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July 29, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:35
July 29, 2005, Friday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
That's right, Johnny Donovan, Walter E. Williams filling in for Rush, who will be back on Monday.
And you can be on the show by calling 800-282-2882.
And today we're going to push back the frontiers of ignorance just a little bit more.
Let's start off with the Supreme Court nominee.
Now, there are a lot of things that I picked up in the newspaper today, a lot of comments and observations about George Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court justice.
Let me just kind of go over them just to see what you think about it, whether you agree with me.
And probably you do if you're a right-thinking American.
One, well, Justice Roberts, I think that he's a constitutionalist.
But however, we're getting questions like from Theodore Shaw, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund fellow.
I guess he's the director of that organization.
And he asked the question, what does Theodore, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, what does Judge Roberts really, truly believe?
How does he feel about this or that?
Well, the question I would want to ask Judge Roberts, can you read the Constitution?
Do you know how to read?
I mean, unlike five of the Supreme Court justices in the recent Kilo case where they decided that the government in New London, Connecticut, could take the private property of one American and turn around and hand it to another private individual.
Now, so I would ask Judge Roberts, can you read the Fifth Amendment?
You know, those 12 words that say, nor shall private property be taken for public use, not private use, for public use without just compensation.
Now, judges ought to be in the business of looking at the law, how it is written.
That is, a judge's judicial philosophy doesn't mean anything.
That is, judges are to apply the law.
This is what separations of power mean.
That is, judges should not be in the policy issues business.
That is, policy belongs to the legislative bodies.
In the case of United States, the Congress.
In the case of states, the state legislature.
But justices should not be in the business of policy.
As one judge said when they voted against the death penalty for a crime committed when a person was a teenager, one justice talked about evolving world standards.
Now, he's making policy.
He should be looking at the law.
Now, Senator Kennedy, our wonderful senator from the state of Massachusetts.
Some people call it the People's Republic of Massachusetts.
Here's his question.
The basic, here's what Kennedy said yesterday, and it's reported, I think, in the Washington Post or one of those newspapers.
He asked the question, Whose side is Judge Roberts going to be on?
Now, that is stupid.
It's not misinformed, but it is a stupid question.
I mean, think about it.
A judge's job is to apply the rules of the game.
And the rules of the game is the Constitution of the United States.
I mean, the question that Kennedy asks is just as stupid when you're choosing a referee for a baseball game, you're choosing an umpire for a baseball game, and you ask the umpire, whose side you're going to be on.
That's stupid.
Ladies and gentlemen, the question that you want to ask the umpire is, can you call balls and strikes correctly?
Not whose side you're going to be on.
I mean, that's, you know, you don't ask an umpire, what's your baseball philosophy?
That's what Kennedy would ask.
You know, you're thinking about hiring an umpire.
And Senator Kennedy would probably ask this guy, what's your baseball philosophy?
Whose side are you going to be on?
Now, ladies and gentlemen, wouldn't you call that stupid?
I surely would.
There's something else.
I was watching a group of Democratic congressmen and senators, and they were recently talking about this Kilo case, and they were saying that the conservative members of the court are in the hands of big developers and they want to take people's private property.
Now, that must assume that the listeners or the viewers are stupid.
Because who were the dissenting judges who dissented in the Kilo versus New London case where they agreed to take private property from one person and deliver that private property to somebody else?
Who were the dissenting judges?
Well, they were Rehnquist, it was Thomas, and it was Scalia.
And then O'Connors was the only liberal type judge that dissented.
But the majority of people who dissented, who said that the Constitution does not allow the taking of private property for public use, they were the conservative judges.
Now here you have some congressmen and senators standing up saying it's the conservative judges on the court that's taking away private property.
What kind of assumptions must they make about you?
Ladies and gentlemen, the assumptions are not very flattering at all.
Now there's I don't know what to say about this because a lot of guys would say, well, I believe Kennedy might say, or some of, or who's the guy, Durbin or Dustbin?
I think Dirty Harry and Dick Durbin.
I mean, they would say to you, look, we don't really need a judge to read the Constitution of the United States.
We don't need for him to apply the Constitution because the Constitution is a living document.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who said, and I've said this a number of times on the air, anyone who says that the Constitution is a living document, he's also saying that we don't have a Constitution.
