In the history of this country, Democrats have called out armed federal agents in order to:
(1) prevent black children from attending a public school in Little Rock, Ark. (Gov. Orval Faubus called out the National Guard);
(2) investigate an alleged violation of federal gun laws in Waco, Texas (Clinton’s attorney general, Janet Reno sent the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms); and
(3) deport a small boy to Cuba (President Clinton sent the Immigration and Naturalization Service).
(Democrats get excited about the use of military force only when it’s being used against Americans.)
So how about a Republican governor sending in the National Guard to stop an innocent woman from being starved to death in Florida?
In two of the three cases mentioned above, the Democrats’ use of force was in direct contravention of court rulings. Democratic Gov. Orval Faubus called out the Arkansas National Guard expressly for purposes of defying rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court and lower federal courts. Decadent buffoon Bill Clinton sent armed agents from the INS to seize a small boy from an American family — despite rulings by the Florida courts granting the family custody of the boy.
None of these exercises of military force has gone down in history as noble, but that’s because of the underlying purpose of the force, not the fact that force was used.
What has gone down in history as a good moment for the republic was when President Dwight Eisenhower (Republican) called out the military in response to Gov. Faubus’ abuse of the National Guard to prevent black children from entering the Little Rock high school. Eisenhower simultaneously revoked Faubus’ control of the National Guard and ordered the 101st Airborne Division to escort black students to school. (Minutes later, Democrats pronounced the Arkansas public schools a “hopeless quagmire” and demanded to know what Ike’s exit strategy was.)
It was important to enforce the constitutional right to desegregated schools. Isn’t it also important to enforce Terri Schiavo’s right to due process before she is killed by starvation?
Liberals’ newfound respect for “federalism” is laughable. Anyone who support the Court’s lawless imposition of a nationwide rule for abortion on the states via Roe v. Wade should be prohibited from ever using the word “federalism.”
I note that whenever liberals talk about “federalism” or “states’ rights,” they are never talking about a law passed by the voters or elected representatives of a state. What liberals mean by “federalism” is one thing: a court ruling. Just as “choice” refers to only one choice, “the rule of law” refers only to “the law as determined by one judge.”
As a practical matter, courts will generally have the last word in interpreting the law because courts decide cases. But that’s a scheduling matter. There is nothing in the law, the Constitution or “federalism” that elevates court rulings above the executive or legislative branch. Other public officials, including governors and presidents, are sworn to uphold the constitution, too.
It would be chaotic if public officials made a habit of disregarding court rulings simply because they disagreed with them. But a practice borne of practicality has led the courts to greater and greater flights of arrogance. Sublimely confident that no one will ever call their bluff, courts are now regularly discovering secret “constitutional” provisions requiring that the nation submit to their views on abortion and gay marriage, among many other things.
Just once, we need an elected official to stand up to a clearly incorrect ruling by a court. Any incorrect ruling will do, but my vote is for a state court that has ordered a disabled woman to be starved to death at the request of her adulterous husband.
Florida state court judge George Greer — last heard from when he denied an order of protection to a woman weeks before her husband stabbed her to death — determined that Terri Schaivo would have wanted to be starved to death based on testimony from … her husband, then living with another woman. (The judge also took judicial notice of the positions of O.J. Simpson and Scott Peterson.)
The husband also happened to be the only person present when the oxygen was cut off to Terri’s brain in the first place. He now has two children with another woman.
No one begrudges Michael Schiavo’s decision to move on, but then he should move on: Divorce her, and let her parents decide Terri’s fate. They want to keep her alive.
Greer has refused to order the most basic medical tests for brain damage before condemning a woman to death. Despite all those years of important, searching litigation we keep hearing about, Terri has yet to receive either an MRI or a PET scan — although she may be allowed to join a support group for women whose husbands are trying to kill them.
Greer has cut off the legal rights of Terri’s real family and made her husband (now living with his new family) her sole guardian, citing as precedent the landmark case, “Fox v. Henhouse.” Throughout the process that would result in her death sentence, Terri was never permitted her own legal counsel.
What if Greer had ordered that Terri Schiavo be shot at her husband’s request? (A more humane death than starvation, by the way.) Would elected officials tut tut and then do nothing — claiming to be bound by the court’s ruling because of the “rule of law”? I suspect not. I would think that the president would order the FBI to protect her and the governor would send in the state police.
What was supposed to be the “least dangerous” branch — the judiciary — has become the most dangerous, to the point of ordering an innocent American woman to die, disregarding congressional subpoenas.
The courts can’t be stopped, but not because of anything so exalted as the rule of law. They are all-powerful only because the entire country has decided to treat their pronouncements like the word of God. The only power they have is based on our own submissive response to their every ruling. Everyone jumps when they say “jump.”
President Andrew Jackson is supposed to have said of a Supreme Court ruling he opposed: “Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” The court’s ruling was ignored. And yet, somehow, the republic survived.
If Gov. Jeb Bush doesn’t say something similar to the Florida courts that have ordered Terri Schiavo to die, he’ll be the second Republican governor disgraced by the illiterate ramblings of a state judiciary. Gov. Mitt Romney might never recover from his acquiescence to the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s miraculous discovery of a right to gay marriage. Neither should Gov. Bush if he doesn’t stop the court-ordered murder of Terri Schiavo.
COPYRIGHT 2005 ANN COULTER
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