This seems so odd to me. How can they possibly make such a claim?
Judge Richard A. Posner, in an article in The New Republic in August, wrote that Heller’s failure to allow the political process to work out varying approaches to gun control that were suited to local conditions “was the mistake that the Supreme Court made when it nationalized abortion rights in Roe v. Wade.”
Would he say the same about the right to a trial by jury, freedom of religion, or freedom of speech? The RKBA, is a specific, enumerated right. Yet Posner thinks it should be subject to “the political process”? If that were the case then what does he think a right really is?
And if you read his article in The New Republic you will find he misstates facts and overlooks things like the state constitutions at nearly the same time as the U.S. Constitution that specifically spelled out the RKBA as an individual right.
How can someone like this be considered fit to be a judge?
Or what about this?
“In both Roe and Heller,” Judge Wilkinson wrote, “the court claimed to find in the Constitution the authority to overrule the wishes of the people’s representatives. In both cases, the constitutional text did not clearly mandate the result, and the court had discretion to decide the case either way.”
What about the wishes of the people’s representatives in Alabama, Mississippi, and the other deep south states of 50 years ago. Should have they been respected?
It seems to me that these judges are unable or unwilling to embrace the concept of inalienable rights.
If I were able to change the structure of our government one of the changes I would make is there would be specific provisions for a small minority to overthrow any law which plausibly granted to the government powers beyond those enumerated in the constitution. It seems too many people are unable to think of there being a problem that would not benefit from a government solution. And what I think of when government tries to solve problems is best described by the picture here.
“How can someone like this be considered fit to be a judge?”
He’s considered by some to be “fit” precisely because he thinks like that.
“…find in the Constitution the authority to overrule the wishes of the people’s representatives.”
That is of course the specific purpose of the Bill of rights and other provisions in the Constitution. If anything and everything were to have been subject to the “wishes of the people’s representatives” the constitution would have been far more brief. One sentence probably would have sufficed for that;
“In all matters, the will of the people as expressed through the representative process shall be the Supreme Law of the Land.” Something like that. It’s close to what we have right now.
SOOO glad Wilkinson was not chosen to be a Supreme Court nominee. He was close. I just read Jan Crawford Greenburg’s book on the recent nominees (can’t recall the title) and he was on lists for both Bush I and Bush II.