All,
I was recently in Washington, D.C. on travel and had the opportunity to visit the National Archives with my family. Therein we had the privilege to view the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and many other documents that were pivotal in the formation and early development of the United States of America. Several things struck me as worthy of discussion here as we continue our fight to preserve what the United States is all about.

We think of the "founding fathers" as venerable, almost sacred persons - so wise and so patriotic. But in truth, they were rebels fighting the abuses of England against the American colonies. Not much focus is given today to the fact that they paid dearly for their uprising, even though they eventually won. Many of them lost their homes and land - the properties were burned in retaliation for their activism. Of course, many soldiers lost their lives in the American Revolution. They paid dearly for standing up for the noble causes of freedom from tyranny, the new democracy, freedom of speech, and the right to worship as they pleased. Whereas the British at the time put more and more authority in the Parliament to make decisions concerning rights and freedoms of British citizens, the rights and freedoms of the fledgling United States of America were embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. Over time, the Bill of Rights and other amendments came into being to supplement the Constitution. The United States was unique in that it embodied the rights of its citizens in a document as opposed to persons, rendering our rights more indelible, supposedly, over time.

However, we took note of the display pointing to the seminal court case Marbury v Madison, 5 U.S. 137, in which the Courts, through case law, gave themselves the power of judicial review, or the power to review all laws with respect to the Constitution and to strike down any laws that, in their views, did not hold to the Constitution. This unforeseen awarding of the Courts to themselves the power to supercede the output of the legislative and executive branch was never intended by the founding fathers and never provided for in the planning documents of the origins of the United States. A recent example of the effect of judicial review is that of the Supreme Court of California's review of the majority vote of Californians in rejecting the legalization of same-sex marriages. In other words, the majority of persons in the state voted down the measure, but the California Supreme court overruled the majority in our great democracy and issued an edict rendering same-sex marriage legal. Regardless of your personal view of the particular issue of same-sex marriage, every citizen of the United States should be concerned about the Court's power to overrule the majority and the way in which it was exercised in this situation.

It is a mistake to continue to allow the Courts in this country to rule for themselves more power and unlawful protections. In fact, the situation needs to be reversed. The Courts are out of control today and they are destroying everything the Constitution was created to provide - the rights of individual citizens to take part in their government. Today, the Courts can take an individual's family, home, assets, and freedoms without having to justify its actions in most cases and without having to take any responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The Courts have, again by case law, awarded to themselves a full cloak of immunity. No wonder our democracy is fraying at the seams today. And the Courts wonder why they have lost the respect of We the People . . .

Leslie Cumiford
President, CFJ