Tyranny! What do you think of when you read that word? Violent rulers such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin come to mind. However, there is a much subtler form of tyranny going on in our nation right now. It is judicial tyranny, and it threatens the United States to the very core. Look at one of the most recent cases of judicial tyranny. The court system killed Terri Schiavo. There is simply no way to avoid that fact. Judge Greer ordered an innocent citizen of the United States executed, and other state and federal judges upheld her completely unconstitutional murder. This trend must be stopped before the judicial system in our nation becomes our only form of government.

You may not think the judiciary poses a real threat to our nation. Let me quote for you from the last decision on the Terri Schaivo case issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and authored by Justice Birch, “A popular epithet directed by some members of society including some members of Congress toward the judiciary, involves the denunciation of activist judges.” Basically, the justice is telling America “Forget about you and your opinions. Forget about Congress. Forget about the President. We’re in charge now, so sit down and shut up!” Justice Birch goes on to tell us that he and the other courts are completely in line, and Congress and the President “acted in a manner demonstrably at odds with our Founding Fathers’ blueprint for the governance of a free people, our Constitution,” when passing a law opening the door for the federal courts to give a De Novo review (that is, a completely new and objective look at all the evidence in the case) to the Terri Schaivo case. This is judicial activism. The justices on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals told America, Congress, and the President to shut up because the federal courts are making decisions now. Article 3 of the United States Constitution gives Congress the right to pass laws dictating the parameters of the cases the federal court system can hear. Congress was attempting to fulfill its Constitutional duty to protect America’s citizens, and it did so through one of its Constitutional prerogatives. However, the federal circuit court decided it didn’t like the law, so it declared the law unconstitutional. A very interesting thing to note is that the Constitution does not give the federal judiciary the right to declare laws unconstitutional. They all do now, though, because they think they are in charge, and most of America believes them. Usurping the powers of Congress and the President and telling them they just are wrong—now that is tyranny.

What can we do about it, though? How can we stop it? The main problem today is the fact that the great majority of U.S. citizens automatically accept any court ruling as both law and fact. We cannot continue to accept this lie because the Constitution never says anything remotely like it. We are allowing the judiciary to run the country, far outside of its Constitutional bounds. But why? As Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stated in his dissent in Roper v. Simmons, “By what conceivable warrant can nine lawyers presume to be the authoritative conscience of the Nation?” This is quite possibly one of the best questions I have heard in my life. The populace of the United States must stop thinking that 9 justices, 9 fallible and fallen human beings, only 5 of which it takes to make a Supreme Court decision, can determine the will, both moral and legal, of the nation.

Justice Scalia also observed, “I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners.” This brings up another interesting point. Not only is the judiciary saying they are in charge, but they are also referring to international law and treaties not ratified by the United States in making their decisions. We the People must tell the Supreme Court (and the rest of the judiciary) that this situation is completely unacceptable. We truly will open ourselves to tyranny once we let every communist leader and little, potbellied dictator in the world contribute to the decisions of our Supreme Court, which are now considered even more important than the Word of God by many in America.