Judicial restraint and activism
Ruth Bader Ginsberg and John Paul Stevens are the names of the 2 Supreme Court justices who are likely to retire during the term of our new President-elect Obama. Which means that as new Supreme Court justices are appointed by him, it could possibly influence the next few decades of American culture.
There are 2 streams of thought that determines how a person interprets the American Constitution: a liberal stream, which says that the words of the Constitution don't necessarily mean what they mean for modern-day audiences and can be interpreted to fit the change of times and ideas; that the Constitution is a "fluid" document. This is called judicial activism. Taken from wikipedia: judicial activism=judicial decisions that, in the view of the speaker, are directed at reaching a predetermined outcome based on the political convictions of the judges without regard to the speaker's view of the U.S. Constitution, written law or legal precedent. It is a purely subjective point of view. With this interpretation of the Constitution, a justice does one more than one of the following: overturn laws as unconstitutional, overturn judicial precedent, and/or rule against a preferred interpretation of the constitution. This is pretty much opposite to the conservative stream, which says that the words in the Constitution say what they say and it means what it means. This is called judicial restraint. From wikipedia: judicial restraint= encourages judges to limit the exercise of their own power. It asserts that judges should hesitate to strike down laws unless they are obviously unconstitutional. Exercising judicial restraint means that the judges make their decision based on what that the other ideology overturns or ignores: written law, legal precedent and takes into account different views of interpreting the US Constitution.
Some scary statistics about our United States Constitution:
22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
--McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, http://www.alternet.org/democracy/90161/?page=1
Good stuff to pray for our new president-elect:
http://blog.thecity.org/article/honor_the_king/
"President Obama is certainly a God-fearing man who could be greatly influenced for good if enough people will pray and if the right people surround him with good counsel."
Good stuff Pastor Wendell.
To have our nation's first African-American President in the White House is really exciting--I hope that all of the potential for change in our nation right now will bring positive results in the future.
There are 2 streams of thought that determines how a person interprets the American Constitution: a liberal stream, which says that the words of the Constitution don't necessarily mean what they mean for modern-day audiences and can be interpreted to fit the change of times and ideas; that the Constitution is a "fluid" document. This is called judicial activism. Taken from wikipedia: judicial activism=judicial decisions that, in the view of the speaker, are directed at reaching a predetermined outcome based on the political convictions of the judges without regard to the speaker's view of the U.S. Constitution, written law or legal precedent. It is a purely subjective point of view. With this interpretation of the Constitution, a justice does one more than one of the following: overturn laws as unconstitutional, overturn judicial precedent, and/or rule against a preferred interpretation of the constitution. This is pretty much opposite to the conservative stream, which says that the words in the Constitution say what they say and it means what it means. This is called judicial restraint. From wikipedia: judicial restraint= encourages judges to limit the exercise of their own power. It asserts that judges should hesitate to strike down laws unless they are obviously unconstitutional. Exercising judicial restraint means that the judges make their decision based on what that the other ideology overturns or ignores: written law, legal precedent and takes into account different views of interpreting the US Constitution.
Some scary statistics about our United States Constitution:
22 percent of Americans could name all five Simpson family members, compared with just 1 in 1,000 people who could name all five First Amendment freedoms.
--McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, http://www.alternet.org/democracy/90161/?page=1
Good stuff to pray for our new president-elect:
http://blog.thecity.org/article/honor_the_king/
"President Obama is certainly a God-fearing man who could be greatly influenced for good if enough people will pray and if the right people surround him with good counsel."
Good stuff Pastor Wendell.
To have our nation's first African-American President in the White House is really exciting--I hope that all of the potential for change in our nation right now will bring positive results in the future.