The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals

[Itsthetruth]

CounterPunch
Weekend Edition
June 25 / 26, 2005

CounterPunch Diary
The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

So much for the right to die in your own home, smoking a joint to take your mind off the pain. Thanks to the liberals on the U.S. Supreme Court, the feds haul you to prison from from your death bed for smoking medical marijuana and any local authority raze your house and give the land to Walmart for a parking lot.

On June 6, by a vote of 6-3, the Court ruled that Federal authorities may prosecute sick people who smoke pot on doctors' orders. The court’s apex liberal, Stevens, wrote the majority decision. The conservative Sandra Day O’Connor who wrote the dissent, saying that the court was overreaching to endorse "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use”.

Ranged with Stevens in the majority were Ginsburg and Breyer, along with Kennedy (regarded as more conservative than this first trio), plus the supposed libertarian, Souter and Scalia, the most conceited judge in America. Of course Scalia had to file his own opinion proffering a "more nuanced" analysis, to the general effect that Congress had the right to pass “necessary and proper laws”.

Then, on June 23, the Court’s liberals, plus Souter and Kennedy decreed that between private property rights on the one side, and big-time developers with the city council in their pockets on the other, the latter wins every time.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn06252005.html

[madeline_con]

1. Sandra Day O’Connor ...

... "making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one's own home for one's own medicinal use”.

Gee, do ya think Sandy gets high? :smoke:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Trajan]

3. No .. not at all ...

I do think that, given the fact that Sandra Day-O'Connor also dissented on the Eminent Domain issue, that Sandra Day-O'Connor deserves our praise as a balanced judge ...

Obviously, our 'liberal' judges do not seem able to connect to liberal causes very well ...

HOORAY for Sandra Day .....

[nicknameless]

4. How can they have it both ways?

On one hand their marijuana ruling said that federal law trumped state laws. On the other hand, their eminent domain ruling took the position that state and local governments should best decide about seizing private property for "public use."

Pure, hypocritical bullshit.

[blondie333]

5. What's up with the Liberal SC Justices?

It appears the definition of Liberal has been lost on the SC Justices who claim rights to that moniker. On the other hand this could be master plot to convince the public that the Liberal judges need to go, to contact their elected officials and demand they vote for Bush's appointees in order to preserve our rights. Or the pharmaceutical companies have finally bought themselves the ultimate justice. Both recent decisions have involved pharmas. This latest ruling involved Pfizer, a giant among many.

[annabanana]

6. um.. They're not "liberal"

They are, along with their reactionary bretheren,
CORPORATE. ......... part of the "If it's good for General Bullmoose, it's good for the U.S.A." brigade.

[Bridget Burke]

7. Three of the "Liberal" judges were appointed by Republicans.

They're just liberal when compared with their colleagues.