Phil Lee
Member
The Washington Times article below shows that not all conservatives are our friends (not all liberals are our enemies, either). It appears that the pro-RKBA divide is not over conservative/liberal labels, but over the much older Jeffersonian/Hamiltonian views of government (limited (small)/big government or minimal/overbearing government).
The article shows two judges who are labeled "conservative" but who really don't recognize that we are a Constitutional Republic. They think we are a parliamentary democracy with all issues settled by democratic votes, the provisions of the Constitution notwithstanding.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/29/washington-in-5-minutes-94015890/
Monday, September 29, 2008
Washington in 5 Minutes
CONSERVATIVES
Judges criticize Scalia in gun case
Two recent critiques of Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion in the landmark decision guaranteeing people the right keep guns at home for self-defense are notable because they come from fellow conservative federal judges.
The judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, and Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, take Justice Scalia to task for what they suggested was the same sort of judicial activism he regularly disdains.
Judge Wilkinson was interviewed by President Bush in 2005 for a Supreme Court vacancy. His article strongly suggests that the 5-4 decision in Heller v. District of Columbia would have come out differently if he had been chosen for the court.
"Heller represents a triumph for conservative lawyers. But it also represents a failure - the Court's failure to adhere to a conservative judicial methodology in reaching its decision," Judge Wilkinson wrote in an article to be published next year in the Virginia Law Review. "In fact, Heller encourages Americans to do what conservative jurists warned for years they should not do: bypass the ballot and seek to press their political agenda in the courts."
Judge Posner, writing in the New Republic last month, said of Justice Scalia's work in Heller: "The decision ... is evidence that the Supreme Court, in deciding constitutional cases, exercises a freewheeling discretion strongly flavored with ideology."
The article shows two judges who are labeled "conservative" but who really don't recognize that we are a Constitutional Republic. They think we are a parliamentary democracy with all issues settled by democratic votes, the provisions of the Constitution notwithstanding.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/sep/29/washington-in-5-minutes-94015890/
Monday, September 29, 2008
Washington in 5 Minutes
CONSERVATIVES
Judges criticize Scalia in gun case
Two recent critiques of Justice Antonin Scalia's opinion in the landmark decision guaranteeing people the right keep guns at home for self-defense are notable because they come from fellow conservative federal judges.
The judges, J. Harvie Wilkinson of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, and Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, take Justice Scalia to task for what they suggested was the same sort of judicial activism he regularly disdains.
Judge Wilkinson was interviewed by President Bush in 2005 for a Supreme Court vacancy. His article strongly suggests that the 5-4 decision in Heller v. District of Columbia would have come out differently if he had been chosen for the court.
"Heller represents a triumph for conservative lawyers. But it also represents a failure - the Court's failure to adhere to a conservative judicial methodology in reaching its decision," Judge Wilkinson wrote in an article to be published next year in the Virginia Law Review. "In fact, Heller encourages Americans to do what conservative jurists warned for years they should not do: bypass the ballot and seek to press their political agenda in the courts."
Judge Posner, writing in the New Republic last month, said of Justice Scalia's work in Heller: "The decision ... is evidence that the Supreme Court, in deciding constitutional cases, exercises a freewheeling discretion strongly flavored with ideology."
