Activist Conservative Judges Blocking True Justice in America

Thomas. Scalia. Roberts. Alito. Those are not the names of the front four linemen on an American football team. But they do perform a similar function blocking for conservative causes in America.

Of all the justices, Clarence Thomas seems to most resemble a tough offensive lineman in demeanor and conduct. He seems the prototypical silent type, happier knocking heads than chit-chatting about the nuances of handling liberals.

By contrast Justice Antonin Scalia is more like former Chicago Bear defensive lineman Steve McMichael. Confrontational. Publicly raw. Bit of a bully.

Justice John Roberts is one of those workmanlike blockers that takes his job seriously and isn't above a sneaky hit now and then.

Finally we have Justice Samuel Alito, who is consistently conservative and seemingly happy just to win the game week-in, week-out.

Joined on occasion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Conservative Cabal marches up and down the field of American justice knocking down anything in their way. Most recently the Fearsome Foursome and their sometimes rightie partner Kennedy voted to allow powerful corporate and union money to flow freely into elections without limit or having to identify the sources. This move severely compromises American democracy by overwhelming the fair and balanced electoral process, placing higher value on the ability to raise and spend money to buy election results than on the quality and consideration of candidate qualifications.

That means candidates with support from large corporate interests, especially global and even international companies, are better able to succeed in a nation that places so much emphasis on media exposure to establish credibility. This imbalance really takes the power and authority of the people's voice away because candidates without access to that level of money do not stand a chance to elected. Elections become a case of class warfare.

Yet somehow the conservative judges found that this perversion of justice fits well under the purview of America's Constitution, a document drafted to guarantee equal rights to individual citizens. But conservative judges bear the opinion that corporations deserve rights in equal measure to U.S. citizens. So they essentially turned corporations into a separate voting bloc with its own rules and protections. We live in a deeply divided America these days.

For several years when Democrats were in power we heard conservatives complain about the dangers of supposedly "activist judges." Yet recent news stories relate incidents in which Supreme Court judges meet with leading politicians to deliver lectures and quite possibly help advise and determine public policy and Constitutional law. These same justices, especially Scalia, are known to kibbutz with top ranking conservative politicians socially as well. For example, Scalia went duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney and then refused to recuse himself from a case in which Cheney's business and political interests were directly involved.

These actions far exceed mere "activism." The current line of conservative justices clearly aims their personal and professional lives toward fulfillment of ideological aims. They then literally invite challenges from opponents on their behavior. They are like a football team that, when faced by an obviously overmatched opponent, keeps its starting lineup in the game to run up the score. They run laughing off the field with their political partners in Congress and Senate.

Back in 2000, conservative judges essentially decided the election in favor of George W. Bush. Think about it: Were conservative judges assigned by Republicans and aligned with Republican politics going to rule in favor of a recount that might conclude Al Gore won the election? Never. And the ruling was a miscarriage of justice that changed forever the direction of American history and prosperity.

That decision led to 8 years of politics dominated by conservative policy. But conservatives seemed so cocky at their stolen electoral victory that America got caught with its pants down in the attacks of 9/11. The conservative administration then overcompensated in its embarrassment by turning into a Draconian powerhouse that persecuted innocent people on suspicion of terrorism while making up hollow terms like "enemy combatants" to circumvent national and international law and hold said suspect indefinitely. These are the actions of fearful, insecure leaders, people whose core convictions have been sorely tested and found lacking.

But rather than use introspection to determine a better course of action, our leaders went on a fearful rampage, imprisoning captured suspects and keeping them in a jail on foreign soil to avoid responsibility to our nation's own laws. From top administration officials on down came policies advocating torture, secret renditions and wanton collateral killing of unarmed citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan. The climate of fear and threat was so great after four years of George W. Bush in office that Americans voted him back into power based mostly on the emotion of fear itself. "We don't want to remove a wartime President," was the presiding emotion.

But that is precisely what we needed to do. Instead we got a President who claimed a "mandate" in his re-election, labeling himself first the "decider" and joking that he would be better off as president if he had the powers of a king or dictator. Meanwhile Dick Cheney and other shadowy influences spoke of the need for "unitary" powers for the President. But even Bush seemed befuddled by that notion. He already had all the powers he needed and knew not what to do with them.

So conservatives rolled on, conducting unbudgeted wars out of choice and passing tax laws favoring the rich. The tides of economic balance were headed in different directions. Debt rose while American productivity ebbed as more than 42,000 factories disappeared from American soil in the 8 years Bush led the country. Meanwhile deregulation was creating a whirlpool of uncertainty. Whole markets got sucked down including real estate, mortage and finally securities markets, all went spinning down the conservative pool of deregulation. America almost went down with it. And then conservatives who had been in power for nearly 8 full years had the gall to blame Democrats for increased spending, debt resulting from "entitlements" and other excuses given to exonerate themselves from a track record of irresponsible governance.

Yet conservatives seem proud of that era and those results, as if America was right conducting these unhealthy experiments in social and international policy.

We should also remember that for a while conservative Republicans even called themselves the party of "family values." The idea seems almost quaint in retrospect, especially as millions of American families lost their retirement and jobs due to market instability and an economic recession largely driven by Republican-fostered corporate speculation jobs sent with capital investment overseas. Conservatives almost sacrificed the nation for their ideology. That's the basic truth. Conservative convictions have been allowed to replace American values for more than 30 years. And when pressed about the issue they have turned to pulpit bullies like Rush Limbaugh and Fox News to state their case, over and over repeating lies and ideology to numb the American people into believing their failed policies are still right. But they never quit, installing judge after judge and leader after leader whose conservative ideology seems to be surpassed only by their own ego in its scope.

The unhealthy fact is that conservatives know neither how to fairly judge law and Constitutional interpretation, nor how to govern a nation founded on liberal principles of freedom, justice and equality. These liberal instincts are the very aspects of faith and tradition that guarantee our freedoms. But the current brand of conservatives would rather focus on retaining power and control with a fanaticism bordering on fascism. That is the end product of all such cabals where legal and political power converge. Even the military apparently has been swayed toward a Christian evangelical worldview that perverts faith into a killing mantra. The ultimate irony and hypocrisy is, after all, a Christian army designed to kill its enemies when the bible clearly says that to love our enemies is the work of Christ. It is not the military that is in question here, but the strange moral foundation it chooses as its motivation. We should recall that there is a Constitutional guarantee of freedom from religion as well as freedom to practice religion. But an army that contends it is on the side of God knows no such separations.

It is a shame our activist Supreme Court justices (unlike a series of prosecuted and convicted politicians like Tom DeLay and Scooter Libby) will not likely face legal consequences for their abuse of public trust and authority. America could learn much about its own character by putting our top justices on the stand to answer for their abuses of power, law and ethics. Perhaps then we'd really learn what the term "activist judges" means. In a court of law.