The title comes, of course, from the play A Man for All Seasons; wherein Sir Thomas More has to decide whether to follow the Laws, or the will of his King. The entire quote follows:
What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? … And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s, and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!”
The Left and its adherents, most notably epitomized by the current regime of Buraq Hussein Obama; are now known for a willingness to follow the example of Roper. If the Law of Bankruptcy has settled procedures for how companies are dissolved, and how creditors are paid in what order; ignore it so that the secured creditors and owners of the company are robbed. Instead give all the assets to his political supporters and top it off with billions of tax dollars from the rest of us. Knowing that those political supporters will give a significant portion of the money to maintain him in power.
If our border is violated, every hour of every day; and our immigration laws are being broken blatantly, do not enforce the laws because the illegals, and the illicit substances they bring in, and the possibility of enemies of the country using that route are too important to the regime. Instead, work to oppose any attempts to control the border, try to punish any law enforcement agency that tries to enforce the law, and openly value the illegals higher than he values US citizens.
If they want to shut down American energy production in the Gulf of Mexico [while allowing Chinese government wells to continue operations in those same waters]; issue a decree putting a moratorium on oil wells. When challenged in court, create a fabricated statement by group of scientists and introduce it as sworn testimony. When the court overturns the moratorium because it was based on fraudulent and perjured testimony; reimpose the Moratorium in defiance of the court order. [for details see my comment # 24 at Careful There, Ear Leader (UPDATED) ]
They have received a contempt of court citation for that last, by the way. But they continue ignoring the law and the Constitution at will; because doing so benefits them, and gathers power over us to them.
We all can list more examples from the Atrocity of the Week that we have learned to expect from the collection of TWANLOC that is pleased to call itself our government.
The latest, however, will be the largest clear-cutting through the Law to date if it stands.
Obamacare, forced through Congress unread, undebated in committee or on the floor of Congress; by open bribery and parliamentary trickery over the massive objections of the American people, has not surprisingly been taken to court. In the largest suit, 26 States [more than half of those making up the United States of America, just under half of the 57 States that Buraq Hussein claims to reign over] prevailed. Obamacare, the entire bloody atrocity, was declared unconstitutional by Federal District Judge Vinson in Florida. In his decision, he declared specifically that his declaratory judgment of unconstitutionality did not require a specific separate injunction, because it, itself, was an injunction and listed the legal precedent for that. His Majesty cited the specific quote.
Obama’s supporters have tried to latch onto the lack of a separate, specific injunction as a basis saying that the regime’s declaration that they will continue to implement Obamacare is valid. The MSM has even taken to quoting fragments of sentences in the judgment as “proof”. The only way Obama and his supporters can be right is if they throw out the legal concept of stare decisis and the entire Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that govern the operation of the Federal Courts.
We do have a bias in our legal system. Being designed as a system of Laws and not men, subject to the bounds of the Constitution; no law that is found to be in violation of the Constitution can be allowed to stand. And it does not.
The law whose constitutionality is questioned may be subject to further litigation and appeals. During that process, the court of original jurisdiction OR an appellate court that has granted a writ of certiorari MAY decide to grant a motion by either party for an injunction staying the implementation of the trial court’s judgment pending any appeals; but such is not automatic. As of last night, there have been neither appeal motions, nor requests for injunctions to stay the ruling filed. The deadlines have not passed for either, but until injunctive relief is granted, the trial court judgment stands, and in this case the law is declared unconstitutional and thus void.
There is conflict over rulings, in multiple Appeals Courts Circuits. This would in the normal course of things mean that the case is ripe for a Supreme Court hearing. Three other courts have ruled on Obamacare, although each has far fewer plaintiffs. Two have ruled in favor. One [in Virginia] has ruled the “Mandate” provision unconstitutional, and it was voided in Virginia UNTIL AN INJUNCTION FOR A STAY was granted for the appeal. Otherwise, the Federal government would have to stop any work in Virginia regarding the Mandate. The Virginia Federal Court ruling did not void the entire law as unconstitutional, just part. Florida did.
If it were an argument over a severable part of a law [severability is going to be a big part of any appeal, because Harry and Nancy deliberately removed the severability clause in the final version passed] one could more easily see the possibility of it being applied differently in different parts of the country. Especially when most disputes are over interpretations of a law and its application. But when an entire statute has been declared unconstitutional by a Federal judge, the conflict of Circuits argument is a straw-man. The law is dead and may not be carried forward absent appeal and overturning.
I am not a lawyer [much to the benefit of any immortal soul I may possess]. Nor do I play one on TV. But since our resident attorney, BiW- Imperial Consigliere, has not answered His Majesty’s call for information; I contacted one of my acquaintance. He is retired after decades of practice, but the Law and the Constitution have not changed in form since he retired, just in the amount of abuse they are taking. His quote is:
You are correct. The last court to hear the case has jurisdiction. The last court to hear the case grants leave to appeal, but the court’s ruling/decision is binding, a grant of leave to appeal does not nullify jurisdiction, an appellate court simply reviews the facts of the lower court record, no new facts could be reviewed outside of the record.
The regime may file an appeal [to the 11th Circuit, unless they go for expedited appeal directly to the Supreme Court], and likely will do so. As part of that filing, they will likely request a stay of the lower court’s ruling pending the completion of the appeal. But until that stay is granted and/or until the lower court ruling is overturned by an appellate court; a law that is ruled unconstitutional is void.
Any action by the regime to implement a law that has been declared unconstitutional by the Courts, absent and until said appeal and stay are granted; is itself a deliberate violation of the Constitution; with all that implies.
No amount of barratry, whining, or sophistry on the part of the Left disturbs this salient fact. One question that may be posed to those TWANLOC who would carve out an exception in the Law for Obamacare should shut them up, at least if they wish to discuss this honestly [yeah, I know. We are dealing with a theoretical Gedankenexperiment with that last.]
If one (1) Federal District Court decision declaring DADT to be unconstitutional, in the face of multiple other Federal District Court rulings the other way does not kill the policy nationwide, automatically and totally absent appeal; why is the Department of Defense now desperately and involuntarily jumping through its own fundamental orifice trying to integrate gays relatively immediately and hoping that it does not destroy the armed forces?
As much as the Democrats and indeed the rest of the Political Class, Left and Right, may desire it; we do not yet have two sets of laws, and they have to obey the one we have. That is how we stay on the normal side of the Clausewitzian “=” sign. If they no longer are subject to those laws and the Constitution, Higher matters supercede.
LC Subotai Bahadur, Lord Pao An