ON THE SUPREME COURT

Personally I have a problem with anything man-made being called supreme. That will be fodder for a different essay however. Today I want to talk about the recent rulings handed down by this august body.

The Supreme Court made news this week in a long sought ruling regarding the second amendment. The news they made was that in this group of nine otherwise intelligent jurists with over five hundred years of combined experience and education, we find that apparently four of them cannot read. It is difficult for me to believe that anyone with basic reading skills could not find with the majority in their five to four ruling regarding hand gun ownership. What second amendment were these four reading? The troubling part of this is that rulings from the so-called Supreme Court are little more than political opinions based on the Judges’ personal political philosophy. While I wasn’t there when the rules were being established for this country, I’m pretty sure that the Supreme Court was to be an apolitical body. Fortunately this time they got the opinion right. That is good for them and it is good for this country.

It also now appears that the mayor of San Francisco doesn’t believe that this ruling affects his city. Why would I think any other way since this same city won’t even allow members of the US Military on their streets. Mayor Gavin Newsom is about to get a rude awakening. Whether he believes it or not, San Francisco is a part of the United States and is subject to the same laws as everyone else. As of this writing, the NRA has already filed a lawsuit against the city and their hand gun ban.

The second ruling I want to comment on is the finding that a child rapist cannot be executed unless someone is killed in the process. To them, the Jurists, that would appear to be cruel and unusual punishment. I thought long and hard about this one and have come to the conclusion that they may be doing us a huge favor. This is what we should do with child rapists. When they are convicted by a jury of their peers, and sent to prison, make sure they are required to serve their time as a member of the general population of the prison. Don’t allow them to be hidden away from other convicts. Secondly, make sure everyone in the prison knows what they were convicted of. We may find that prison justice is much swifter and a lot surer than justice handed down through our courts. It would for sure be a lot cheaper than what goes on now when a person is sentenced to death.

Most crimes, I am convinced, are crimes of arrogance. The arrogance that allows an individual to take from you what is yours without having to work for it. The arrogance of taking someone’s life because they chose to. The arrogance of rape because someone wants to feel power over someone else even a child. On the grounds of most prisons, I’m pretty sure that child rapists do very little bragging.

Our system with all its flaws is still the best system available on this planet. Justice is usually served at some point in time. Perfect justice, however, awaits us all. That, for me, is a comforting thought.

Ron Scarbro June 30, 2008