the Marriage Protection Act, which became public law, which had the effect of circumscribing the jurisdiction of the federal courts and the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court-effectively barring those courts from hearing questions related to marriage. This was seen as a welcomed preemptive move by evangelicals to prevent a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage throughout the United States while usurping the authority of the States and legislatures on the matter. Liberals in a knee-jerk reaction muttered that such legislation was unconstitutional; however, the Constitution vests Congress with the authority of circumscribing the jurisdiction of the federal courts and of abolishing and reconstituting those courts in a manner it sees fit. Mark Sutherland thoughtfully notes, "Congress has the power to limit what areas the judicial branch can rule in. Under authority granted to Congress in Article III, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution, Congress can place regulations and exceptions on the judicial branch that would prohibit the courts from ruling on certain issues and in certain areas. These areas could be religious freedom, the definition of marriage, or any other area that Congress chose to declare off-limits to the courts." Moreover, at the impetus of our Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court possessed a much limited jurisdiction. Essentially, it was confined to cases where it exercised original jurisdiction and diversity jurisdiction as per Article III, Section 2, "The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority;-to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls;-to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction;-to controversies to which the United States shall be a party;-to controversies between two or more states;-between a state and citizens of another state;-between citizens of different states;-between citizens of the same state claiming lands under grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects." Essentially, as per the Constitution, the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary was extremely limited. For example, two citizens of the same state could not be litigants in a federal suit since diversity of citizenship is lacking, and the federal jurisdiction only extends to cases where the plaintiff and defendant parties come from different states. The federal judiciary exercised jurisdiction over disputes between the states. Essentially, there are two main sources of the cases coming before the federal courts: "federal question" jurisdiction, and "diversity" jurisdiction. Earlier in the nineteenth-century, the jurisdiction of cases properly arising within under the authority of the States was considered inviolable and there was no higher court of appeal in cases originating in a state court than the Supreme Court of the respective State. This has, of course, changed as respect for states' rights and the Tenth Amendment has been greatly diminished, but it is within the power of Congress to circumscribe the jurisdiction of the federal judiciary to a manner commensurate with original intent. While the judiciary has usurped the powers of Congress and the States time and time again, it is within Congress' power to reign in on an overactive judiciary while preserving the benefits of an independent judiciary. We must activate Congress and communicate to our lawmakers that the American people are tired and alarmed by a judiciary whose edicts are seldom amenable to the more conservative sobriety of the American people. If Congress does not actively impeach overactive judges that subvert the Constitution, it can greatly curtail federal court jurisdiction.All things considered, Mark Sutherland has brought together a provocative corps of respected scholars and legal thinkers who collectively offer an incisive critique of a judiciary gone awry while they offer constructive solutions for reform. They make it abundantly clear that we the American people do not have to be slaves to the edicts of these black-robed deities. Their adroit assessment of the federal judiciary is intelligent, rooted in a principled esteem for the rule of law and constitutional popular rule, and their solutions are constitutional defensible, practical and tenable. One thing is resoundingly clear, we must stand up to these demigods in block robes that contravene the design of our federal republic and offer outlandish decisions at odds with the will of the vast majority of the people. It is paramount that the American people awaken and voice their discontent to their elected representatives in Congress if we are to abate judicial tyranny. Mark Sutherland's Judicial Tyranny is destined to be a classic, and unlike similar well-written books by Mark Levin and Pat Robertson, Sutherland's book is unique: it is hard-hitting and much more multi-faceted on the issues it covers. Additionally, it represents a profound cooperative effort by a potentate of conservative luminaries from James Dobson to Roy Moore."The courts must declare the sense of the law; and if they should be disposed to exercise WILL instead of JUDGMENT, the consequence would equally be the substitution of their pleasure to that of the legislative body."-Alexander Hamilton