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July 22, 2004 Somewhere along the line, the judges in this country took it upon themselves to alter their jobs. They no longer limit themselves to interrupting the laws and ensuring that laws are applied equally and fairly, as written by the Federal, State and local legislators. Instead, the judges have decided that they are legally able and obligated to make laws from the bench. I’m not sure when this practice started, but it should be stopped as soon as possible. These judges are implementing social change through actions that are far beyond their authority. While some of these people are elected to their offices, politicians appoint most, and we all know that to get appointed, you have to be in the politician’s pocket or embrace the political agendas in some way. This is not acceptable to me. There should be in place a check and balance system to help the public stop this abuse coming from self- important judges who think they are above the laws they are appointed to uphold and interpret, not create. The United States Supreme court members are appointed for life. This makes me very uncomfortable, a lifetime gig of any kind reeks of royalty, or a supremacy that is unchecked at any level. It scares me that a person is thought of as entitled to a lifetime appointment. We want judges, not Kings and Queens. I believe it takes an act of Congress to impeach a Supreme Court jurist. We know that it takes a lot to get congress off their collective asses to do something; so waiting for them to do the right thing will take a long time, if ever. Recently, the State supreme court of Massachusetts ordered the State legislature to come up with a law allowing same sex marriages. This is in my opinion a gross abuse of their power, courts are to abide by what the legislative body decides, not order them to enact laws. Unfortunately, the governing body fell to their knees, ready and willing to comply with the judge’s orders. This is a classic example of a biased court’s ability to further an agenda of their choosing; the public’s will be damned and ignored. One of the court members is a lesbian who was alleged to have been cited that she was successful in getting her homosexual rights agenda in place in spite of what the public will was. This practice goes from top to bottom in our legal system. Take for example; you get caught in a speed trap. The police officer issues you a ticket for speeding, you have a choice to make, plead guilty and pay the fine, plus court costs, or plead innocent and contest the charges. If you decide to contest the charge, you will have to appear and present your case to a judge that has been appointed to his/her job by a politician, whose agenda is most likely the same? You plead your case, if the judge decides you are guilty and you wind up paying the fine, plus court costs. What bothers me about this scenario is the court costs. What do they do with this money? Look at any town, city, county or state budget and you will see the cost of the upkeep of the courthouses, judges, clerks, bailiffs, security staff salaries and materials included in that budget. This means to me that the money is already there, and the above-mentioned items will be paid if there is a court session or not. They can’t include the money from traffic and parking tickets, or fines levied into their budgets. This would be like going to a bank and placing a soon to be drawn lottery ticket as collateral. It may work if you actually win the lottery, but the chances you won’t are awfully high, and if the lottery ticket is accepted on the basis I cited above, there would be one more person added to the unemployment rolls; the loan officer of that bank. So, where does the money go? I have no idea, but have some ideas. I’m thinking the judges give themselves a handsome end of year bonus? (Can’t call it a Christmas bonus anymore, that’s non-PC). Or maybe the court costs are paying for the new cars the judges seems to be tooling around in lately? This is something I think should be investigated, it could reveal a lot of possible corruption in many places. A court is supposed to be a place to seek justice, not help line the pockets of judges and politicians or make laws. Let’s keep the judges interpreting the laws and overseeing cases to insure that the laws are adhered to, and keep the legislatures doing what they were elected to do, write laws according to the will of the people, not some special interest groups that are contributing to their campaigns. Maybe it’s time to elect a special, fully
independent overseer to monitor where and how
public monies are being spent and
allocated.
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