Principle #7 from the Enacting Clause (Preamble) of the United States Constitution
Full Episode Transcript
If one would be required to sign an Informed Consent document to have a mole removed, how could the Consent of the Governed be legally undermined through the deceptive practices of prevaricating politicians that routinely target the voting public with misleading statements?
The abandonment of principle that has led to its surreptitious betrayal with respect to the Doctrine of Original Intention makes the ‘originalist’ Justices look like walking contradictions. Their efforts, to undermine government of, by, and for the people, are obvious to anyone who values objective satisfaction over subjective gratification.
In the United States of America the Supreme Court represents what has been described as an independent judiciary although it is clearly a product of political process. It should be clear by now that an integrity compromised process yields an integrity compromised product. The Court has, through its decisions, converted what media analyst Marshall McLuhan once described as a whirlpool of information, into a cesspool of disinformation. In the wake of the Dobbs decision, Justice Sotomayor questioned whether the Court could even survive the stench.
In 1976, The Supreme Court ruled certain limits on campaign expenditures to be unconstitutional. That case was Buckley versus Valeo. In 1978, SCOTUS heard First National Bank of Boston versus Bellotti and held that corporations have a First Amendment right to make contributions to ballot initiative campaigns. The 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) case marked the turning point when dark money contributions surged distorting the political discourse.
The same political gamesmanship that would allow one President to fill one third of the Supreme Court positions in just one term is now replete with dark money nominations, confirmations, and accommodations. Today, dark money is all pervasive and the Supreme Court Justices are among its greatest beneficiaries. From the endowments that influence law school curricula, through a variety of peer pressure societies, and the undeniable process sophistries; the Justices have not only enabled deceptive practices, some have personally benefited from them.
The acrid influence of partisans continues to corrode the democracy underpinnings of our constitutional republic. The only way to minimize the influence of those lying in wait for the Court’s ideological balance to shift, is to change its critical mass.
Expanding the Court to twenty-one Justices would make it possible to impanel seven Justices at random, to hear each given case. The Court could rule on a more timely basis in cases where the national interest is at stake. It would serve to reduce the backlog of unsettled law. And, it could help a great humanity to catch an occasional glimpse of statesmanship when they look at how the individual Justices behave.