Happy 65th birthday, Justice Clarence Thomas
The states, not the federal government, have the exclusive right to define the “Qualifications requisite for Electors,” U. S. Const., Art. I, §2, cl. 1, which includes the corresponding power to verify that those qualifications have been met. – Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting opinion in Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. (June, 17, 2013)
What would you say is the perfect crime? … One without a suspect. – Machiavelli
Prologue
Justice Clarence Thomas is one of my most enduring living mentors. He has been my intellectual father for 25 years when I first discovered his iconic law review article on Natural Law while I was a graduate and law student at Harvard (1988-89), and there I pledged my fidelity with Thomas and to the constitutional framers.
Justice Thomas was born 65 years ago this day in the little town of Pin Point, Ga. This tribute essay celebrates the Natural Law and originalist jurisprudence of Thomas, which mandates a synthesis between legality and morality. For 23 years now, Justice Thomas has almost single-handedly upheld a reverential respect, reliance and expertise for the original ideals and intent of the constitutional framers that is tantamount to the transcendent.
I swear before God and mankind that the only thing that stops America’s constitutional framers from spinning in their graves like skewered beef is the judicious, Natural Law, natural rights jurisprudence of Justice Thomas. Happy 65th birthday my friend!
Arizona v. Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc. (June, 17, 2013)
The Supreme Court ruled Monday in a 7-2 decision to discard Arizona’s voter-approved law mandating that all voters prove their U.S. citizenship. This unconstitutional act of legislating from the bench essentially stabbed federalism (state’s rights) in the back and held that states cannot on their own require likely voters to verify they are U.S. citizens before allowing them to vote in national elections. Federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself,” wrote Justice Antonin Scalia for the Court’s majority. Scalia and the majority opinion were absolutely wrong in this case.
In 2004, Arizona voters approved a law that requires election officials in that state to refuse to register any would-be voter who cannot prove he is in fact a citizen. This state law was designed to bolster the National Voter Registration Act, or NVRA, which Congress passed in 1993. Arizona residents, together with voting and civil rights organizations, challenged the state law, arguing that it was unconstitutional because it conflicted with, and was superseded by, the NVRA under the Supremacy Clause. The petitioners won in the lower court, and the Supreme Court granted certiorari (review) to determine not only whether the state law can be controlling, but also whether the lower court used the right test in making its decision. The Court held that since the Constitution allows Congress to make or change election rules established by the states, Congress can veto any state laws concerning to elections, though it doesn’t make it obvious that indeed this was their original intent.
Epilogue
In a sense, when an oligarchy of Supreme Court justices, cloaked with God-like power to control the affairs of men, dispense with, denigrate or ignore the transcendent, biblical foundational precepts upon which the U.S. Constitution rests (Natural Law, natural rights), they have committed judicial malpractice. Yet these jurists have essentially replaced the sublime words of Jefferson and Madison with the evil intent of Machiavelli’s tyrannical rule – The perfect crime is one without a suspect. In other words, “The end justify the means,” “Might makes right” or as Lord Acton wrote of Machiavelli, “State [and federal] power is not bound by moral law.”
Justice Thomas jurisprudence is synonymous with Natural Law as defined in the 28 originalist constitutional principles by the National Center for Constitutional Studies: Principle 1 – The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law. Natural law is God’s law. There are certain laws that govern the entire universe, and just as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, there are laws that govern in the affairs of men, which are “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”
For his 22 years on the Supreme Court, Justice Thomas’ many opinions – including majority, minority, concurring and, as here, dissenting ones – are an essential primer for the original intent of the constitutional framers, a testament to the Natural Law and originalist philosophy that our Founding Fathers gave up “their Lives, their Fortunes, and their Sacred Honor” to bequeath to us and to our generations through the Ages.
Justice Thomas’ dissent upholds federalism (e.g., plenary power of state’s rights is equal to federal power) including election law, which according to Art. 1, §2, cl. 1 is the sole jurisdiction of the states, an inviolable line which the majority opinion in this case has in a most unseeingly fascist manner trampled upon today. Conservative radio host Mark Levin, put it this way: “Federal election law determines the when and how, but the states determine the who [as in voter qualifications].”
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/happy-65th-birthday-justice-clarence-thomas/#i3QgFXgdpc5pg1CL.99
Category: Commentary
