Richard Posner, ironically a Reagan appointee to the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, indicates what disdain many federal judges have for the actual Constitution:
In short, let’s not let the dead bury the living.
Of course it is only the Constitution, and the residual respect that many Americans still have for it, that gives these lawyers in black robes any rightful authority. The whole purpose of the Constitution was to limit the federal government and safeguard the rights of the people. Too many federal judges like Posner view it as a sham that they can use to enact their policy preferences.   Posner and his ilk are hastening the day when that respect will cease to exist and their rulings will no longer have the consent of the governed. When that happens, judges like Posner may look in mirrors to see who is to blame for the chaos and violence that results. Fools, blind fools.
Oh, it’s just about here now. The Supreme Court is a majority of idiots.
No, they won’t see it. They think they will lead the revolution like Robespierre. They don’t care that in the end, it killed him too. They are smarter than all of us.
And Posner was at one time a highly regarded and disciplined jurist. I wonder when the wheels fell off.
Sad, Posner was a guy with so much potential, but for years has been getting more and more “progressive.”
So now, instead of ignoring the constitution, we’ll just ignore Posner.
I have lost all respect for our court system. Period.
Pray tell, what should lawyers study?
In one of Heinlein’s novels (The Cat Who Walked thru Walls?) the hero lives on a habitat called Golden Rule where the only law is the golden rule, thus there are no statutes, no common law, no precedent. We may be heading for the day when the only law is “justice” as defined by SJWs.
Whoever defines law in the absence of the Constitution Thomas, I am confident it will not be the SJWs. The special snow flakes have not shown an interest in wielding weapons, and without true law, rather than the whims of those in power, that is where real power always resides.
He took an oath when he became a Judge to enforce the Constitution…He needs to resign !!
[…] just how ignorant, practically illiterate, modern elites have become. He recommended law schools cease spending so much time on the Constitution, for it was over 200 years old and made largely irrelevant by technological advances. The […]
I think he just informed Ms Clinton and Mr Sanders he would be happy to accept an appointment to the Supreme Court.
Ha! At 77, unless he is now senile, Posner realizes he will never sit on the Court. Note how he never said anything about these views as long as we had a Republican president in office and Posner still had hopes of ending up on the Court. Never think that the average judge is not as motivated just as much by ambition as the typical politician. Posner in the past few years took quite a few swipes at Scalia who, I am sure, he hated because Scalia, who was of Posner’s generation, was sitting in “his” seat on the Court. “What fools these mortals be!”
Without respect for the US Constitution, there is no meaning or authority in the US Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Or in any other federal court. Or in federal anything. Posner just explained himself into irrelevance by wishing that all the laws be made flat.
the constitution contains a mechanism for keeping it relevant to the changes the country has endured and the changes it faces.
it is not the constitution that is outdated. it is the totalitarianism that relies on the use of force to control people with unjust laws.
judges do not have the authority to determine what human behaviors a society must allow. when they try to force a community to accept behaviors the community considers harmful, unethical or immoral, judges are overstepping their authority. deciding on what behaviors are unacceptable is the responsibility of the legislative branch of a government.
the only reason that judges are being allowed to legislate is because those responsible for legislating are allowing judges to overstep their authority. the same can be said of those responsible for administering our laws and governments. they do not have the moral courage to do their jobs.
“the only reason that judges are being allowed to legislate is because those responsible for legislating are allowing judges to overstep their authority.”
Because the Democrat party is in favor of judges legislating from the bench, since the results almost always advance a leftist agenda, and Democrats in Congress block any attempt to reign the judges in.
Don, in one of the post 9/11 “War on Terror” cases, the Supreme court ruled among other things that war crimes trials at Guantanamo (and presumably anywhere else in the future) required that the U.S. military MUST practice civilian police rules as to the collection and documentation of evidence on the battlefield. President George W. Bush should have publicly stated that this ruling was an usurpation of presidential authority as commander-in-chief of the military and was therefore unconstitutional. He did no such thing. So, this problem is much more pervasive than just Congress.