Because the Constitution, as I said earlier, represent the rules of the game.
And for the rules of the game to mean anything, they must be fixed.
That's just like if I ask you, Would you like to play me poker after the show?
After Mrs. Williams fixes my dinner, of course, and the rules be living.
Well, you know, that means that my two pair, depending on the circumstances, might beat your full house.
How many people would like to play anything where the rules would be living?
I mean, we could, instead of calling balls strikes, we can call strikes balls.
For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed.
Now you say, well, Walter, look, times change since 1787 when we had the Constitutional Convention.
Times change.
Well, the framers had insight.
They knew that times would change and maybe you needed to change the Constitution.
So they gave us Article 5 as a means to amend the Constitution.
But you can't amend the Constitution, or you should not, or the framers did not envision amending the Constitution through some judges in black robes sitting in the corner, all nine of them, having a Constitutional Convention that is changing the Constitution unilaterally, unilaterally, all by themselves.
So I think if I were voting, I would vote for the confirmation of Judge Roberts because I think, and all the evidence shows that he understands the Constitution, and I believe that he's willing to interpret the Constitution as it is written, not according to some European evolving standards, not according to his own philosophy,
not according to his own taste.
He would look at the letter of the Constitution, very much like Justice Thomas.
Justice Thomas, he has his own views, but he's not going to impose his views on us.
And matter of fact, he has voted in ways, you know, as a judge, contrary to his own personal views.
But that's what a justice is supposed to do.
Vote according to what the law says.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, we'll be back to discuss this in greater detail after this.
We're back, Walter Williams, sitting in for Vacationing Rush, and he will be back on Monday.
And you can be on with us by calling 800-282-2882.
Let's go to the phones and welcome Cliff from California.
Welcome to show, Cliff.
Thank you, Robert.
Thank you for taking my call.
As I understand it, you're saying that the Supreme Court's primary function is to ensure that laws that have been created by legislative bodies are properly enacted.
Is that what I'm hearing?
I'm saying that Supreme Court justices should follow the Constitution as opposed to making policy.
Policy is a job of the legislature.
Right.
And I guess I think about the issue of slavery, where 100 years ago, legislators had enacted laws that had, or 150, whatever it was, had enacted laws that had legalized slavery.
And at that point, the Supreme Court followed the Constitution and determined that those laws were in conflict with the Constitution and threw them out.
Now, it seems like that interpretation would mean, oh, they did policy.
But back then, so I'm at a lawsuit.
Sometimes they do enact policy.
And the policy comes from imposing the tenets of the Constitution over laws that have been improperly enacted by legislative bodies for whatever reason.
And it goes both ways on conservative and liberal issues.
You know, they overthrew slavery, but they also, you know, like I know a lot of people are against marijuana laws who are.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
Now, first of all, at the founding of this country, whether we like it or not, slavery was legal.
Right, that's correct.
Okay, so a Supreme Court justice, he has to look at the law.
He just cannot make policy.
That is, Congress has to make slavery illegal.
And in fact, later on, Congress indeed did strike down slavery.
No, it was the Supreme Court that struck down in the Dred Scott decision that overturned slavery.
They came in and ruled that a man isn't a property under which in the Dred Scott decision, which overturned laws that it was.
Wait, wait, wait, wait a minute.
Dred Scott decision upheld slavery.
I'm sorry.
Okay, well, look, look.
When you come on this show, you have to have your ducks in a row.
Let's go to David in Germany.
Welcome to Germany.
Welcome.
Welcome to the show, David.
Thanks very much for taking my call.
I just wanted to point out, it seems to me that, and I agree with your position, I agree, I'd say, with the way Justice Scalia expresses your position, but it seems to me, if you look at the checks and balances, the three-part structure of our government, one of the reasons why the judiciary has expanded is because the legislature is afraid to act.
I mean, if you take the first activist court under Warren, some of the first decisions, well, actually the very first decision that Warren pushed through was a very good decision to end segregation, or at least take the first step toward it.
And there I think you had a Congress just as they are today, hanging on to their jobs, afraid to make the difficult choices, trying to always play the moderate, whatever the moderate might be at the particular moment.
And then at times you have the courts stepping in to make the difficult changes, to take the difficult decisions.
