Like a computer virus, relentlessly chewing up your hard drive, the trend of recent court decisions has been to declare the Bill of Rights and the concept of federalism as no longer applicable. A case in point is the recent legal ruling ending the internet exemption of the BCRA (McCain-Feingold campaign reform). First, the Supreme Court decided that paid speech is not FreeSpeech as the plain text of the First Amendment says. Then, a lower court judge interpreted that decision to mean that bloggers’ free speech is also not Free Speech.These ludicrous situations wouldn’t occur if even five members of the Supreme Court would simply read words such as these rather than try to force meanings into them:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Realistically, our best bet is to appoint some judges who understand the intent of the Constitution was to limit what government can do, not to limit what the people can do.
The next few years will likely see the appointment of enough judges to determine whether the founding principles of this nation will be respected or further eroded.
