Book Review: Men In Black - How the Supreme Court is Destroying America

This is the best book I've ever read about the Constitution and the Supreme Court. (and the only one). But really, it teaches you a lot of things that you didn't have time to learn in history class. You have to be a logical thinker to read the book, because it is really just a series of arguments about how the Supreme Court has misused their powers on various issues. Whether you are left or right wing, it is worth a read.


Here are my book notes with basic ideas. Read them if you wish. But read the book to get the complete picture.

1. Several Supreme Court justices in the past had serious mental illnesses and refused to step down before they died.
2. Many founding fathers expressed dismay about how the Supreme Court justices were able to declare laws unconstitutional. It appears to be a mistake how they made the Supreme Court justices unaccountable in every way.
3. Instead of protecting the First Amendment, justices have taken freedoms away. An example is prayer in school. the right to "not feel uncomfortable or offended" was given priority over the right of people to have clergy give a prayer at a school event. Even thought the right to not feel uncomfortable is not in the constitution.
4. The right to privacy is also not in the Constitution. Instead of using the Constitution to decide cases, justices gave their opinion and said that women can have abortions. There is almost no legal language in the decision.
5. The right to "do what you want in the privacy of your home" is not in the Constitution, but the logic was used by the Supreme Court to make anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional. Drug deals can also be done in privacy by 2 consenting adults, but it does not make anti-drug laws unconstitutional. Also the logic of "we can't legislate morality" was used, but what laws are not based on morality? And why should 7 justices decide what is moral, instead of every citizen using the democratic process?
6. The Supreme Court upheld affirmative action in universities. This essentially is reverse race discrimination, which is prohibited in the Constitution. But justices used the argument that "attaining a diverse student body is at the heart of the Law School's proper institutional mission".
   
7. In the Constitution it is clear in Article I, Section 8 that Congress shall have the power "to establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization". However, the Supreme Court has forced states to use taxpayer money to teach illegal immigrant children. It also denied government agencies the right to fire employees on the basis of not being citizens (they need to be legal immigrants though).
8. The President has the right, as Commander in Chief, to do what is necessary to win wars. Our current President has been mild in the treating of detainees, compared to Lincoln and FDR. However, the Supreme Court has forced our system to hear appeals from war time enemy combatants.
9. The Commerce Clause in the Constitution allows the federal government to regulate inter-state commerce, but not intra-state commerce. The Court upheld a federal law that imposed agricultural limits on a farmer who only traded within his own state. The list of federal commerce rules is 75,606 pages long, imposing billions of dollars of costs for compliance.
10. The First Amendment simply says "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech". However, the McCain-Feingold Act prohibits groups from running advertisements about a candidate's position thirty days before a primary election and sixty days before a general election.
    
11. In the 2000 Presidential Election, the Florida Supreme Court ignored election laws and created their own rules about counting ballots and about ballot deadlines. The Supreme Court overruled them, but in the future this may lead to constant lawsuits regarding elections, which were never meant to be guarded by the judiciary.
12. Democrats used an unprecedented and unconstitutional filibuster to stop qualified judicial nominees from being confirmed
    
13. The author gave some ideas about how to reign in the judiciary, which include periodical Congressional reviews of justices, a 2/3 majority "veto" of judicial decisions, and increased impeachment hearings on judges who manipulate the Constitution