And I think if the legislature was a little bit braver, the courts wouldn't be under so much pressure to innovate.
Oh, you're absolutely right.
There are two points.
Yes, the legislators are cowards, and they would much rather, they'd like to do something, but they know it can't stand up to legislative muster, so they throw it on courts.
For example, like you could never get a law passed through Congress calling for racial or sexual preferences.
So the only way you could get that racial and sexual preferences, if you're for it, is for the courts to do it.
And many times the courts are involved in cleaning up the cowardice of the officials, as you're pointing out.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah, and I would hope that, I mean, if that becomes apparent, that perhaps elected officials and the people that elect them would tolerate a little bit more courage, tolerate a senator or a representative who's willing to act on principles.
Well, let me say this.
I'm sad to say this, but I don't think that Americans in general would elect to office a congressman or a senator that was fully guided by principles.
That is a sad commentary for our country.
Now, imagine for, why do I say that?
We'll look at James Madison.
He's the acknowledged father of the Constitution.
Back in 1794, Congress appropriated $15,000 to help some French refugees.
James Madison stood on the floor of the House Irate.
And he said, and I'm virtually quoting him, and you can get all these good quotes at my website.
It's walterwilliams.com.
And it has a very handsome photo of me as well, on the site as well.
But James Madison stood on the floor of the House.
And he said, and I'm virtually quoting him, he said, I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article in the Constitution that authorizes Congress to spend the money of their constituents for the purposes of benevolence.
That is, James Madison could not find any authorization in the Constitution that allowed government to take the money of one American and give it to another American to whom it does not belong.
Now, any politician taking that position today, as Madison and many of our other founders, he would not get elected to office.
Americans do not want that kind of person in the Congress or in the Senate or in the White House.
That's a sad tragedy for our country.
That is, a principled person just could not make it.
So you find the kind of people that we have today.
But however, there's one principled congressman, actually it's just a handful, and I'm going to have one of those in that handful on in the third hour.
And his name is Congressman Shattig from Arizona.
And we're going to talk about some interesting topics.
But he and a handful of other congressmen, just a few, they're the only ones that have the principle of the founders of our nation.
And it is just amazing to me how this handful gets elected.
I guess they have to play a little bit.
We'll be back after this.
We're back, and just in case you're just joining us, we're talking about Judge Roberts, George Bush's Supreme Court nominee.
And the key thing that we're talking about is that judges are to apply the law, not their own personal policy or their own personal opinions or evolving national standards, evolving international standards.
That's what I mean.
They shouldn't worry about what France is doing.
They take an oath of office to uphold.
What constitution, guess what constitution a judge takes an oath of office to uphold?
Guess.
I'm not going to give you the answer until the end of the hour.
Let's go back to the phones and welcome Mr. Sowell of New York City.
Hi, Walter.
Hi.
Hi.
I just had a comment about your take on congressmen's role in representing the rights of their constituencies or the interests of their constituencies.
Now, saying that because a congressman won't vote upon their own principles, however radical or non-radical they may be, I don't think in any way is misrepresenting their constituencies because they're clearly voted into that position in a system of representative democracy to vote as their constituents would vote.
And I don't see how that could be bastardizing their position.
Well, suppose their constituency wanted them to, let's say, okay, you're in New York and their constituency wanted them not to allow people from Pennsylvania to come to New York.
Right.
What do you think?
Truthfully, if my constituency was inclined to vote that way and you could get every man in New York to do so and woman, then it's the obligation of that congressman through their own position as depending upon my vote for their reelection to vote as I'd wish them to vote.
Right.
Well, see, you're really making my point.
You're saying that a congressman doesn't necessarily act on principle.
He acts on what gets him to office, right?
Exactly.
Okay.
Now, well, so that's why I said that it's the American people who have lost some, have lost the principles of individual liberty.
How so?
Well, because as you just said, that is if most of the people in New York vote to, if they don't want a Pennsylvanian coming to New York, the obligation of the congressman is to support a law that doesn't allow them to come to New York, right?
Right.
Okay, well, what's principled about that?
There's absolutely nothing principled about that, but the principle of representative democracy depends upon that.
The principle of representative democracy depends upon representatives representing the interests of their constituencies, regardless of how radical they may be.
Okay, so their position to be the judiciary and that's constitutionally wrong.
