Coercing Virtue: The Worldwide Rule of Judges

Whether or not one agrees with Robert Bork's opinions (I do as they are in the Goldwater libertarian vein) he has never been one to opine without an intellectual basis. The book uses a phrase that aptly describes the situation: lifestyle socialism. This is not legislating morality from the bench. Instead, it is forcing upon society, through judicial fiat, minority ideas that would never succeed in the proper law-making body (Congress). A long list comes to mind: Banning the Scouts, burning the flag, the war against religious references and symbols, abortion on demand, busing for enforced equality (an oxymoron), prisoner's rights (quote unquote), suing for lack of responsibility such as smoking or overeating. He explains persuasively that this did not occur overnight but was a result of several factors - the monolithic leftism of academia, the one-world view of the major media and how one case of activism encourages others. Bork also explains not only the decisions but also the motives behind these decisions. As he has written and stated, frequently these are not conscious decisions but instead are responses to an anticipated reaction. Judges, like all people, respond to praise and comdemnation. They win accolades from society's elite - academia, NPR, CNN, Wash Post, Times, Hollywood - if they rule a certain way. They are also aware of the consequences of displeasing these groups. Once the Left realized its agenda would not advance in the legislature they turned to the courts. The scariest part, and one that he alludes to, is what happens when people draw the line, when they say "that's enought"? We always been a nation of laws but paradoxically the relentless assault from the bench by those who legislate rather than judge will ultimately lead to a reduction of their power. Israel and Canada, two examples in his book, are close to reaching that point. He is not optimistic but not a complete pessimist. The book is not weightt, an easy read for the knowledgable layman.

Bork is a precise legal surgeon. He slices the body politic open to expose the spreading cancer of judicial activism. Exemplified by increasing international law and judicial review gone awry, the results are drifting further away from our US Constitutional moorings. If the constitution has no primal meaning or intent, on what firm basis do we have any confidence in any legal ruling? If we cannot argue over "intent of meaning" than we are left to whatever controlling body is on the bench. The culprits provide no explanation, other than victory. In fact, Bork quotes the recent ABA president: "An attack on activist judges is an attack on our Constitution." Go figure!In convincing and lucid writing, Bork concludes: "When it becomes apparent, as it has over and over again, that the courts are not expressing the meaning of those documents (constitutions and approved treaties) but merely using the documents as launching pads for the reforms they prefer, the claim of constitutionality is revealed as fraudulent."What does the liberal left respond with? Name calling! See Ann Coulter's erudite research into this "Slander:Liberal Lies About The American Right."Providing legal case history to support his contentions as he proceeds through international law, US Supreme Court, and Canada and Israel, Bork serves up more than adequate fear which "should" spread fear and terror in all American citizenry.If only that would happen. That likely as Bork surmises would be the only way now to reverse what the Court intelligentsia has done damage to our system. Vote out all the New Class from politics, academia, and slowly bring back Constitutional judges so that the reversal of such judicial creativity to soothe their cultural dreams.This is Bork's best work to date. He has provided us with clear treatment of landmark judicial activism. No more poignant than this dissent opinion by Justice Blackmun: "not because they contribute, in some direct and material way, to the general public welfare, but because they form so central a part of an individual's life. The concept of privacy embodies the 'moral fact that a person belongs to himself and not others nor to society as a whole." Bork replies: "No greater endoresement of radical individual autonomy or of sentiment more disintegrative of society has every before been articulated in a constitutional opinion."Toss out the rule of law! Toss in the rule of judges. Lord have mercy on the 'ole USA. Interested parties will want to check out John Warwick Montgomery's "Law Above the Law."

This is a very important book. In it you will find exposed the horrendous harm that activist judges have imposed and continue to impose on our free Republic.Those errant judges, Bork reveals, are legislating from the bench, enforcing a new ideology that he named "lifestyle socialism." Bork calls those judges faux intellectuals of the Left who, unable to persuade the people or the legislatures, "avoid the verdict of the ballot box" by engaging in "politics masquerading as law." This is in violation of the U.S. government's "Separation of Powers" rule. We are "increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives, but by unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committees of lawyers applying no law other than their own will." Bork shows how our Republic has been assaulted by a "coup d'etat" by men and women in black robes who have changed us "from the rule of law to the rule of judges." Bork says the activist judges see their mission, not as upholding our Constitution, but as redefining it to coerce new behaviors on what they consider "a barbarian majority motivated by bigotry, racism, sexism, xenophobia, irrational sexual morality, and the like." He shows how this group of federal judges is hellbent on destroying traditional values in the United States Republic. Some of them "make it up" as they go along, rationalizing opinions that suit their own ideas of what is right and wrong--opinions that have nothing to do with the Constitution and statutes enacted by the Congress. Bloodless revolutions do not come only in military garb, and Bork exposes the bloodless revolution that is destroying the freedoms so many of us take for granted.For anyone who does not take their freedom for granted, this book is MUST-READ!!

Although America's constitutional courts' usurpation of political power does not yet match that in Israel or even Canada, Bork's expose of judicial misconduct is a sobering look at how representative democracy and the will of the people are all-too-frequently overruled in the name of "the rule of law" - lately become a euphemism for "the rule of judges".Are they enacting their own agenda? Or are they influenced by powerful forces the authors of the Constitution intended them to be free of? If you've ever wondered how on earth courts can reach (let alone justify) such decisions as legalizing abortion, outlawing the death penalty, or overturning laws prohibiting homosexual behavior, Bork explains it. The answer is unsettling.

With a ruling from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in California outlawing our Pledge of Allegiance because it contains the words, "one nation under God," and the case of Lawrence v. Texas in which a constitutionally protected 'right' to sodomy was discovered, there couldn't be a more informative and timely book or a better author on the subject of law, precedent, and the role of the judiciary in America. Robert Bork presents factual evidence of worldwide judicial tyranny. While the 11th Circuit puts the 10 Commandments in the closet in Alabama and the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals finds that a 4-year-old had no right to give out pencils that said "Jesus loves the little children" as Easter presents to classmates, we must ask ourselves: are we ruled by Law or by Men? To quote the author from one interview, "The nations in the West are increasingly governed not by law or elected representatives, but by unelected, unrepresentative, unaccountable committees of lawyers applying the law in accordance with nothing other than their own will." How will you decide this issue of judicial activism? Will you champion various court decisions because they align with your worldview, despite the consequences to our unique constitutional form of government in America and the delicate balance of power and culture between nations? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cited *foreign* court rulings as a basis (in part) for his decision in Lawrence v. Texas, and Ruth Bater Ginsberg was later quoted affirming and defending that practice. The New York Times has reported openly and approvingly that judges are engaging in a "worldwide constitutional conversation." Research through the pages of this book what in the world is going on with the judiciary. Become informed about why the unique foundations of American law and jurisprudence are vital to the freedoms we all hold dear and to civilization as we know it.