Don’t you just marvel at these quaint rural folks with their quaint rural notions?
A Nebraska state District Court Judge, John Murphy in North Platte, issued a strong defense of the Constitution the other day in response to a drug case arising out of a traffic stop by the State Patrol on I-80 in Lincoln County. Judges in Lincoln County have thrown out cases recently because they were convinced the arrests were based on racial profiling. Get a load of what he says about the Constitution! The quotations are from the online paper, NorthPlatteBulletin.com
The Nebraska Legislature passed legislation in 2001 that said about racial profiling, “Racial profiling is a practice that presents a great danger to the fundamental principles of a democratic society. It is abhorrent and cannot be tolerated.”
Judge Murphy’s entire statement is strong. Here are a few excerpts.
We are the lesser as a nation if the first casualties of the war on drugs are Constitutional guarantees.
We are witness to a birth of a new situational ethic applied by those who would seduce us with the argument that the end of stopping some particular evil or perceived threat justifies any means necessary to accomplish that end.
That nicely nails the old end-justifies-the-means moral trap. On that topic Gandhi warned that “Each single step on the way to the realization of a worthy objective must be a worthy objective in itself. Means have a way of inserting and integrating themselves into ends and of determining their ultimate pattern.” And, on another occasion, “We must become the change we want to see.”
If we choose to ignore the rule of law and subvert the Constitution in the name of “safety,� we will raise the specter that, in the loss of American values and American freedoms, America will become merely a place name rather than an ideal to be emulated.
As a nation, we do well to remember what Abraham Lincoln said: “American will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.�
“America will become merely a place name rather than an ideal.”
We do little justice to the ideals of our founders if we ignore their handiwork and their wisdom.
Wow. That reminds me of Jesus’ saying, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?” The Constitution could ask, “Why do you call me the foundational principle of your national life, and do not honor what I am trying to do?” And that is a very important question.
Courts may not become fearful and timid accomplices in violation of the law and the diminishment of the Constitution. And, at the last, in defense of the Constitution and the rule of law, if the courts do nothing, who then will act? If the courts remain silent, who then will speak?
Visits: 38
