Alaska’s prolife legislative majority took the mistaken action of accepting case law in regards to “medically necessary” abortions, and as predicted, wasted their time parsing through it in order to discern a tiny opening and a moral lifeline to grab, through statutory law.
The “hierarchy of law” is an ancient concept that some laws are more important than others. In our rancorous and increasingly nonsensical political climate, everyone accepts this idea. Just which laws are more important than others is where the argument exists.
In order of priority, once upon a time, natural law reigned supreme, followed by constitutional law, statutory law, common law and, way down at the bottom, case law.
Long ago, through a drawn-out process that was aided by cowardice, ignorance, ambition and pride, the legislative and executive branches of government, on both the state and federal level, abdicated the field of battle in our political wars to the judiciary, which creates case law. You may have read it was never meant to be this way. There were remedies to this usurpation, but they were only seldom exercised.
What is worse, the existence of natural law (inherently placed in the heart of man), and common law (unwritten laws of tradition), have been expunged completely from the cultural debate; constitutional law has been allowed to morph into “whatever the judiciary says it is”; statutory law has been permitted only if the judiciary likes it; and case law, the body of opinion that the judiciary creates by applying the other laws, has been elevated to god-like status.
It has trumped the laws that actually were God-given to us, on Mt. Sinai.
Law schools don’t like to do much else except have the students study case law, case law, case law. Ask any lawyer. Case laws are thick, heavily foot-noted, buried deep in the judicial archives, and are understood only by the lawyer class — which, of course, includes judges, who take the thread of a decision and expand meanings, definitions and applications … and are only understood by the lawyer class.
Indeed, the lawyer jokes that we, and even lawyers, love to tell are based upon this dimly understood but universally sensed fact.
The legitimacy of government has cracked in our society. It is through, finished, wiped out, and you could point to Roe v. Wade as the starting point, but there are many others further back that are equally, if more subtly, significant.
Case law has been maintained only by the desire for the coherence of a public and political order at the expense of a moral one. Yet order and coherence itself are destroyed by such “laws”, even if not immediately recognized.
A moral society really is not the business of government. That belongs to religion, which has demoted itself out of the cultural debate, except in things the government likes. A significant reason for this is socialism, where morality and charity, long the universe of religion, has been turned over to government, with compliant clergy cheerleading the way.
A political answer through statutory law, nullification, impeachment or even secession, are constitutional and political remedies that can be sustained only by a culture that understands the natural and constitutional law, yet when was the last time you heard natural law preached from any pulpit? Or constitutional law properly explained at any institutional level?
Well, at this writing, it appears that Tennessee is going to give it a try.
In his best-selling book Nullification, Thomas Woods had predicted this would happen: that states would begin to awaken to the fact that the entire system of Judicial Activism has no foundation in the Constitution, but rather relies upon 1) the judiciary’s own encroachment, 2) the legislative, executive and state willingness to permit it, and 3) public Constitutional ignorance, that thinks the system is meant to operate in the way it has.
Several things are bound to happen: 1) the courts will “nullify” the state law; 2) the Lamestream Media will ridicule the Tennessee action as akin to Jim Crow racism; 3) having satisfied their profamily constituency that they did all that they could, the legislature will cave in … MAYBE.
I say “maybe” because, at some point, it’s not going to happen. Just who/what/when/where, I don’t know. But at some point, it will. We study history for a reason. Natural Law can be defied only so long. The audition for “Who Wants to Make History?” is wide open.
It’s not Constitutional rocket science. What it needs is the one thing that makes it all happen: courage.
The Alaska legislature, which had absolutely no problem nullifying potential new federal gun laws, might be hesitant to do so in other things, yet it ought to consider a plethora of court decisions to nullify: starting with Roe v. Wade, Kelo v. New London, Obergefell v. Hodges, etc.
But, what does it take to rouse us from lethargy?
The progressive zeitgeist has forcing us to accept convoluted case law for generations, and we are used to it. Those who resist will be branded, ostracized, arrested, fired, fined, or imprisoned. I’m sure you’ve noticed that these are not future or theoretical events anymore.
And, what’s left? Perhaps, ultimately, execution. Governments do that, you know.
The latest absurd “laws” perpetrated by the lawyer class through the courts, on the state and federal level, have no real remedy other than the evangelization of our culture through religion. Sending messages to our sympathetic government officials, running for office ourselves, or even nullification, will have no effect unless the people understand, accept and are taught the Natural Law. What’s more, most law-makers merely act through the tiny and ever-shrinking windows left open to them by the tyrants.
The Tennessee action is different, but it is going to require allies in other states. My first bet is with Oklahoma, then perhaps Wyoming, Montana … and why not Alaska?
But civil disobedience, and suffering the consequences that result from it, might be what is required. Suffering and evangelization is a slow process, and no one likes that idea, but “slow” also translates into “more permanent”. It involves things that are not gladly performed, such as prayer, penance and sacrifice. It also needs leadership.
We have reached rock bottom, but such a situation has its advantages. To rebuild, we must turn to Faith, and if our shepherds refuse to lead, then the sheep must show them the way.
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