Judge-Made Law?
A California appellate court has ruled that parents without teaching credentials do not have a right to home-school their children.
Ironically, it was exactly fifty years ago this August that the chief justices of ten states joined together to issue a report critical of our federal judicial system with the following language: “It has long been an American boast that we have a government of laws and not of men.” That document, entitled “REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON FEDERAL STATE RELATIONSHIPS AS AFFECTED BY JUDICIAL DECISIONS” went on to complain that “… the Supreme Court too often has tended to adopt the role of policy-maker without proper judicial restraint.”
Gaining steam, they went on, “We do not believe that either the framers of the original Constitution or the possibly somewhat less gifted draftsmen of the Fourteenth Amendment ever contemplated that the Supreme Court would, or should, have the almost unlimited policy-making powers it now exercises. It is strange, indeed, to reflect that under a constitution which provides for a system of checks and balances and of distribution of power between national and state governments one branch of one government – the Supreme Court – should attain the immense, and in many respects, dominant, power which it now wields.”
Learn the Constitution!
A wonderful opportunity to learn why America is great
Americans who wish to accurately analyze current issues in the light of the Constitution – our “supreme law of the land” – now have a splendid opportunity just a click away. The National Center for Constitutional Studies (www.nccs.net) in cooperation with Heritage Academy, a public, charter high school in Mesa, Arizona, has put a semester-long study course on The 5000 Year Leap online for the whole world to study. Any student who completes the course will be given a transcript showing one-half credit from Heritage Academy. This school is accredited by North Central Association and Commission on Accreditation and School Improvement.
This course contains 27 lessons covering the 28 Principles of Liberty in great detail. Each lesson contains the elements as in the example below. The video instruction contains PowerPoint notes to help the student master the important points of instruction.
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Reading assignment – Principle 1 -
Study questions to answer – Principle 1 -
Video instruction, Principle 1 (30 minutes) -
Quiz – Principle 1, Natural Law -
Find a current issue
The study questions, and current issue assignments are uploaded to the instructor for grading. The quizzes and two examinations are computer graded. A running grade of all assignments keeps the student aware of his progress through the course.
In order to further test this online course, Heritage is offering the opportunity for several students to enroll in the course, complete the assignments, and receive an accredited transcript for only the purchase of the textbook, The 5000 Year Leap. If a student already has the textbook, there will be no charge for the course during this test period. Heritage invites those who would like to participate on this basis to login to the website www.halearn.com to begin and, if necessary, to communicate with Earl Taylor at his email address, etaylor@mstar.net.
Kudos to Earl Taylor for this valuable contribution to the constitutional literacy of Americans!
Internet First Amendment Rights Challenged
In a move that legal experts said could present a major test of First Amendment rights in the Internet era, a federal judge in San Francisco
on Friday ordered the disabling of a Web site devoted to disclosing confidential information.
The site, Wikileaks.org, invites people to post leaked materials with the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” by
corporations and governments. It has posted documents said to show the rules of engagement for American troops in Iraq, a military manual for the operation of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and other evidence of what it has called corporate waste and wrongdoing.
Constitution May Hinder McCain Presidency
This just in from the New York Times… It really is an interesting Constitutional Question! Could McCain be eliminated from the competition because he is not a “natural born” citizen? Words do matter!
The question has nagged at the parents of Americans born outside the continental United States for generations: Dare their children aspire to grow up and become president? In the case of Senator John McCain of Arizona, the issue is becoming more than a matter of parental daydreaming.
Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.
Almost since those words were written in 1787 with scant explanation, their precise meaning has been the stuff of confusion, law school review articles, whisper campaigns and civics class debates over whether only those delivered on American soil can be truly natural born. To date, no American to take the presidential oath has had an official birthplace outside the 50 states. Continue reading
Warm Oregonian Welcome Extended to Retired Judges of America
Retired Judges of America’s (RJA’s) Judge Darrell White (Retired) and Jason Stern were received with “northwestern” (U.S.A.) hospitality at Restore America’s third annual conference in Portland, Oregon held during February 22-23, 2008.
Hundreds of attendees expressed keen interest (and surprise) to learn of the 100-year old “Harlan Bible” tradition pursuant to which U.S. Supreme Court justices, upon being sworn in, each sign the flyleaf of a keepsake Bible in the custody of the Court’s curator. Judge White explained how this venerable tradition is being repeated in courts across America.