So we need to get away that we need to get rid of the oath of office that they take to uphold the Constitution of the United States and instead say, I swear to uphold the interests of the people who elect me to office.
Not at all.
But Walter, can I ask you a question on that?
Wait a minute.
I mean, let's not just throw it away there.
They have an obligation, if they take an oath of office to live up to their oath of office.
They do.
They do.
But for argument's sake, for the purposes of representative democracy, the members of parliament that were in any sense representing the interests of the Americans in pre-colonial times were not in any sense representing their interests, however they may have been.
And that was wrong.
For us to take the same position today, I think, you know, objectively, you have to rely upon your direct representative to represent your interests first.
What you're saying, I disagree with, but you might be describing reality much more than I am.
That is, I mean, I think you have to really raise the question.
That's why I don't blame politicians that much.
I blame them some.
But, see, you cannot, it's unreasonable for us to expect a politician to commit what he considers to be political suicide.
And for most politicians, they would believe it to be political suicide to live up to their oath of office to obey the United States Constitution.
Fair enough.
I entirely agree with you on that.
Okay, well, thanks for calling in.
And now let's go to Michael in Seattle, Washington.
Welcome to the show, Michael.
Yeah, thank you very much for taking my call.
This is pretty simple.
Just a couple of the couple callers ago, you had a guy who was saying about the Supreme Court overturning slavery.
Yeah.
Of course, as Tred Scott, they upheld it.
It was Abraham Lincoln who, it was the Emancipation Declaration who declared slavery to be not slavery anymore because he banned it with that.
Well, you're wrong again.
You're wrong.
That is two wrong calls.
Now, let me tell you what the Emancipation Proclamation said, and actually read it.
It freed the slaves.
Matter of fact, I'm going to try to get it so I can during the break.
It freed the slaves in those states that were in rebellion against the United States.
For example, there are parishes in Louisiana, in New Orleans, that weren't in rebellion against the United States, and those slaves weren't free.
Slaves in, I don't know, I think it was Maryland and slaves in Pennsylvania.
They were not freed.
That it was a political strategy to keep, a lot of people would argue it was a political strategy, to keep the European nations from coming in on the side of the South.
Now, what eliminated slavery were amendments to the Constitution.
Eventually, yes.
But it did not emancipate the Emancipation Proclamation.
It did not emancipate slaves.
Matter of fact, I believe it was Abraham Lincoln's Treasury, Secretary of Treasury, or Secretary of State who said that we have freed slaves where we cannot free them, and we have not freed slaves where we can.
And that's namely in the states that were not in rebellion against the Union.
Again, again, a principled politician.
But I don't recall reading that, but the other thing.
Well, see, no, no, look, you're talking to, when you're calling the show, you have to be prepared.
I mean, it's like.
I have read that thing, and I studied it.
Okay, look, I'll tell you, I'm not going to have time to go to the Emancipation Proclamation, but I would surely, Brett, if this fellow calls back, I'm going to give him an assignment.
Go get the Emancipation Proclamation.
You can probably get it on the web.
And then call back, and I want you to read the Emancipation Proclamation to the audience.
Okay?
Okay.
We'll be back with more of your calls after this.
We're back, Walter Williams, sitting in for Rush.
And I got Rush's crack staff, Kit Carson, to do a little legwork for me during the break.
And we have the Emancipation Proclamation.
Just so let me read it to you folks.
It's a long thing, but I'm just going to read part of it.
First, okay, that on the first day of January in the year of our Lord 1863, that's 1863, for all of you went to public schools,
all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall be in Aha, let me go and go back.
Okay, that on the first day of January in the year of our Lord, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall be in rebellion against United States shall be then, thenceforward and forever free.
That is, all slaves held in states in rebellion against United States shall be free.
And he goes on to list those states in the Emancipation Proclamation.
And they are Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, except the parishes of St. Bernard, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, and some other parishes who were on the side of the Union.
And then the other states, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, except the 48 counties designated as West Virginia.
West Virginia is part of Virginia that seceded during the Civil War.
And that's it.
Now, if you happen to be a slave in Delaware or Maryland, that was just tough.
You were not freed.
But anyway, let's try another caller from Westchester, Pennsylvania.
Welcome to the show.
Hey, Dr. Williams, there's always an education when you fill in for rush.
