I was really interested to read THIS ARTICLE BY THOMAS SOWELL ABOUT JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS.
Sowell is my favorite economist, and Thomas is my favorite justice. I mean, he totally ROCKS! He’s even better than Scalia. It’s too bad cloning is immoral (and takes too long, and doesn’t transfer memories), because I’d love to have a court packed with nine of him.
Here’s a neat piece in Sowell’s article that hits the nail on the head regarding how judicial activism amounts to the creation of ex post facto laws:
In one of his dissenting opinions, Justice Thomas declared that the Supreme Court was making "policy-laden judgments that we are ill equipped and arguably unauthorized to make" — and that this represented "functioning more as legislators than as judges."
He added: "The outcome of constitutional cases ought to rest on firmer ground than the personal preferences of judges."
That firmer ground is the original meaning of a law when it was passed. If that meaning needs to be changed, then it is up to elected officials to change it, not judges. That is what the democratic process is for.
When legislators change a law, that change is announced, so that everyone knows what is and is not illegal from now on. But when judges change the law by reinterpreting it, based on the "evolving standards" of a "living constitution," nobody knows that they have violated the law until after the fact, when it is too late.
Retrospective laws are expressly forbidden by the constitution. But the "evolving standards" of a "living constitution" amount to retrospective laws by another name.
Quite so.
Also, here’s a nice bit regarding whether Ten Commandments displays constitute an establishment of religion (which in the Constitution means creating an official state religion equivalent to the Church of England but which has been obscenely misinterpreted by the Supreme Court in recent years):
Justice Thomas has . . . refused to read the constitution’s ban on an "establishment of religion" as if it meant a "wall of separation" between church and state, requiring the obliteration of religious symbols from public property.
There is no such wall in the constitution, and an "establishment of religion" had a very plain and limited meaning when those words were written — a coerced support for a government-designated religion. Justice Thomas’ opinions often go back into history to show what the constitution’s original meaning was.
In response to someone who wanted the Ten Commandments removed from a courthouse, Justice Thomas said: "He need not stop to read it or even look at it, let alone express support for it or adopt the Commandments as guides for his life." There was "no coercion" as there was when there was an establishment of religion.
