When the Supreme Court switched to discretionary certiorari in 1925 (thus allowing the court to pick and choose its own docket), the Court paved the way for a highly selective treatment of the Constitution. While some constitutional provisions (e.g., the First Amendment and the Fourth Amendment) are routinely accorded Supreme Court consideration, many others are almost completely ignored.If I were cynical by nature, I'd start to wonder if maybe the whole damn game was rigged...
It can hardly be a coincidence that all of the dead letters happen to place limitations on the scope and power of government. In contrast, the few provisions of the Constitution granting powers to government have been interpreted expansively.
[Via Ron W]
3 comments:
Read the whole thing, the 2nd is a dead letter too by decree of the 9 robed dictators, and read what Lysander Spooner said during the early days, of course the whole game is rigged, you don't need cynicism to see that.
Yeah, but are we actually surprised? It's always rigged in favor of the government--in every nation that ever existed. The Anti-Federalists understood this at the founding of our nation.
When a government is funded beyond the bare minimum, it has the time and resources to consider things outside of its fundamental duties. The first task of a growing government is to consider the legitimacy of its existence. The next task is to consider the limits of its power. Then the first is used to justify the second.
This appears to be the normal course of all governments. Can someone find an example of an authoritarian state that peacefully and gradually became a liberal one?
Rigged? Yep. What we have here is a "Kobyashi Maru scenario". Time to cheat.
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