FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Is it not sensible to give to the branch that has the least actual power and the most actual training in constitutional law the most constitutional weight? Or is it the best idea, in your view, to give the people with the power the responsibility of policing the use of that power? The problem is that you can construct a rational argument for anything. The legislature and the executive will just create whatever argument they need to exercise whatever power they want, and the constitution will become meaningless. And for another thing, they'd often develop interpretations that disagreed with each other, leaving each branch conforming to a different constitution. It is sensible for them to show deference to the supreme court, a neutral third party. It is idiocy to claim that constitution would be best served by letting the lunatics run the asylum.
Newt's view is not irrational, and not original. It is, in fact, a restatement of the compartmentalist view that Jefferson advocated. However, the view that has won out, and has been part of our countries constitutional tradition for 200 years now, is that the supreme court has the final say. You argue that we should simply throw 200 years of tradition out of the window and wildly embrace a constitutional theory that is, in reality, no more rational than the one currently in practice. In all likelihood, the only reason it even interests you is because you believe that such a foolish move would serve the short term goals of your ideology. Well, I'd like to remind you, America has grown to be a great nation, and it has done so under the current tradition, not your proposed alternative. It has not always been perfect, but it has generally worked well, and it is foolish and short sighted to replace it with an untested alternative that has such obvious deficiencies.
