Checks and Balances in Government

         “We hold these truths to be self-evident”  

       President Donald Trump yesterday nominated appellate Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to fill the vacancy, of retiring Justice Kennedy, on the United States Supreme Court. I don’t know anything personally about the man or his Judicial Philosophy. I would expect all of this will become known to us during the ensuing months of the Senate confirmation process.

     It is no great surprise to anyone that an elected President, whose base is conservative America, would choose a fellow conservative for this position. Democratic Presidents have acted in a similar fashion when vacancies occurred during their terms.

      The implications of the selection are pretty clear. The Court, since the appointment of chief Justice John Roberts, has operated in a state of philosophical flux. There was no clear conservative or liberal bias in either the normal case rulings or in the certiorari process, where an activist court can literally summon cases from lower courts for consideration.

       That judicial negentropy appears now to be in the process of a philosophical swing to the conservative right. Whether or not some of the landmark liberal rulings, Roe V Wade among the foremost, may now be in jeopardy is the principal question. But, as comfortable or as abhorrent this may be to some, it is indeed the way we have governed ourselves in these United States for the past two hundred plus years.

       In addition, the Constitutional framers have given us two other co-equal branches of government. The temporary custody, of the Legislative and Executive Branches, may drift from one party to another due to active campaigns of concerned voters. It is a system of checks and balances that I have come to much admire. It is a release valve, for national tensions, that is available to any group concerned enough to seek changes in the way that we govern ourselves.

       To wit, if anyone is unhappy with the procedures and policies of any of the three branches, have but to get off their duff and go out and labor, in the vineyards of the vote, for change. There was never a more clearer demonstration of the efficacy of this process than in the surprising election of Barack Obama as President. The voters sought change and worked until they achieved it. Opponents of his policies would say the same about the election of Donald Trump. Voters wanted change and they sure as heck got it in this recent Presidential election.

       What all of this means is that the mechanics of the American Democratic process are a sophisticated wonder, working now, even two hundred years after their adoption. And anyone that is agitated, by any branch of our government, should get it in gear and go out and work for what you believe in. The talking heads of pundits just drive us all crazy with their intensity and sometimes their own bias inserted within the on-air commentary.

       There are lots of pithy aphorism in the American lexicon that deal with the complexity in simpler terms. “There ain’t no free lunch,” “You get what you pay for,” “if you aren’t part of the solution, then you are part of the problem” are just a few of them that apply.

       Think well when you offer commentary on our American Democratic System. And be of good hope. It is among the most representative and fairest set of governmental rules on the planet. Work hard for what you believe in and trust in the elegant common sense of the American electorate. We have endured any number of national hickups over the centuries, but in the long run, our system of government has served us well.

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                           (614 words)

                      Joseph Xavier Martin