Court’s ‘charge is not to rewrite laws passed by Congress’

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To the editor:

On this July 4, I cannot help but wonder what the Founding Fathers would think of the nation. A nation they fought and sacrificed so much for during their fight for freedom from tyranny. I venture to guess that they have tears in their eyes. They could be asking themselves how the nation they entrusted us with could venture so far from the Constitution they so eloquently hammered out over those long hot summer months so long ago. I hear and see talking heads from the media and academia all the time, saying, “It’s in the Constitution”; but when I read the Constitution, I cannot find it. This is what I am so distressed about.

We see riots all the time, protests almost daily, destruction of both public and private property on a massive scale, looting of stores, debris and rocks thrown at law enforcement officials, but nothing done to perpetrators or participants. The talking heads all go to the playbook and say, “We are allowed to assemble; it’s in the Constitution.” The word they fail to include in their explanation is “peaceably.” Why are they not arrested when they discard the peaceable portion of the First Amendment? The Occupy Wall Street, protesters in Ferguson, New York, and Environmental terrorists fit into this category. They all destroy when they assemble, which is against the law. When is the last time we witnessed a peaceable assembly of rioters destroying public and private property?

The common person should be able to read the Constitution and understand what the Founders meant when they wrote it. I fail to understand how nine appointed citizens wearing black robes find things in our Constitution that the normal, everyday, publicly educated citizen cannot. The Supreme Court judges are charged with ensuring that any case before them is judged against what is in the Constitution, not with finding a way, explanation or method to infer that the issues on a case are spelled out in our founding document. … Their charge is not to rewrite laws passed by Congress, but to send laws back to Congress to have the laws changed if they are in violation of the Constitution.

I have read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights at least a hundred times and I can find nothing addressing marriage, health care, environmental regulations or a myriad of issues recently ruled on by our Supreme Court. Both the court and the administration disavow that the 10th Amendment exists. This amendment states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In other words, if it is not in the Constitution, the individual states and/or the people can regulate it, do it or pass laws to restrict it.

Considering the 10th Amendment and the fact that there is no mention of same-sex marriage, health care, illegal immigration or scores of other topics written into the Constitution, these all should be patiently reserved for the individual states and the people to decide upon, not nine appointed citizens in black robes. Sadly, in the most recent decision, two of the judges actually performed marriages between same-sex couples while the case was before the court. By all rights, they should have recused themselves from voting on the final decision.

Perhaps it’s time we the people force our members of Congress to put a 28th Amendment before the states for a vote, one that puts term limits on Supreme Court justices and members of Congress.

Christopher A. Acker

Delaware

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