Well, thank you.
My comment goes back to something you were talking about earlier about the left's assertion that the Constitution is a living document.
And if that is the case, then they find themselves kind of in a catch-22 because their major issue and argument against any conservative judge always seems to be Roe v. Wade.
And in light of the living document argument, Roe v. Wade is meaningless because you have cultural changes since it was decided.
Technology has changed.
The voters have elected new politicians.
I see where you're going.
You're right.
But by the way, folks, before the Roe v. Wade decision, there was not any federal statute against abortion.
It was all decided at the state level.
And I think that's a very, very important thing to recognize.
But thanks a lot for calling in the show.
Let's go to Ted in New York.
Welcome to the show, Ted.
Hey, Dr. Williams.
Good to talk to you.
I was calling concerning two or three calls back.
Someone called about representative democracy, and I believe the statement he made was that it is the duty of the representatives to vote as their constituents, as the general public would vote in their place.
Is that correct?
I think something like that.
What my impression was, was that the purpose of erecting a representative democracy was to escape the tyranny of the whim of the general populace and to sort of have a shock-dampening effect so that whatever the general public happens to think at the moment is sort of followed through the representatives and they would Be able to vote in a proper way,
in a principled way, not just following whatever the general public happens to think at that moment.
Well, I think you're right.
And matter of fact, the framers of the Constitution and the founders at the time, they found a democracy offensive.
Matter of fact, you can read quotation after quotation saying that a democracy was offensive.
Because, you know, that's just tyranny of the majority, as you suggested.
And matter of fact, some of the framers said that a democracy is nothing much different, or the results of democracy, not that much different from a monarchy that is King George.
For example, here's why I frequently said this, and I might have said it on a show earlier, that democracy gives the aura of legitimacy to acts that would otherwise be considered as tyranny.
Let me just throw out a few examples of this.
Suppose some people have turkey on Thanksgiving and some people have ham.
Now, suppose it were up to a democratic decision-making process and it's going to be decided whether we wear whether we have turkey or ham.
And the majority votes for turkey, which means if you have ham, you go to jail.
Right.
Now, wouldn't we consider that tyranny?
Yes.
So, and so the majority rules, I mean, that's just plain tyranny.
Now, I believe when the framers talked about democracy, the little bit that they talked about, they wanted democracy in the political process, which is supposed to be very, very limited.
That is, the government having very, very limited control over our lives.
They did not mean that it's going to be a democratic decision to determine whether how much money is going to go out of my paycheck for retirement or whether I should be in this government health program.
The framers, as a matter of fact, I have on my website, walterwilliams.com, many, many statements about the framers showing fear for democracy.
Matter of fact, in our Constitution, they have it laced with undemocratic procedures.
I mean, for example, for example, one that's under attack after the last election, they're trying to get rid.
They were trying to, people are criticizing the Electoral College.
Well, the Framers gave us the Electoral College so that big states could not run roughshot, highly populated states could not run roughshod over sparsely populated states.
And you find the Constitution laced with undemocratic things.
That is, if you look at the, let me just go back.
We're running up against the clock.
But the framers did not have much trust for democracy, and they did not have much trust for the United States Congress.
We'll be back with more of your calls after this.
We're back in the next hour.
We're up against the clock, but the next hour, I'm going to talk about Kafka.
We're going to talk about the Central American Free Trade Agreement.
But let me just kind of finish up talking about some of you people talking about in terms of democracy.
And the framers did not intend for it to be a democracy.
Just look at a couple of simple things.
When we say, I pledge allegiance to the flag and to the democracy for which it stands, or is it Republic?
Or when we sing the battle hymn of the democracy or is it the battle hymn of the republic?
Let me just give you a couple of quotes by the framers about a democracy.
James Madison said, and a democracy is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.
Edmund Randolph said, in tracing these evils to their origin, every man found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.
John Adams, these quotes just go on and on by framers.
John Adams said, remember, democracy never lasts long.
It soon wastes and exhausts and murders itself.
There was never a democracy that did not yet commit suicide.
Now, those are the ideas of our framers.
So we are supposed to be a republic.
Next hour, we're going to talk about Kafka.
And the last hour, we're going to have Shaddag, Congressman Shaddaig from Arizona on to talk about some common sense in government.
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