Of note: Christian Law Association Attorney David Gibbs, III, explained sad features associated with Terri Schiavo’s court-ordered dehydration, Judge White explained how Retired Judges of America was incorporated on the very day Schiavo died – March 31, 2005. Interest was keen over the subject of judicial activism especially in light of Oregon’s recent court-ordered nullification of petitions in favor of a statewide marriage protection amendment.
Retired Judges of America looks forward to helping Oregonians restore America–one court at a time!
Constitutional Shots Fired in Montana!
Montana officials are warning that if the Supreme Court rules in the D.C. gun ban case that the right to keep and bear arms protects only state-run militias like the National Guard, then the federal government will have breached Montana’s statehood contract.Nobody is raising flags for the Republic of Montana, but nobody is kidding, either. So far, 39 elected Montana officials have signed a resolution declaring that a court ruling of the Second Amendment is a right of states and not of individuals would violate Montana’s compact.
“The U.S. would do well to keep its contractual promise to the states that the Second Amendment secures an individual right now as it did upon execution of the statehood contract,” Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson said in a Feb. 15 letter to The Washington Times.
The dispute goes back more than a century. Back in 1889, the settlers of the Montana territory struck a deal with the federal government: They agreed to join the union, and the government agreed that individuals had the right to bear arms.
That has worked fine for the past 118 years, but the Supreme Court is expected next month to hear oral argument in District of Columbia v. Heller, the appeal of a federal court decision striking down the District’s gun-ownership ban on Second Amendment grounds.
Advance on Retired Judges of America
Welcome AdvanceUSA readers!
Retired Judges of America is pleased to be the first featured subject of the AdvanceUSA Spotlight.
RJA @ Restore America
Restore America Conference
Retired Judges of America will attend the Conference and have an opportunity to tell our story at a Friday luncheon. Stop by and say hi!
Here’s an overview of the Restore America Conference Info:
In a time when the values that made America a great nation are under attack You Must Make a Difference! Learn from nationally known speakers at the Restore America Conference, Feb 22-23, 2008 at Rolling Hills Community Church, Tualatin, OR.
- Click here for more information about the conference and to register.
High Court’s Big Secret
This article appeared in the December 2006 issue of Citizen magazine.
High Court’s Big Secret
by Stephen Adams, Focus on the Family
Don’t tell the ACLU, but a recent discovery proves the U.S. Supreme Court is a faith-based organization.
One significant milestone totally unnoticed by the Washington establishment this year was the 100th anniversary of the Harlan Bible. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it. The Harlan Bible is a well-kept secret to virtually all but the 50-plus U.S. Supreme Court justices who have signed their names to its flyleaf since 1906, nearly half of all justices who have ever served.
The little-known Harlan Bible is named after John Marshall Harlan, a prominent Supreme Court justice, devout Christian and Sunday school teacher who started the tradition, bequeathing this English Bible to the generations of justices to come. Some of its mystery has been unwrapped by retired Louisiana City Judge Darrell White….
Judge White was on a law panel with Judge [Roy] Moore in Oklahoma City several years ago when a random question about the oath taken by federal judges sent him on a research project that turned up so many curious historical facts that he’s now working on a book about it. In particular, White wanted to know the origin of the phrase “so help me God” in the judicial oath prescribed by the original Judiciary Act of 1789.
A Constitutional Law Lesson
Citizens in Berkely, Michigan, are making news for standing up for what the First Amendment actually says: https://www.candgnews.com/Homepage-Articles/10-25-06/FG-NATIVITY.asp Here’s an interesting point in the article:
“Meg Boker argued to keep the nativity scene where it is, saying that her children are inundated with immoral and objectionable material every day on television and the Internet, yet she has to fight for any kind of religious or spiritual symbols to be displayed in public. ‘When we force religion indoors, we become less tolerant as a society,’ she continued. ‘We never get to learn about our brothers and sisters.’”
Her assertion – a powerful one – is that the First Amendment simply does not protect people against being offended. Thomas Jefferson affirmed that proposition in his letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, the icon most closely identified with the concept of “separation of church and state” when he wrote that, “…the legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions….” Elsewhere Jefferson wrote:
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” Notes on Virginia Q.XVII, 1782. ME 2:221
A little critical thinking puts the issue in perspective: why is it that the same First Amendment free speech clause that protects the “rights” of persons who wish to speak ill of God shouldn’t protect the rights of persons who wish to speak well of Him in public? Regrettably, the Supreme Court’s misapplication of the “separation of church and state” principle has given us what Justice Arthur Goldberg warned could become “…a brooding and pervasive devotion to the secular and a passive, or even active, hostility to the religious.”