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Judicial activism is a political term used to describe judicial rulings that are suspected to be based upon personal and political considerations other than existing law. Judicial restraint is sometimes used as an antonym of judicial activism.

Black's Law Dictionary defines judicial activism as a "philosophy of judicial decision-making whereby judges allow their personal views about public policy, among other factors, to guide their decisions.

Others have been less confident of the term's meaning, finding it instead to be little more than a rhetorical shorthand. Kermit Roosevelt III stated that "in practice 'activist' turns out to be little more than a rhetorically charged shorthand for decision the speaker disagrees with."

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The current climate of hostility to the judiciary cannot be written off as a product of the lunatic fringe. Attacks on “activist judges”—a phrase that, like “the elites,” has become a code word for liberals—are regularly issued by Republican officeholders from the White House to state legislatures. The assault on an independent judiciary has always been an integral part of the Rovian political strategy that put President George W. Bush in office.

Furthermore, the issue of “activist judges” resembles the “values issue” in that it has been brilliantly hijacked by the right in a fashion that tends to elicit me-too answers along the lines of, “I don’t like activist judges either, but I do want fair judges.”

The truth is that the real issue is not the activism of judges but the principles upon which they are acting.

[In 2005, the Republican threat to end the filibuster ended when]Senate Democrats agreed to a “compromise” in which they promised to employ the filibuster only in “extraordinary” circumstances.

This so-called compromise freed the Senate to confirm some of Bush’s worst appellate court appointees—judges lionized by the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family—and allowed John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito to sail through their Supreme Court confirmation hearings without answering any discomfiting questions. The result is a high court one vote away from being dominated by judges whose view of government is conditioned by their conviction that government power is bad—except when exercised to tear down the barrier between church and state or to conduct foreign policy and gather domestic intelligence without independent oversight.

They believe in states’ rights—unless a state wants to do something that is anathema to the right.

Roberts registered his first dissent in January, along with Scalia and Thomas (Alito had not yet joined the court), in the Oregon assisted suicide case (Gonzalez v. Oregon ). The 1997 Oregon law, twice upheld by voters in referendums, allows doctors to prescribe a lethal dose of medication for terminally ill patients who wish to end their own lives. But the right-wing activists on the court, forgoing their customary obeisance to states’ rights, declared that the federal interest in regulating dangerous drugs took precedence over the wishes of state voters.

Bush’s appointees would no doubt believe in limitations on executive power if a liberal were president but they approve of the current administration’s expansion of executive power as a necessity of war. When the court ruled this summer in a 5-4 decision (Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ) that the secret military tribunals at Guantánamo are unconstitutional, the four stooges—no, the four non-activists—dissented.

What the right resents is what the framers of the Constitution intended—a judiciary able to serve as a counterweight to popular passions. Conservatives oppose the appointment of any judge who, like many great Supreme Court justices in the past—Hugo Black, Earl Warren and Harry Blackmun come to mind—might confound the expectations of the presidents who appointed them. John Jones, who was active in Pennsylvania Republican politics before his appointment by Bush in 2002, is such a judge.

After Jones issued his carefully reasoned, scientifically literate decision on intelligent design, Phyllis Schafly—who preceded Ann Coulter as the doyenne of right-wing harpies—informed the judge that he owed his job to the evangelical Christians who voted for Bush and that he had “stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance.”

Judge Jones answered the attack in a speech to the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation League. “Polls show that many Americans believe that it is acceptable to teach creationism in public schools…,” he observed, “But I submit to you that as citizens, we do not want and cannot possibly have a judiciary which operates according to the polls, or one which rules based on who appointed us or according to the popular will of the country at any given moment in time.”

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Hippie Operative Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off


To our President: “Mr. President, you're a god damn, mother fucking liar. Fuck you, you cock sucking community activist piece of shit.... oh, go fuck yourself, Mr. President” ...Raptor

To Anthony, unquestionably the most civil person on this forum: “Go fuck yourself. On this matter, make no mistake. I want you to go fuck yourself long and hard, as well as anyone who agrees with you. I got no use for you. ...Raptor

To Frem: “You miserable piece of shit.” ...Raptor

To Niki: “My guess is it won't just be your ugly face you dislike.....Well, it's true......if you had a soul.” ...Raptor

...Remember, remember, the ugliest member...