The Constitution is at stake

This election is about a lot of things, but it is fundamentally about the U.S. Constitution and whether federal judges will adhere to their oath to “… faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon [them] … under the Constitution and laws of the United States.” Some judges seem to have pledged to dilute, attack, and destroy our founding document.

The president of the United States, of course, appoints federal judges. The kinds of judges Hillary Clinton says she would appoint are far different than the kind Donald Trump says he would appoint. Richard Posner, a federal judge on the bench of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, revealed the seriousness of the prospects before us in a recent op-ed for Slate.

In his op-ed, Judge Posner claims to see “absolutely no value” in studying the Constitution because “Eighteenth-century guys, however smart, could not foresee the culture, technology, etc., of the 21st century.”

Even the Bill of Rights, says Posner, “do not speak to today.”

Wow. Freedom of speech, assembly, the press, religion, no warrantless searches, and more are outmoded concepts? Who knew?

And lest you think I am quoting out of context, let me give you an extended quote from Posner’s column: “I see absolutely no value to a judge of spending decades, years, months, weeks, day, hours, minutes, or seconds studying the Constitution, the history of its enactment, its amendments, and its implementation (across the centuries—well, just a little more than two centuries, and of course less for many of the amendments).”

After receiving severe criticism, Judge Posner apologized for his “careless” remarks, but he still doesn’t think the Constitution is relevant for today because, you know, those dead white guys owned slaves and didn’t have the internet.

And as for whether the remarks were really “careless,” it’s worth noting this isn’t the first time Judge Posner has flippantly suggested that the founding document of these United States has little or no importance in the 21st century.

Posner’s views testify to the arrogance of some judges who think they know better than the Founders.

Posner’s views testify to the arrogance of some judges who think they know better than the Founders. The presidential election is four weeks from today. Will the American people vote for a president who will appoint judges who believe, as the late Justice Antonin Scalia did, that the Constitution sets boundaries for limited government in order to guarantee liberty to American citizens? Or for a president who prefers judges who think the Constitution is a fluid thing that means only what an unelected judge says it does.

By the way, in his op-ed, Posner took a swipe at Scalia, saying that praise for the late Supreme Court justice who died earlier this year “was absurd.”

This election will determine the direction of our courts and whether judges will write laws, or interpret under the Constitution the intent of the legislators who wrote them. It will also decide whether the Constitution remains a self-authenticating document, protecting our liberties from encroaching government, or something that in the minds of judges like Richard Posner can be shredded along with our liberties.